If you’re a business owner – whether a small local business or a large company or corporation – you know the importance of good marketing. A good marketing brand or strategy can make or break your business because if potential customers and clients don’t know about your business, they can’t work with you!
Hosting or playing a part in an event is a huge undertaking, but being able to make the most of it through careful and thoughtful event planning and event branding is. At the other end of the tunnel, your business can come out with amazing networking opportunities – both for individual employees and the company as a whole.
What Is Event Branding – and Why Should I Care?
Event branding creates a distinct identity for your business or company that you can display at different corporate events. You’re distinguishing yourself from other companies in a way that stands out and leaves an impression on everyone attending the event. Creating a cohesive brand at events allows you to continue that branding in other areas.
You should be invested in creating a solid event brand for several reasons. First, making a good impression on clients, customers, partners, and more through your event is paramount. If you’re attending an event or hosting an event, the last thing you want to do is leave a bad taste in a potential client, customer, or worse – an investor’s – mouth. An easy way to make a good impression is by creating custom event badges, personalized name tags, and the like. Though it may seem silly, plenty of people enjoy keeping these types of tags as keepsakes for conferences.
Making your event memorable can also give your brand credence and credibility down the line. At the end of the event, the experience you brought will stick in the minds of any attendees. You want to use the opportunity to make the most of it. You can gain brand recognition through custom event badges and signage, create incredible loyalty from clients and consumers, and make your event one to remember.
Why the Focus on Badges?
Making custom event badges seems like such an insignificant thing to focus on when you’re considering event branding, but it’s truly of vital importance for making the whole event feel special. Whether you’re planning on creating custom engraved badges, lanyards, or otherwise, you need to ensure that each badge is constructed with longevity and style.
Getting the VIP Treatment
When you’re working on creating custom name tags for events, trying to decide what kind to choose can be difficult. Each of the personalized name tags you make should be something memorable, regardless of what you ultimately decide for your event. No event-goer should leave the event feeling like an afterthought, and custom name tags are a great way to start with the VIP treatment.
Each of the custom name tags should be high quality, have clear text, and should be something that each event attendee should be proud to wear. They shouldn’t leave sticky residue, holes, or wrinkles on the attendees’ clothes. You don’t want to have your event attendees mess up their clothing for your nametags!
Making a Personal Connection
Badges are an integral part of events because custom name tags allow you to create a more personal connection with your attendees and other guests. Being able to address someone by name is essential to making a lasting impression and a more genuine connection with others at the event. Plus, when you’re meeting so many new people, you’re sure to forget some of the names you learn!
By having nice custom event badges, you can keep everyone’s names close at hand to have more meaningful conversations. You can focus more on the conversation instead of worrying that you might offend because you forgot their name!
Networking Opportunities
By creating custom name tags and event badges, you have unlimited opportunities to make it as personalized as possible. One way you can do this is by designating colors, symbols, and more to note which kind of industry each person works in, if they’re a speaker, what company they’re affiliated with, and so on. This way, people attending the event have a much easier time knowing who is best to network with.
Making custom event badges like this is incredible to allow for more free movement, communication, and targeted communication within the event. This also allows you to help put your business out there more strategically.
Using Social Media’s Impact
Creating eye-catching custom name badges can be a massive godsend in the age of social media. With social media as prevalent as it is today, the adage of “pics or it didn’t happen” has started making the rounds. Many people will immediately take selfies and other pictures whenever attending an event or doing something out of the ordinary in their daily life. These pictures then end up on social media websites like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and more.
When you have a recognizable, legible brand logo and easily recognizable brand recognition, these pictures are easy (and free) advertising – not only for your event but for your business as a whole. How, you may ask? Through your custom event badges! By creating an easily recognizable and clear logo, social media can easily show off your company’s logo and more without adding extra money to your marketing budget.
What Your Badges Should Look and Feel Like
When you create your badges and try to decide what would be best for your event, you have to consider the overall impact of what you’re going for. Do you want something like a lanyard badge with a paper insert or something fancier like a custom acrylic badge, custom engraved badges, or more?
