Branded at Podfest: Conference Expo Booth Tips and Tricks

Larry Roberts [00:00:08]:

What is happening, everybody? I'm Larry Roberts.

Sara Lohse [00:00:11]:

And I'm Sara Lohse, and this is Branded: your comprehensive guide to creative branding.

Larry Roberts [00:00:16]:

And on this episode of the podcast, we're gonna talk about something to, take a little close to home because Sara and I are getting ready to go to a conference, And we're making sure that we have everything that we need in order to represent our brand in our booth properly at this conference.

Sara Lohse [00:00:35]:

Yeah. So we are gonna be in the expo hall at Podfest, and This is only the 2nd time, together that we've done this, now we've had our own booth, and there's a lot more that goes into it than either of us really thought, and it's kind of overwhelming.

Larry Roberts [00:00:54]:

Oh, it can easily be overwhelming. And, I mean, let's just be honest. I was resistant to even having a booth at Podfest, and I'll put that out there. And the reason for that is because it is. It's so overwhelming. There's so much more to just representing your brand and your business If you're presenting at a conference, it's man, you know, because I I've been to a a ton of conferences, and I've had booths that more than Sometimes when you're a speaker at a conference, they just give you a booth. And I'm like, oh, thanks. That's sweet.

Larry Roberts [00:01:27]:

And then I try to represent my brand At that conference where I'm speaking and well, I've I've come up short a couple times.

Sara Lohse [00:01:36]:

What did you used to do?

Larry Roberts [00:01:38]:

I mean, I have I have 2 retractable banners. The the and typically, banners come in what? I don't know. They're 3 feet wide or something like that that retract. And I I that's what I have now. I have 2 3 foot retractable banners, but I think the first time that I did it was I mean, I went all out. I was like, okay. I gotta go cat daddy here. So I went to a local sign company here in town, and I said, look, I need something for an 8 by 8 booth, and they built me out this massive it was curved, and it had this, Like, pillowcase type cover on it that had my brand, and it was kinda like a step and repeat banner where you saw my brand repeated multiple times on the banner.

Larry Roberts [00:02:17]:

And it would had all this pipe that you had to put together in a framework, and it was it it it it it was crazy. And so I put that together, But then what else do I have? I I didn't really have anything. I didn't have any, like, information cards or any pamphlets or any brochures. So I had this nice fancy thing behind me, but I I didn't have anything on the table.

Sara Lohse [00:02:39]:

Oh, how times have changed. So the first the first time we that you and I did this together, there was no barely, like, room on the table for information because we turned our booth into a friendship bracelet making station.

Larry Roberts [00:02:56]:

Dude, and I still who was I talking to? I was literally at a, A Lohse networking event just yesterday here in Dallas, and I was talking to a fellow podcast production company. And I was telling her about our experience

Sara Lohse [00:03:09]:

there. Virginia?

Larry Roberts [00:03:10]:

It was Virginia. Virginia Elder is her name, and Virginia and I, we both belong to the EWomen's Network here in Dallas, and we had our monthly meeting. So we hung out yesterday, and we were talking about it. And I was telling her I said, yeah. We have a booth at Podfest because she's gonna be a Podfest also. And I said, but, man, I I I'll tell you, I I had to just turn it over to Sara and let her run with it because, you know, we we did the SPARC Christian Media Conference. I don't know. It's been a few months now.

Larry Roberts [00:03:38]:

And and we've talked about it on the podcast. You came up with that idea idea to have a friendship bracelet Making station, and I thought it was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of in my life. And I was like, this is so dumb. And I'll tell you, it was the most successful booth that I've ever been a part of. And it was successful in the fact that it just had so much engagement and so many people came to the booth, and not just came to the booth, But they hung out, and we got to know these people. We got to interact with these people, and we got to have these lengthy conversations and really engage and build relationships with the people that came to our table, and that's absolutely critical if you want to also build your brand going forward.

Sara Lohse [00:04:19]:

And, yeah, that was the 1st time that I personally planned a booth for an event. Like, I've represented other companies at their booths, and They handled everything, and I just showed up. They needed a body. But that was my first time, and I remember just, like, Thinking about all of the conferences I've been to and how impersonal every booth was, And they all have the same giveaways. They're all these mass produced little toys that end up getting thrown out or you're like, why did I even take this? You thought it was super cool at the moment, then you're like, oh, I don't even wanna put this in my bag. And I just didn't wanna be part of that. I'm like, why? It's just so mass produced, and I just wanted something to be different. And when you're coming up with your idea for your booth and how you can be different, you really wanna think about what your brand is and what your brand represents.

