Choosing Events To Help Boost Your Brand
Brought to you by ReST
With the bedding marketplace growing even more crowded in recent years, brands and retailers alike have been searching for new ways to reach potential customers—and, for many companies, special events and marketing partnerships have proven to be advantageous. By aligning your brand with a popular organization, a particular lifestyle or a meaningful cause, in-person marketing opportunities can help reinforce your messaging and introduce your brand to new consumers. But when it comes to selecting which partners to team up with, where do you start? What are the benefits of investing time, energy and money in an event to promote your brand?
For a company like ReST Performance—a smart mattress maker that utilizes high-tech customization to offer enhanced recovery—participation in events like IRONMAN help amplify the brand’s position as an innovative sleep solution for people with active lifestyles. It also gives ReST the opportunity to speak with athletes who may directly benefit from its smart bed.
For any company looking to pursue a new event or partnership opportunity, there are quite a few questions to ask yourself before narrowing your options:
What audience or customer profile would you most like to reach?
By first identifying the audience you’d like to connect your brand with, you will not only start to narrow your event options but get closer to the heart of what sort of messaging will best suit your efforts. When it comes to sleep products, it can be helpful to hone in on the health benefits you’re promoting and which demographics your products will support the most (Women? The elderly? Children? Athletes?)
If you own or operate a store that carries quite a few brands and products, it might make more sense to think about the neighborhood in which you are located. Do you want to generate more foot traffic from your neighbors? Reach nearby residents that might not pass your storefront regularly? Look into local events and neighborhood causes. In this case, your audience might be more characterized by proximity than demographic profile.
What lifestyle does your brand support or promote?
In the bedding and mattress industry, nearly every brand is promoting better sleep, and, as a result, better health and productivity. However, as the wellness category continues to explode, there are so many niches for the health conscious consumer to explore. To stand out from the crowd, it can be beneficial to zero in on a more specific angle.
Do you want to reach those consumers seeking better spinal alignment? Consider teaming up with a local chiropractor or consider health-related conferences. If you offer an array of natural sleep products, look into events that are geared towards organic or eco-friendly lifestyles. It’s important to think critically about the different angles and opportunities available and which ones truly align with your brand’s mission or products. While there is a lot of value in promoting yourself in unexpected places, it shouldn’t be difficult for the attendees to understand what you’re doing there.
What is your main goal for the event?
Finally, it’s important to think about what you want to come of participating in an event. Do you want to heighten brand awareness? In that case, you might want to host or sponsor an activity or experience at an event, something that really leaves an impression. This could be a game, it could be an educational seminar but whatever it is, it should be meaningful and align with your brand’s message.
The other potential goal is actual sales. Do you want to be at an event where you can sell your products and convert customers? If that is the case, you’ll need to look for more vendor-driven events. When considering these opportunities, make sure to look closely at how the host is marketing the event. Will the attendees know in advance that products will be available for purchase? Depending on the logistics of the event, you may want to offer some smaller sleep accessories as well—the type of impulse purchases that can easily be carried out.
Sometimes a combination of the two works best. Depending on the logistics of the event, you might want to bring a selection of lightweight accessories to sell—the types of products that are not cumbersome and cost effective—while also offering a memorable or educational experience that will stick with attendees even after the event is over.
Whatever the case, the key to event participation and building brand awareness in general is to be consistent with your message. This means associating only with causes, ambassadors, events and ideals that fit with your brand and what you want it to communicate to potential customers.
For ReST, event participation has led to increased brand awareness and ultimately, increased sales. Read more about the brand’s ongoing partnership with IRONMAN here and here.
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