Marketing Yourself at Conferences and Events: How to Prepare

For a conference, you need materials that get you noticed from across the hall, tell people who you are in a couple of seconds and give them a reason to come over. That means a stand backdrop, pull up banners, a branded counter or table, signage outside and at registration, and lanyards so delegates can tell who your team is. The right mix depends on your stand size, the organiser's rules and the one thing you want delegates to do next.

The job is the same whether you're exhibiting, sponsoring or running the conference yourself: one consistent look at every point a delegate passes.

Conference marketing materials, zone by zone

Walk the venue the way a delegate does. Each part of the building has a different job, so the kit changes as you move inside.

Zone	Materials	Our tip
Outside and approach	Feather flags, outdoor pull up banners, A-frame pavement signs, PVC banners	Ask the venue or organiser first. A sign outside tells people you're inside before they've found the hall.
Registration and wayfinding	Pull up banners, wide pull up banners	Put them where people stop and choose a direction, not halfway down a corridor.
Your stand	Zipper walls, an automatic pop up counter, printed tablecloths or stretch fabric table covers	Measure the space before you order. Graphics sized for the wrong stand look wrong all day.
Stage and photo area	Step-and-repeat media walls, a portable fabric stage backdrop	Size your logo so it still reads in a phone photo taken from the back of the room.
Networking areas	Lightboxes, rectangle banner flags, hanging banners	Height wins in a crowd. The banner flag's aluminium pole holds it open indoors with no wind. Check the venue allows rigging before you order a hanging banner.
People	Printed lanyards, recycled rPET lanyards, Tyvek wristbands	Lanyards in your brand colours make it obvious who to talk to.

Takeaway literature still earns its place for detail people want to read later, as long as it's short and carries one clear next step. If your team wears matching shirts in your brand colour, they do the same job as the lanyards, and people can see them from further away.

Plan around one goal and the organiser's rules

Before you order anything, decide the one action you want from a delegate: book a demo, join your mailing list, register for next year. Every banner, backdrop and table cover should point to that action, usually with a QR code and a short web address beside it. Put two competing messages on one stand and neither gets read.

Next, read the exhibitor manual. Stand dimensions, height limits, rigging rules and load-in times decide what you can actually use, and it's far cheaper to find out now than at 7am on the day. Our guide to exhibition stand design goes deeper on layout. The short version is to plan the stand as one picture, not a collection of separate pieces.

Budget and order timing

No single budget suits every conference. Cost depends on the size and number of pieces, whether you need new hardware or just new graphics, how much design work is involved, and delivery. We quote per job, so ask us for an itemised quote covering exactly what's on your list. Reusable kit changes the sums over a year: an interchangeable pull up banner lets you keep the frame and swap the graphic for each event.

On timing, we produce and deliver most orders within a working week, and next-day delivery is available on many orders. Printing rarely holds things up. Sponsor logos and late speaker changes do, so set a firm cut-off for anything that might change, order your reusable stand kit first, and leave a few days' buffer before load-in.

The most effective ways to incorporate branding at events

Consistency does most of the work. Use the same logo, colours, typeface and key message on the backdrop, counter, banners, slides and lanyards. That way, a delegate who sees your stage backdrop in the morning recognises your stand in the afternoon. Our exhibition branding consistency guide covers this in detail.

Then think in two heights. Eye level is where people read your message. Above head height is where they spot you across a busy floor, which is why flags and hanging banners matter at a packed conference. A photo backdrop puts your logo into every picture taken in front of it. Branded lanyards turn your team into walking signage. And a sign outside the venue catches people before they reach anyone else's stand.

If you have sponsors, agree their logo sizes and spacing early so their logos don't crowd the design. Check contrast, keep type large enough to read from a few metres away, and print a short URL next to every QR code for anyone who won't scan. Our tips on event banner design help here.

How to market a conference you're running

If you're the organiser, get the dates out early, announce speakers as they confirm, and ask partners and sponsors to share it with their own audiences. Email and social media carry much of the promotion beforehand, and on the day, signage on the approach and inside the venue does the rest. For the full plan, see our 15 tips for promoting your event.

On the day: keep the stand working

If you get a say in your location, we'd choose the centre of the hall over a narrow entrance. At the entrance, people are still getting their bearings and can't easily stop. Wherever you end up, keep the stand uncluttered. Keep boxes out of sight, have one person keep the table topped up, and remember that two or three strong pieces beat six competing ones. For banners that work in a crowd, see the best display banners for networking events, and pack using our list of what to bring to a networking event.

After the conference

Follow up within a few days, while people still remember the conversation. Then look after the kit: make sure banners and fabric walls are dry before they go back in their cases, and store them away from damp. Good hardware lasts for many events, and all it needs is a new graphic to bring it up to date.

FAQs

Which conference marketing materials deliver the best results?

It depends on your goal. A strong backdrop and banners at height bring people to the stand, signage at registration helps delegates find you, and lanyards keep your brand in view for the whole day.

How do I make conference materials more sustainable?

Order accurate quantities, choose reusable hardware with replaceable graphics, and put content that changes, like agendas, behind a QR code. Our eco friendly pull up banners and rPET lanyards are good places to start.

How can I measure whether my conference materials worked?

Use a unique QR code or campaign URL on each piece, ask new registrations how they heard about you, and count enquiries after the event. Our post on measuring print marketing performance has more ideas.

Can you design matching graphics across all our displays?

Yes. Our in-house design team can create one look across your whole set of displays. If you have your own artwork, send it to size as a high-resolution print-ready PDF and we'll check it before printing.

Get a quote for your conference kit

Tell us your event date, venue and what you have in mind, and we'll put together a quote. Contact us to start planning.