Let Me Help You Sell Your Party Favor Products Better

You invested and bought amazing new party favor products. Now what?

You probably:

• Know how much profit this product can generate per event.
• Know how many events you need to attend to get your return on investment (ROI).

So far so good. However, the next step is not as straightforward as the last. What’s the next step? To sell your products and maximize your revenue stream! Selling party favor products is not simple. It involves service and concept creation, building a workflow and customization, branding, and connecting it to the theme of the event you’re attending. It requires tenacity and constantly stepping out of your comfort zone! The profit you make depends on one thing: the number of events you present your products at in a given month. ...And that, my friend, requires getting out there and learning new things. If you’d like to sell better, you’ll need to build a strategy—a marketing strategy. Why do you need a marketing strategy?

• Because you want to stop running after customers.
• Because you want to establish a solid reputation.
• Because you want to differentiate yourself from competitors and, at the end of the day, be profitable!

It works so well that when you meet your new customers, they’ll already know a thing or two about you, which makes your work much easier. Every marketing vertical has its own best practices. Some strategies work on almost all verticals, while others are specific. To help you focus on building your business, we created for you the ultimate strategy guide. This guide will focus on the event and rental industry. It's a step-by-step guide that talks about how you can get out there and start selling like crazy! Brace yourselves! Here we go!

 

1) Let’s start from the basics. Turn away from push and focus on pull!

What is push marketing? Push marketing is exactly what you think it is; it’s that cold call or text message you never requested. It’s that brochure someone handed to you that you threw away the first chance you had. Push marketing is a thing of the past. Today, you have to use pull techniques to get people to you. How do you pull people to you? First, build a website and create content. If you don’t have a website yet, you’re at a disadvantage. Your competitors have a website, and they are (as we speak) collecting leads you should have owned. But enough about that. You know that, and we’re here to help you make your first move and get that website. When building a website, you need to decide how you’re going to do it first. There are several ways to get a website up, but we will focus on the quickest since we want you up and running as fast as possible.

Stage 1

You’ll need to choose between two options; see what describes your options best. “I want to build a nice website, but I have no money left for a web developer and designer.” Host your own site and choose a platform. here’s a guide that will take you through the process step by step. And there’s, of course, the quick way; use a service that provides both a platform to build a site and host it, like: Wix Weebly SquareSpace Jimdo “I have what it takes (money and time) to do it right!” Tour the Web and find websites you liked. Then, find the webmaster/developer that developed them. Hire them as a designer. Aim for a designer who intrigued you and try to form a mockup of what you’d like your site to look/behave like. Allow them to help you in the process

Stage 2

Without a doubt, the number one strategy to pull people to your site is through good content. Create content and generate materials that you can later use for marketing purposes. The best way to do so is by running your own blog. Try to create content that appeals to and educates your potential clients. Why is educating a customer so important? Because they will remember you as an authority in your field and will do everything they can to get your services!

Stage 3

Create real world marketing collateral.

• Create business cards and brochures that follow the general design you decided on.
• Give them to the people who are genuinely interested in your business.

Those marketing materials show you as the professional you are! You must own them to attend trade shows and events; nothing beats them at making a good impression once you’re face to face with potential customers. As mentioned above, don’t hand them to passersby.

Stage 4

Add videos. You have to! Our products are interactive and appealing. The best way to display what our visual products do is by showing them in action, which is not an easy thing. Just filming and uploading a video to YouTube does not result in the exposure you’re looking for. You have to know how to make the video interesting, and you have to get live results. To do that, you need to take footage at an actual event that you display your product at! When people watch something, they connect to it emotionally. Our brain experiences movies and video as a participant, not as a mere viewer. That’s why you jump at the scary parts and get inspired when the hero wins. Now, imagine what happens when you see in a video a lot of people having fun and interacting with a certain product. Would you order such product? That’s why you have to go and create those videos at live events and with real people! But if it’s your first time and no one has ever heard about you, how do you create those smiling faces at a big event? I’m glad you asked. When you start with a new product, try to offer it at a bargain price (or even for free). It will help you to generate more content and get exposure for your business that you couldn't generate otherwise. After you’ve covered the basics, it’s time to branch out! Jonathan Perelman, Vice President at BuzzFeed Motion Pictures, said in his TED talk that:

“Content is king, but distribution is queen”

By now, you’ve created a website and diverse content, like blogs, graphics, and videos. That’s great, but without distributing it, your content is dead in the water. Distributing your content is what gets it in front of eyes.

