OnFulfillment Blog | Event Marketing Materials

Trade show season is in full bloom.  The calendar is full of events—everything from industry-wide trade shows sponsored by corporate marketing to regional conferences and local seminars staffed by local sales teams and admins.

Lots of exposure and networking opportunities lie ahead.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is, you’ve been tasked with coordinating and overseeing these events nationwide—literally hundreds of shows coast to coast for which you must provide banners, signage, pop-up displays, collateral, and promotional materials.

Even if you were equipped to manage multiple vendors over several months and across multiple time zones to secure the necessary materials for each of these events, that’s only half the battle.  Once the deliverables have been produced, there remains the challenge of getting them all delivered where they need to be, when they need to be there.  That means boxes need to be packed, shipping labels printed, and detailed delivery instructions provided.  And since many of these items are reusable and need to be shared by several different groups, you also need to organize shipments between events and venues, often with razor-thin margins of error.

A large part of OnFulfillment’s business is producing corporate-branded promotional products for our customers. Whether these products are high-volume, cost-effective merchandise used as event giveaways or high-end brand name items given as gifts to customers or employees, corporate branded materials play a key role in establishing a business’s identity and reputation.

But wanting branded corporate merchandise is one thing. Knowing where to get it is another. There are scores of vendors out there who claim they can handle all your material needs. The truth is they often provide access to only a small part of the potential market—say the low-end, high-volume portion—requiring you to go elsewhere for brand-name items. And as anyone knows, managing multiple vendors adds complexity to any project.

A successful branded merchandise strategy means understanding what you’re looking for today—and what you might need in the future—and then finding a vendor that can satisfy all those needs. This blog will help define the various benefits of corporate branded materials and provide a roadmap for finding just the right provider.

It’s spring, which means it’s event season. Businesses across America (and around the world, for that matter) are dusting off their exhibits, unfurling their banners, erecting their pop-up signs, and preparing to hit the road.

In honor of this occasion, and to assist the novices and newcomers, we’ve assembled the following list of trade show and event terms—common phrases and labels you’re sure to hear from the various vendors and consultants you’ve enlisted to assist your efforts. Hopefully this list will prepare you for the inevitable conversations and allow you to communicate your objectives effectively.

To help organize this content, we’ve assigned the terms to six basic categories:

Every year, the most popular trends in fulfillment and merchandise seem to skew ever younger. Or, more accurately, the generation driving trends remains constant, while the rest of us grow older and farther away from what is currently “hip.”

This year, as one might expect, popular trends are being largely determined by social media influencers and the millennial/Gen Z lifestyle. For these consumers, products must look good enough—and be socially conscious enough—to be included as part of their story. For the companies who understand the process, these postings become free advertising to the most coveted demographic.

So what are the trends to look for in 2024? What issues are making these influencers sit up and pay attention while making them feel good about their purchases?

This year, OnFulfillment celebrates its Silver Anniversary—25 years of meeting the various printing, storage, shipping, training, and marketing fulfillment needs of customers worldwide.

To mark this occasion, we’re using this blog space to revisit our history and recall how we have evolved over the past two and half decades. We started off with a high-level overview of our first 25 years, followed by several more focused entries offering a closer look into the into specific services such as printing and branded promotional merchandise. printing. With today’s entry, we’re exploring OnFulfillment’s foray into the event fulfillment and management space.