It doesn’t matter whether this is your first professional conference as an exhibitor or vendor or whether you have exhibited at hundreds of conferences, knowing how to plan for the conference and the promotional items you will give away is an important skill to learn.



Most of the time a vendor has a table or booth at the conference where they can display their materials and products. You will most often find that vendors have what are called promotional conference folders as a part of the promotional materials. Promotional conference folders are really no different than folders in general except that they have been specially designed for the current conference. This happens by having the name of the conference printed on the folders along with the name, logo and business information of the company or business exhibiting.

Vendors, when getting ready to attend many different conferences, may not have conference specific folders printed but will go with a generic promotional conference folder that has their name, logo and business information printed on it. If you are a seasoned conference exhibitor, you probably already know that it is important to start planning for the conference season well in advance.

What this means is that you sit down and think about how many conferences you are going to attend, how many participants will be in attendance at each of the conferences, what kinds or marketing materials you want to have printed and ready to go for each conference and what kinds of promotional items you want to take along with you to each conference. Taking the time to define each of these planning activities will make your life so much less hectic.

The first thing you really need to know before you can develop your conference attendance plan is your budget. This will define the boundaries of what you can buy and give away at the conference. In some cases, there might be a conference that is really the best marketing opportunity for you and in this circumstance you might want to allocate more of the budget to this conference and less to the other conferences. This is called target marketing.

An absolutely must have promotional item is a promotional conference folder. These folders provide your company with visibility because you have your name, logo and business information printed on the cover, you put all of the marketing papers you have inside the folder for participants to take away with them, and you may even add an additional promotional item just for effect.

It is important for you to know that you need to buy the best quality promotional conference folders your budget will allow. The promotional conference folder you choose will reflect upon the quality of your business so you want to make the best impression you can.

If you have a low budget for your promotional conference folders, prioritize spending as much as you can to get them made from a high quality heavy paper. The heavier the paper the more the promotional conference folder will look professional. If you add a professional color to the folder you are on your way to providing potential customers with a quality promotional conference folder that will reflect positively on you and your business.