Whatever you decide, making your badges feel luxurious and memorable is paramount. Your custom event badges are the first thing your guests will see and feel. They’re the lifeline for them to hold onto throughout their stay. Unless you collect them at the end of the event, they’re also the thing that your attendees are most likely to hang onto. Why wouldn’t you want to make them as nice as you can?
What to Watch Out for
In any big event, there will always be issues you want to try to prevent. Some of the problems below are ones that you should be on the lookout for:
Avoid the Registration Nightmare
One of the most frustrating parts about attending a conference or event is the registration process. Checking in, getting your badge, and everything else that goes along with registration can be such a headache and take an excessive amount of time.
One way to help this is to allow event-goers to pick up their badges after checking in. Once they’re confirmed attendees, you can gesture for them to head over to a predetermined location or table with all of the custom name badges laid out to see. They will be able to find their own name faster than any worker can sort through boxes of badges, which can help the process go much more smoothly. Not having a big backup at registration is also a great way to leave a good impression and show your company’s organizational skills.
No “Last Minute” Badges
Every event has at least one: an attendee that missed the registration deadline but has shown up to your event ready to go. There’s one issue, though: you don’t have a name badge for them. Sure, you could create a last-minute badge, complete with someone’s handwriting on a sticky “Hello, my name is…” tag, but that doesn’t have the same sense of professionalism as an official badge might have.
The solution? Have custom event badge printing right there in your venue! Can you imagine how incredibly special your attendee would feel when, even though they missed the deadline, they could have a badge that looked just as professional as everyone else, even if it wasn’t the exact same? That would leave an incredible impression on them for the future. They might even specifically seek out your business to use in the future just for that small way you went above and beyond for them.
If your company doesn’t have the ability to do event badge printing on-site, then contact a badge printing company to help during registration. For example, try reaching out to LoneStar Badge and Sign during registration time, just in case something like this occurs. You’re sure to leave an amazing impression on not only your attendees but also other companies.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
If you’re worried about seeing all of your badges head into the trash immediately after the end of the event, then try starting a recycling campaign! Next to the trash cans heading out of the venue or in another conspicuous location, add bins labeled specifically for your event badges. While some people may want to keep them, those who don’t now have an immediate and accessible location to deposit the badges.
Not only is this incredible for the environment, but it also prevents excessive waste due to your event. It also discourages having dozens – if not hundreds – of name tags with your company’s logo from being in the trash. Whether it’s an innocent reason or not, having a considerable amount of merchandise with your logo in the garbage isn’t a good look, no matter how you spin it.
How to Choose What’s Right for My Event
When planning your event, deciding what kind of custom event badges you need is half of the battle. Do you want to do a more intricate badge or something more basic that you need?
If you’re hosting a premium event over multiple days, consider springing for nicer custom badges. Customized lanyards with individualized plastic badges allow these to be used for multiple days without any wear and tear. They’re sleek and smooth and leave a big impression on your attendees. Plus, some people who attend conferences like these enjoy hanging onto their badges as keepsakes. Let yours stand out!
Creating these badges could be more expensive and may not be ideal for all budgets. Instead, consider using lanyards with plastic pouches that hold a piece of paper. These badges also look incredibly professional, but they’re easy to reuse and change if necessary.
When you’re considering an event staff badge, think about getting reusable ones. If you’re planning on hosting more than one event, then making a basic event staff badge that says “volunteer,” “staff,” or something similar can allow you to reuse them. Not only is that to benefit the environment, but it also allows you to create fancier badges.
Because you don’t have to worry about creating large quantities of badges for use repeatedly, making general volunteer or staff badges extremely nice isn’t a time or money-waster. Instead, creating high-quality badges like these can save you money in the long run and make your event staff and volunteers feel special.
LoneStar Badge and Sign
When you choose LoneStar Badge and Sign to help create custom badges for your event, you know that you can count on having incredible quality and top-notch customer service. For over 40 years, we’ve been one of the best in the business in creating custom badges, graphics, signs, and more. Plus, with our customization abilities, your event badge printing can go more smoothly than you’ve ever had it done before.
If you’re interested in hosting an event and want to ensure you’ve got only the best quality badges, then you can count on LoneStar Badge and Sign to give you only the best of the best. Check out our shop today, or contact us to get a quote!