How to Conquer 2024 Coffee Events
2024 is well underway and the coffee event circuit is a crucial time to build relationships especially for anyone in B2B sales. Needless to say, the worst feeling around this time is making the investment to be present at key events and not utilizing the opportunity well. Perhaps what’s worse is thinking you are prepared, then getting to an event and realizing you need something that you don’t have and can’t run down to Walgreens to pick up. Who among us hasn’t felt that sinking feeling of regret, when a prospect asks you for your business card and you forgot to get some cards printed in time? Lucky for you, we compiled a list of key things that you need to make sure you maximize your investment and make the most of the time.
We’ve broken this one down into two sections. First, for the folks who will have booths and the second section is a checklist of those things that often get left at home. Here’s to making this coffee event season your business's best one yet.
5 Things you’ll need if you have a booth.
1. A Snagger
Think of your booth as an experiential packaging of your brand. Billions of dollars are spent every year on packaging in hopes that your buyers will connect with your product, but what if you made the investment to design an experiential booth. The kind of booth we’re talking about is one that can create a greater sense of brand affinity. Realistically, it’s likely a little too late to have a booth like this made in time for this year’s events, but it’s not too late to create or design an element within your booth that draws folks in. We’d recommend spending sometime with this concept and just see if what you come up with is feasible as it relates to time and your budget.
Don’t have time or brainspace to think of a good snagger? The bare minimum should be a high quality banner, a legible sign and a clean and pressed tablecloth with your current brand assets. And for the love of all things that exist, make sure your table cloth is clean and pressed before every show.
2. A Talker
We were at an event last year, and walked up to a booth (we’ll leave out the brand’s name, but it was an international brand that you’ve heard of) and the person behind the table was sitting on their phone, completely disengaged with what was happening on the show floor. We said “Hello” and they were simply uninterested in engaging altogether. This is a huge LOSS!
You’ve surely experienced a booth that you’ve walked up, talked to folks and walked away with no clue what they do / why they were at said event. This is simply a waste of investment to not be crystal clear as to why your brand is there and what the goal is.
Owners and leaders, I’m talking to you, you need to give your team key talking points. Give them the tools to be able to have meaningful conversations with the prospects and random folks who come up to your booth. Really think about the key 1-2 things you want everyone to know or experience before they walk away from your booth. After a few hours, do a quick huddle with your team to hear how the conversations are going. Try to find out what questions they are getting, and more importantly what questions they are not able to answer.
3. A Catcher
You need to have a way to capture your potential buyers' information. Some conferences have QR codes on entry badges, and that’s an option, but we recommend having at least 3 ways to capture potential prospects information. The reason we recommend multiple avenues to capture prospect information is because different folks value their contact information differently. Some folks prefer to give their phone number, others freely give their their email or their social handles.
You could have a QR code set up for folks to put their info directly into a form, you could have an Ipad set up with your sales people’s calendar open and visitors could immediately schedule a demo or call right there, or you could go the old fashioned route of a pen and paper. Regardless, you need a way to capture prospects' information. This goes hand in hand with The Talker, meaning you need to let your team know how you are capturing information and let them know that prospects (not all visitors) shouldn't leave without at the very least getting their information. *Note, folks typically don’t like sharing their phone number but if it’s worth asking for. Worst they can say is, “No.”
4. A Memory
Sure, business cards can feel a little old school and can leave you thinking that there really isn’t a positive ROI for using them…but the data still supports them as a net positive and useful tool.
Here’s how the data plays out for your business. For every 2,000 business cards you hand out, it typically results in a 2.5% average increase in business. That may not sound like a huge increase, but 2,000 business cards purchased from Moo.com is roughly $500-600. We’re willing to bet that a 2.5% increase in your overall business will be well over $500-600. Additionally, 22% of business cards are kept for at least 2 weeks and luxury business cards are kept 10x longer than average business cards (you know, the kind of business cards that you might find on your dentist intake counter). The point isn’t durability, it’s memorability. You want folks to keep your card around and remember your brand, your services, and the way they felt when they interacted with you at the last coffee event. Finally, 39% of folks won't even consider working with your business if your card feels cheap. The point isn’t that your business card will result in immediate sales, but rather that your brand will be remembered, thought of well (affinity), and the next time they need green coffee, a new espresso machine or whatever you offer…your business will be top of mind.