 

2) Learn to distribute content

Do you have a Facebook account? A Facebook page? A Facebook group? How about a Twitter handle? LinkedIn? Google+? Something? To distribute your content, you’ll need to hang out where your potential customers are. Today, everyone spends a lot of time on their preferred social platform. You’ve heard about some, if not all social platforms, and you might even own a business page or profile. Content distribution has paid and organic versions, and you must master them both! Organic is free, but has its limit (it’s as big as your reach and takes time). Paid is not free, but it is by far more effective at getting the audience you want to see your content. You need to use both strategies to get people from your social outlets to your site. Below, you will find some helpful posts on how to create successful social presence (If you are familiar with other good posts that you'd like to add, please add them in the comments section, and we will update this list.) A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook Ads The Content Marketer’s Guide to Facebook Sponsored Posts The Content Marketer’s Playbook: Promoted Tweets The Sophisticated Marketer's Guide to LinkedIn 64 Google+ Content Strategies Remember, this is not a onetime gig! Social outlets need maintenance and investment. They can be the lifeblood of your business, so it’s important to master the required skill to manage them or at least get someone that'll do that for you.

 

3) Expand your reach and target potential clients.

Google and other search engines provide tools that allow you to advertise on their platforms. Since you already know a thing or two about your potential clients, it’s time to leverage that knowledge to other services. Search engines offer powerful tools that can help distribute your content. With them, you're able to create offerings that attract and convert prospects into clients and much more. For us event professionals, learning search engine marketing (SEM) is a must. SEM splits between paid and organic options. The paid option allows you to advertise your site and content on both search results and sites. The organic option is relatively automatic; when you publish something on your site, it gets indexed on search engines. However, that doesn’t guarantee you’ll have the first results. That’s why we’re going to help you organize all the researches you’ll need to master below.

Advertise on sites with GDN

Google Display Network (GDN) is the largest ad network in the world. A lot of sites have a Google ad on them, and GDN is usually their source. As you probably know, your potential customers are visiting certain sites. Find out which sites they’re hanging on and advertise there; it’s that simple! Check these two links to get started, follow the instructions there, and get results! Your Guide to Targeting Prospects on Google’s Display Network (Part 1) Advanced Tips for Targeting Prospects on Google Display Network (Part 2)

Advertise on Search Results with Google and Bing

Advertising on search engines is an effective way to catch prospects while they're searching for their target search results. Targeting search queries (or keywords) by advertising on search results is a non-intrusive way to catch leads and it works! For instance: If someone searched for “party favor products provider in Barcelona” on Google (or any other search engine for that matter), you can grab the first result on that search by advertising with Google Adword on Google and Bing Ads on Bing.

SEO - How Your Content Gets Indexed and How to Help it Rank Higher

Search engine advertising is the art of gathering leads from searches. As I explained earlier, there are both paid and organic methods to gather leads from search engines. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the organic way of gathering leads on search engines. It’s really hard to place your site at the top of the search result because good SEO takes time, and unlike advertising, SEO is a long process in which you compete against other sites on a specific search result. But once you’re there, you’ve hit the organic jackpot, and you’re there to stay for a while without any cost But nothing lasts forever. That’s why you need to constantly work on linking from authority sites back to your site and content. One of the best ways to rank high on search results. There are, of course, several ways to improve your ranking on search engines. Among them are:

• Fixing the structure of your site so search engines will crawl it without problems.
• Making sure that there’s a lot of information on your site/page about the subject/keyword/phrase you’d like to appear on.
• Getting social signals on your site and content.

If you’d like to kick your competition out of search, start creating good content, and distributing it on your social hubs and authoritative sites, here’s a guide that will help you to start advertising and promoting organically on search: What Is Search Marketing?

 

4) Nothing beats emails!

Email is by far the most effective way to collect new customers, keep them informed about your business, and produce a ton of sales! Why?

• Because no platform stands between you and your customers, unlike Facebook, which prevent your customers from seeing all your updates unless you pay.
• Because customers on your email list expressed their consent to receive emails from you and your business.
• Because, on average, we all spend around 2.5 hours per day on emails alone, more than any social platform.

To begin, you need to register first with an email provider service, like MailChimp or AWeber. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to master email collection. Start with this link once you set yourself up on one of the above platform; email domination is just a click away. 20 Tips for Dramatically Better Emails Now that we’ve mastered pull techniques, let’s hit the ground running with some real-world tips on how to get (and keep) customers.

 

5) Participate in events.

Events pack tons of business potential from exposure to new prospects through corporations with other business. Events allow you to expose your products and create a real-life relationship with your customers. Once you’re ready, there are a few rules you need to follow. These rules will make sure that any event you take part in is a success in terms of contacts you make, leads you gather, and impact.

Never be late!

If this is the first time you’ve set up the product, take a buffer of a few days to set up your booth. Once the event opens, you want preparations to be behind you. Those days make a lot of difference in terms of peace of mind and preparation.

Take backups and hardware.

“Everything that can go wrong will go wrong” - Murphy's Law When you’re moving around, things tend to get lost, broken, damaged, or even stolen. That’s why you need to always make sure that you have a backup. Don’t play with this! Events are large investments, so to see them fall apart because you didn’t bring an extra camera can put a damper on your mode.

Network where it counts.

Events usually have special lounges for participants and guests to interact on. Some events even throw after parties, and you want to be there and mingle! Why should you? Because a lot of official decisions, like large purchases, are conceived in unofficial settings like parties.