Sara Lohse [00:05:15]:

Because for that one, like, our brand was Branded, and we're Right. Where Our whole idea is to spread, like, your brand. So with the bracelet, it was instead of giving you something With our brand on it that you're just gonna throw out, let's make let you make something yourself, which means you gotta spend time at our booth, but it's with your brand on it. So it kind of went directly into our whole mission of spreading your brand. P I I didn't expect people to actually pick up on that as much as they did, which was kinda cool. Like

Larry Roberts [00:05:47]:

I think too it was so cool because we provided value. You know? We we we, they literally came to our booth, And they walked away with something that they felt was valuable, and a lot of that had to do with the fact they put their selves into The giveaway, you know, which was the bracelets. So we had people that were coming there, and they were making bracelets for their Branded, for their podcasts. And what I thought was really the coolest thing is

Sara Lohse [00:06:11]:

for, like, their grandkids.

Larry Roberts [00:06:13]:

That's where I was going. That was what was so cool is that, like, this is the coolest thing ever. They came back multiple times, and, I mean, some people spent a lot of time in her booth making multiple bracelets, and they were giving them to their grandkids and their children. And I just thought that was so amazing to see that that we were able to provide not only awareness for our brand But provide something that people found value in, and I think that's what's so different than, like, you were alluding to, Sara. You were talking about the booths that, You know? Yeah. You get a a a a foam ball, you know, stress ball or something or or whatever it may be. It's nowadays, you get what? You get a you get a a 2 gigabyte, memory card or some you know what I mean? It's just Mhmm. You just get silly stuff that we end up throwing to the side and we never even use.

Larry Roberts [00:07:01]:

But I will guarantee you that the ladies that came by our booth and they made those bracelets for their grandkids, guess what?

Sara Lohse [00:07:08]:

They've been worn.

Larry Roberts [00:07:09]:

They've been worn. They were gifted, and they thought about you and maybe they even thought about me a little bit too while they were giving those bracelets to their grandchildren, and that just takes your brand value to the next level.

Sara Lohse [00:07:24]:

Yeah. So then, Well, fast forward to now we're a couple days away from Podfest. And while that was a great idea and we Lohse doing it, I still have Plenty. We could do it again easily, but you also have to tailor your, your booth and your ideas to your audience. We put a lot of thought into what we were gonna do for that event based on the audience that was there, But Podfest is a different audience, so we wanted to do something a little more exciting.

Larry Roberts [00:07:56]:

Yeah. Like,

Sara Lohse [00:07:57]:

a little less sit down and Put, like make this little bracelet, like, what can we do that's engaging on a more, like, I don't know, like, higher energy Kinda way because Podfest is far more like of a kind of like a party conference.

Larry Roberts [00:08:12]:

Yeah. Yeah. The spark, spark conference for spark media is you know, it's kind of a a family feel. It's got a

Sara Lohse [00:08:18]:

fat appeal,

Larry Roberts [00:08:20]:

and the demographic is probably 98% female. And and so we we we I say we. You created that that booth that that really catered to that particular audience, and you did an amazing job there by doing that. But Podfest, it's it's probably 5050, male, female, and, the age range is it's anywhere from 18 to 80. So you've got a wider range of people that you're gonna be dealing with, but also at the same time, it's literally a multiple day party. I mean, everybody there is just partying, talking about their podcast, being excited to be around other podcasters, and, honestly, this year for Podfest, it's next level. The the numbers for the attendees are through the roof for Podfest.

Sara Lohse [00:09:04]:

It's the 10th anniversary. It's a

Larry Roberts [00:09:06]:

big deal. It's the 10th anniversary, and it's just gonna be one big, And I, actually, I think the theme is a nineties party throughout the entire event. So, you know, you're right. We had to come up with something that was a little more exciting than, And and that sounds condescending. We had to just a different perspective

Sara Lohse [00:09:22]:

Yeah.

Larry Roberts [00:09:22]:

Than than doing a graceful station. Yeah. Different vibe. There we go.

