Face-to-Face Marketing Away from Your Own Venue
Not every meeting takes place in your own presentation room. There are two other settings, and each needs its own strategy.
The first is the meeting in the customer's place. A large part of what applies in your own company must still be observed. Bring sufficient catalogs and presentations in a folder, because you do not know how many people will be present. Start with a brief presentation, unless the meeting is set to take at least an hour; in that case, start with the long one.
Prepare yourself for possible issues. There may be no suitable presentation room in the company, or no monitor or Internet connection, so bring a laptop or tablet with you. Since you are not in your own venue, you cannot show it. You need to prepare meticulous and detailed photos and videos and show them in the meeting. Consider that the other party is not an expert in event venues, so provide accurate information about your venue's features, resources and the method of collaboration. The priority is not the lovely design but the details of the information you present.
At the beginning, show a 30-second video outlining the services you can provide. Then present photos and videos that show the venue clearly from various points of view on a large scale. Long shots cannot be useful; use photos that show the exact dimensions and sizes. Show a close-up of details such as the venue's resources and stage, and compare features such as the venue's height and the stage's size with something comprehensible for the customer, for example a ready booth and its distance from the ceiling. After the meeting, send the videos' links in an email. Otherwise, the audience will not remember this information.
The second setting is when you accidentally meet a customer, or you are going to talk to the participants in a fair. The main characteristic of such meetings is the short time. You will not have much time to use a laptop or tablet or even to sit around. In the best scenario, you have 15 minutes. Go after short questions and finish what you have to say in less than 5 minutes. Spend the rest of the time on conversation and on answering the other party's questions.
Design a presentation for mobile screens and bring it along, so you can show some photos during the conversation. Your website must also have a mobile-friendly design. Before leaving, give them the company's catalog and your visiting card and take their contact info so you can follow up on the deal.