Support charity events

Display on your events work you’ve done with charity. The reason you should do that is because, as I previously explained, people connect to videos and emotions. And charity smiles are the best! There’s another benefit if you show off what you do with charity: it shows that you’re an awesome person to work with!

Ask your customer for feedback. If it’s good, publish it. If it’s not, learn from it!

Don’t miss out on learning opportunities! If you receive negative feedback, see it as an opportunity to improve your customers’ experience, not as something negative you should avoid. Most of the time, customer feedback is excellent, so make sure when you get good feedback that you capture it and spread the word. You need to help word of mouth to get out there; potential customers need to hear about you from your customers. This will make it easier for them to make that decision to work with you.

Show them what you’ve got!

Rest well the night before, as you’ll need to explode into action once the event starts. Attract, interact, and fight for exposure! Once the event starts, every minute and every interaction counts!

6) Bundle your services.

Working and cooperating with other business that work on the same verticals as you but that are not direct competitors is a channel you must nurture. Why? Offering a bundle of services creates in customers the impression that they’re getting things at a discount. Bundled offers are recognized by customers as more trustworthy. They leave customers under the impression that they're interacting with several businesses, not only one. And there’s safety in numbers. Furthermore, your products get double the exposure you can offer with your partner’s offering. Always look to bundle your service. It’s the easiest marketing you’ll ever do.

 

7)Unbundle your service.

There are a lot of moving parts in your business, and what you’re offering can be split into several different services. You should never pass on an opportunity to branch out and unbundle your services. It's an excellent way to get some extra cash and a wonderful opportunity to get some exposure in events that you wouldn’t get otherwise. Your screens, cables, and printers can help big projection screen-less DJs, for instance. A product like an AIR Graffiti rear screen can help them as well.

8) Think outside the box.

There are plenty of opportunities to promote your products. The reason you’re not aware of them is because you’re thinking like everyone else. To go outside of this restraining box that everyone else's stuck in, you’ll have to understand your clients and their needs. In other words, understand human behavior better. To crack human behavior and find such opportunities, you’ll have to do a lot of observations and research. This will give you several hypotheses that you’ll have to test. The ones that will work will be your cash cows because no one else does what you do. That’s called a unique niche. Here are some behavioral facts that can help you get started and set you as a leader in a unique niche:

• Kids get bored waiting in lines everywhere, not only at theme parks.
• Adults like to interact with innovation in trade shows and pretty much everywhere else.
• • If you offer something for free, the person in front of you will feel obliged to reciprocate.

There are, of course, many more, so go out there and do your research!

 

9) Always come to potential customers with numbers and statistics.

Do you know why we love numbers so much? They offer us a measure of control and a way to make predictions on things that sometimes have chaotic behavior. No one will believe you if you say that a certain product engages 100% of customers in a given event. However, claims like “We observed that 87% of all event participants go out with this party favor product” builds trust. People love to learn what worked for previous customers, especially in their field.

Track your event!

Make sure that at the end of each event, you have those numbers and use them in the future.

 

10) Leverage from product offering to concept offering.

Ever wonder what can make you unique in a sea of competitors that sometimes sell the same product? When you sell the same product as your competitors, questions like Who has a better service? or Who serves the product better? Start to matter much more all of a sudden.

As a rule, you should always give the best service possible!

However, there is more... Products like ours offer you to build concepts and workflows with them. Once you do that, your competitors’ ability to compete with you suddenly disappears. They will remember you for your creativity and concept. And, of course, not everyone can create such concepts and workflows because not everyone has our products. So do it! And offer concepts, not just products. Concepts captivate people, and once captivated, they will be willing to pay a lot more. Take this example, for instance: A customer approaches you and asks for a digital graffiti wall. He tells you that he holds three different price proposals already. The customer also mentions that there will be many guests at his event and he fears that not all the participants will be able to have their photo taken; this will result in them going home without the party favors he’s looking to create. Instead of giving a price quote for an AIR Graffiti Wall - Photo Booth Live Size Workflow, you will offer an Instagram Graffiti Wall and describe the concept to your customer this way: We will print a big roll for you with a large hashtag on it. The guests will use their smartphones to take pictures everywhere at the event. Then, once they reach the wall, they will be able to load the pictures they took with Instagram and mash them with a personal and creative touch as well as print and publish it. This concept will allow you to not only charge more, but also beat the competition. Here is a quick demo of an Instagram Graffiti Wall: You can also use AIR Graffiti for drawing contests. Here’s what Samsung did when they launched the S3. They decided to use an AIR Graffiti Touch, and immediate fun ensued!

Thank you for reading this guide! We will update it from time to time, as we’re trying to create the best guide possible!

As an FYI announcement to our customers: We are looking to publish case studies about customers who made it, and we want to hear from you and see how you’re doing it. Do you want us to write about your business next? Contact us here!