Sara Lohse [00:09:25]:

Yeah. So are you gonna tell them what we're doing, or am I?

Larry Roberts [00:09:27]:

Oh, go ahead. This again and and here, I I wanna stress, folks, And this goes back into how you really address your brand and your business at conferences, and that's really what this whole episode is about. And I have not done a good job over the years of representing my business well in a conference environment. No. I think I do a fine job from the stage and and and networking and and being in the mix. But if I have a booth, Yeah. It's just, hey. Here's the brand name, and here's a business card on on a 6 foot long table.

Larry Roberts [00:10:01]:

There's just not much going on, But Sara has once again constructed an amazing, experience, and I think that's what you need. I think you need an experience for people to to really remember You and your booth had Branded a bit. So tell us about the experience this year.

Sara Lohse [00:10:16]:

I'm excited. So our booth is actually gonna be a photo booth, and We have a giant inflatable backdrop that is lights up, and we have all these lights and inflatables and Balloons and all of this. It's gonna be really colorful, really, like, really Podfest. And It ties into our brand because, again, we're trying to give you something that's personal to you and your Branded, But the photos that are taken at our booth will have the branded Lohse, but we recently almost rebranded Because we used to have a different tagline and it was building better brands through podcasts. And because our logo is a bunch of stickers. At least that's what it's supposed to look like. We kinda changed that tagline to be more of a pun because me. And You

Larry Roberts [00:11:10]:

have the pun queen.

Sara Lohse [00:11:11]:

It's building brands that stick. So the I I have a printer that's gonna print out the photos taken at the booth onto little 2 by 3 inch sticker paper. So you get to make yourself into a sticker from our booth, and I'm it's such a multilayered pun. I'm I

Larry Roberts [00:11:35]:

Multi layered like the sticker logo

Sara Lohse [00:11:37]:

Like the sticker of our logo. Yes.

Larry Roberts [00:11:39]:

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:11:39]:

There is it. I am so excited purely for the pun that is ingrained in this idea.

Larry Roberts [00:11:47]:

See, folks, But when I talk to Sara

Sara Lohse [00:11:51]:

You should. I'm afraid.

Larry Roberts [00:11:52]:

Yes. But I I have to weed through. I have to I have to make my way through All the layers and layers of puns that she has laid laid out there for me.

Sara Lohse [00:12:02]:

There's there's been times where I'll text you a question, and I have to follow it up with Actual question, not a riddle.

Larry Roberts [00:12:09]:

Yeah. A 100%. Like, how do I answer this? I'm not sure what she there's there's gonna be a punch line, But, no, there's no punch line

Sara Lohse [00:12:17]:

as well. I like, it's more it's more often a punch line than not. So I actually instead of like, hey. I have a riddle. It's like, hey. I have an actual question.

Larry Roberts [00:12:26]:

Right. Right. Like, that's

Sara Lohse [00:12:27]:

what I have to specify, which honestly is fine, and you are lucky to be able to enjoy them.

Larry Roberts [00:12:33]:

Oh, well, thank you for emphasizing how lucky I am. I sometimes I lose sight of that. Like, right now, I've I've forgot how lucky I was to have you as my cohost.

Sara Lohse [00:12:43]:

And after this, the podcast is canceled. So going like, with when you think about, like, the idea that you're gonna go with, you also have to Think about the little details, and that's where it gets overwhelming. Like, coming up with the idea is the fun part, but then it gets overwhelming because you have to put all of the details together. So there are a few things that, like, we thought of Lohse like, oh, thank god we thought of this. Because if we didn't, we would have been Kinda screwed at the time. But for me, the one that stands out is I'm bringing one of those, like, surge protector power strips.

Larry Roberts [00:13:20]:

Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:13:21]:

Because we when you you get, like, outlets for your booth, but it's usually just, like, 1 or 2 outlets. And we have a lot of stuff that has to plug in. The The, backdrop itself, it has to be plugged in twice. Once for the power, once for the lights. We have the iPad for the photo booth that has to be charged. We have the printer that has to be charged. The lights, like, everything needs to get plugged in.