*Source: https://blog.adobe.com/en/publish/2016/10/26/4-business-card-statistics-that-will-make-you-rethink-your-strategy, https://smallbiztrends.com/2018/01/business-card-facts.html
5. A Walker
The last thing you want to think about, is what you’ll give folks that isn’t your business card. Everyone and their brother is going to be giving away “swag” that will mostly be thrown away or ignored. Your job is to put some forethought into this and make the sticker/thermos/cup/pre roll that you are handing out is something they’ll want to keep and not drop into the nearest trash can.
The goal of “A Walker” is to give them something they’re going to walk around with and take home with them and in 4 weeks, once the dust settles, they’ll reach out to you for some green samples or to set up a demo. Think about this when designing your swag…the immediate usability should be intuitive, but perhaps you hide something special in the swag that they find out after they’ve used it for a while.
Bonus Points If You Do This
Before you go, (like yesterday!) do some digging. Find a few cool spots to host a dinner for your team or your partners. Make an early reservation once folks are all coffeed-out and are ready to drift into party mode. Take advantage of this time to connect with those folks you’ve been waiting all year to connect face to face with.
Event Packing Checklist
Now for the practical stuff. This list is a culmination of items that we’ve absolutely never forgotten and absolutely never had to run out at the last minute for (jk, we totally have).
Bring Rags - to clean up those coffee spills and to wipe that steam wand off.
Bring Water & Snacks - your team will hunger and thrust, and so will you.
Bring Hand sanitizer - we love people, but sometimes they are gross and you need some sani.
Bring Tape - things will fall down and fall over…tape covers a multitude of sins.
Bring Pens - you’ll need them for your sign up sheets, to take notes, and folks will walk off with them, so bring extras.
Bring Scissors - don’t be an animal, use scissors to open that box you shipped everything to the show in and to open bags of coffee.
Bring A Guest - if you have a partner, or 10, that you’d like to highlight invite them to come brew coffee for an hour or two. It’ll give you a chance to catch your breath and it’ll give them a chance to talk about their relationship with you (i.e. 3rd party validation).
Create a Schedule - when you have a booth, the days can be long. Make sure you create a schedule so that folks can take breaks, walk the floor, eat, and cut out early to check out the local coffee scene.
Bring A Cord, or 3 - never hurts to have a little more power.
Bring A Powerstrip, or 3 - likely, you’ll have a few kettles, a grinder, a light, a phone, etc. and they’ll all need power at the same time.
Bring An Iphone Charger - nuff said.
Bring Trash Bags - sounds silly, but you’ll need them and they are often hard to find at some shows. Bonus points if you bring a trash bin.
Bring Some Paper Cups - sure, the venue may say that they’ll provide them, but it’s better to have back ups just in case. I’ve been at many a show where there were no cups and it’s not a fun when you can’t serve coffee at a coffee event.
A Note On Green & Roasted Coffee Sample Sizes
If you are going to bring coffee samples (green or roasted), they should be about a 1/5 of the size of your normal samples. 50-100 grams of green or roasted coffee is plenty. Anything more and folks will either pick it up and throw it away (total waste) or refuse it (also a waste). A good rule of thumb is that samples should be small enough that folks want to pick them up yet large enough that they can get 1-2 tastes of your coffee.
Finally, DO NOT FORGET TO PUT YOUR CONTACT INFORMATION ON YOUR SAMPLES. I talk to roasters all the time who receive samples that aren’t clearly labeled and even worse, don’t have contact information on them. If you are giving out samples, make sure your contact info is somewhere on said samples.
Here’s to this event season being the best season you’ve had to date!
If you need any any assets designed like business card, banners, tablecloths, handouts, etc. reach out to us at hi@thelevco.com. We’d be happy to help.