Larry Roberts [00:13:43]:

4 different lights that we're using. Mhmm. I mean, there's There's so much, and, I mean, I think that's a that's a a a great point that you make there. It's so easy to overlook some of the things that you will need. And, you know, when we were planning the booth, one of the things that we had to do too was make sure that the the inflatable backdrop that we ended up buying would even fit within the booth. Yeah. So, Typically, you have a very confined space, and a lot of times it's 10 by 10 or maybe a 5 by 5 area where you can set up your booth. And we have a 10 by 10 here at Podfest, So we had to make sure that whatever we're doing stayed within the confines of that space.

Larry Roberts [00:14:19]:

And that's

Sara Lohse [00:14:19]:

We were in Canva making, like, a floor plan.

Larry Roberts [00:14:22]:

We we literally Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:14:24]:

Like Yeah. To scale, how big is each thing so that we can make sure, like, that everything is going to fit. There'll be room for people to be walking in and out to take their photos. Like, everything we had to plan out or else we were gonna there, and we get kicked out because we're taking up 3 booths.

Larry Roberts [00:14:42]:

Right.

Sara Lohse [00:14:43]:

We had we even had we had to pivot. We had a much bigger idea at first, but we're just like, this one might even be a fire code violation. So There was so much that we had to really put that thought into because if you didn't plan it right, it would not have worked. Yeah. We also we still don't know if it's going to work. We'll find out.

Larry Roberts [00:15:03]:

We'll have to We're we're hoping. You know? And, honestly, just this morning, I went and I shipped some of our stuff out, to to be at the event, just before we started recording here, and That's something else that you have to take into account. How are you going to get everything that you need to the venue? I mean, we're both in Texas, and the event is in Florida. Sara, I know you put together an entire suitcase just to lug along everything that we need for the booth. What I shipped this morning was the banners. We have banners as well. So I shipped those off. You're bringing those in a suitcase.

Larry Roberts [00:15:38]:

There's probably gonna be some other things that we have to Run to Kinko's or run to FedEx for. When we get there, we go, ah.

Sara Lohse [00:15:44]:

Oh, yeah. The last conference, we were running over to Office Depot getting stuff Branded. And

Larry Roberts [00:15:49]:

Yeah. We did that at Sparky, but, yeah, we did.

Sara Lohse [00:15:52]:

That's the one.

Larry Roberts [00:15:53]:

Yeah. That's so funny. We did because we still and that was that's something else that you have to consider. If I remember right, we were printing off, flyers with QR codes on them Yeah. So people could scan the QR code and and reach out. That's questions that you have to ask. How are people going to follow-up with you? How are you going to capture people's information Mhmm. That comes to your booth? You know, having a booth is great, but now you have to start thinking, this is awesome.

Larry Roberts [00:16:18]:

I have a ton of people coming here, but how do I Leverage this because booths aren't free. They're actually very freaking expensive. So how do you overcome the cost of having a booth and get that return on that investment. So that's absolutely critical when you start take thinking about the approach that you're going to take to not only capture leads, but then convert those leads into clients.

Sara Lohse [00:16:41]:

Yeah. And you definitely wanna be thinking, like I think one of the worst mistakes you can make as far as, like, a lead generation from these booths is relying on them to reach out to you. When you're, like, when you're an attendee like, for us, our booth is the only booth we have to worry about. This is just we have 1 booth, and that is it. But attendees, they got dozens, and they're walking through and they're being bombarded with brand messages and sales messages and all of this different stuff. So even though they might say, like, okay. I I'm interested in every single booth here. They're not going to reach out to every single booth here, And they might not reach out to any.

Sara Lohse [00:17:17]:

They might just be caught up in the moment. Like, oh my god. I love this. Then get home and realize, like, oh, I don't need any of this. So Make sure that you have it set up so that you are the 1 in control. You're the one that has that power to reach out to the attendees instead of the other way around. And that's all just goes into how you set up, like, your lead generation system for the event. So ours is multistep.

Sara Lohse [00:17:43]:

We have a few different ones. For the photo booth, we're using an app that to get the photo that you took, you need to give us email address, and then the photo gets emailed to you, or we can print it on the spot or send it to you another way. But we're also doing Giveaways. So anytime some, booth has those, like, fishbowl giveaways, that's because they're trying to get your business card so they have your information. We'll have stuff like that and different, like, QR codes you can scan to so that we will send you more information. So instead of walking away with a flyer that is gonna get lost in your bag or torn or thrown out, we are sending you the information to your email once you're already home and settled and you've, like you're actually taking the time to go through those follow ups and get back into

Larry Roberts [00:18:29]:

Well and I think that's absolutely critical. It it's kinda like networking Lohse, but networking on steroids. How many times do we go to networking events? We get We get business cards. We get contact information, and we wait for them to contact us. But That's that's not what you could do with a booth. You have to if you capture this information and you have their contact information, you gotta make sure that you follow-up, and that's absolutely critical to getting that initial return on that investment for for even buying that booth in the 1st place. So make sure that you take the time to follow-up, Make sure you take the time to organize the leads that you have, and also make sure that you you take the time to make that funnel as simple as possible. You wanna get your individual's information, and you wanna make it so that you can follow-up very, very easily so that you have an opportunity to make some sales for this

Sara Lohse [00:19:20]:

Another point I really wanna make is to make sure that you're planning all of this ahead of time because things have to ship. And, like, Larry, you just shipped banners out a week in advance to make sure that they get to the event center on time. We ordered like Like I said, we kind of rebranded. We got a new tagline, and our tagline was on everything. So Yeah. I ordered a new table runner to have the correct tagline. And I don't know if y'all live in Texas, but there's been so there were 3 days straight of, like, below freezing, and Texas doesn't know how to deal with that, the shipments are getting delayed. And what was supposed to be here on Tuesday with plenty of time to make sure it's correct and get it all packed away, it's not here yet.

Sara Lohse [00:20:02]:

And I'm getting really worried that it's not gonna show up, and we're gonna we're a Branded company that might show up with the wrong branding. So learn from us.

Larry Roberts [00:20:11]:

Patience Sara and I will have later. We'll talk

Sara Lohse [00:20:13]:

about

Larry Roberts [00:20:14]:

the show.

Sara Lohse [00:20:15]:

The old tagline is still accurate. It's just Old.

Larry Roberts [00:20:20]:

It's just Oh.

Sara Lohse [00:20:21]:

We still do build better brands

Larry Roberts [00:20:23]:

and podcasts. We are not gonna go down any path that has to do with being old.

Sara Lohse [00:20:27]:

We're not we're not not going down there at all today. But at least it's like we didn't change what we do. We're still building that a brand new podcast. It's just I like the one that has the pun. No. Of course. Of course. Some of our collateral might be less punny than I would prefer because we did not order things As early as we should have.

Larry Roberts [00:20:47]:

Well, you know what? Even if they're not punny, the goal is to bring in the money. So as long as we do that, it's all good.

Sara Lohse [00:20:54]:

Okay. I do puns. You do random rhymes. We each have our thing.

Larry Roberts [00:20:58]:

I'll drop some bars from time to time. God.

Sara Lohse [00:21:03]:

And, also, for your brand, you always have to make sure you're looking fly

Larry Roberts [00:21:08]:

Yeah.

Sara Lohse [00:21:10]:

According to Larry's Photo shoot, Facebook live event. Yep. That's that's a good one. Absolutely. Let him live down.

Larry Roberts [00:21:17]:

I I caught some heat off of

Sara Lohse [00:21:18]:

that little, live Real that I recorded the other day when I

Larry Roberts [00:21:21]:

had new headshots taken. But, anyways, that's neither here nor there. Hopefully, you got some value out of this. Hopefully, we've we've opened your eyes as to what can be done with a booth. And some of the things that you gotta consider when you do acquire a booth, you know, especially if it's the 1st time or 2, until you get your feet wet, you understand Exactly what goes into having a booth for your brand at a conference. So, hopefully, we'll see you next week. I think this will drop, what, this will drop Tuesday. So

Sara Lohse [00:21:48]:

this week. See you in 2 days.

Larry Roberts [00:21:50]:

Yeah. So this will drop by Tuesday. We'll be at Podfest on Thursday. If you're there, man, we would love to say hi, so stop by. But if you found some value in this episode, do us a favor. Go ahead and hit that subscribe button so we can bring you this awesome information each Each and every week right here. Puns. And puns.

Larry Roberts [00:22:07]:

And some, you know, some bars from time to time. Yeah. Oh, with that, I'm Larry Roberts.

Sara Lohse [00:22:12]:

And I'm Sara Lohse, and we'll see you at Podfest.