The Benefits of Providing Literature to Event Attendees

Imagine taking part in a two-day conference that focused on all of the aspects of your career you sought information on; receiving useful, informative and inspiring messages from presenters and feeling an overall sense of professional achievement for having attended.

Now, imagine you are back at your office and telling one of your co-workers about a strategy you learned at the conference, only you are having some difficulty remembering it just right. The next step would most likely be to consult the literature you were given to refresh your memory and continue delivering the powerful message to your co-worker, right?

The importance of providing accompanying literature for attendees at meetings or events lies in this scenario. If you are planning an event or meeting and have not put any thought into the literature that will be provided, I am hoping I have caught you on time because not doing so would be wasting so many opportunities that otherwise exist. Read on to discover more about these opportunities:

1. Solidifies the Message of the Meeting/Event

People learn in many different forms, we have all heard that, and providing literature is just one more way for you to drive your message across to individuals who may be visual learners or those who benefit from exposure in more than one form. Giving them something to look at and process versus simply verbalizing it to them is one more opportunity for the message to be received as it was intended.

2. Provides Networking and Marketing Opportunities

Each piece of accompanying literature that is dispensed bearing your company's information creates that much more potential of promoting it through word-of-mouth marketing. An attendee might lend the dispensed literature to a friend who may have never been exposed to your company otherwise.

3. Useful Tool for Attendees to Reference in the Future

Offering a piece of literature for attendees to reference in the future allows them to consult your work years down the road. Providing them with information they can re-distribute, if necessary, is a component they will value as attendees.

4. Presents the Opportunity for Attendees to Notate

Literature can be used to write notes on as you speak and that is an invaluable tool to the audience. I speak from experience in saying that I have returned from a meeting with a blank sheet of paper bearing incredulous notes and not been able to make a bit of sense out of it. In participating in a meeting/event, attendees are always anxious to get all of the information they can, causing them to write without thinking. Taking notes directly on the literature provided allows them to use that piece to guide their note taking, referencing the elements of your presentation that are there in print for them to consult later.

The thought of attending an event and returning with nothing to cement what I have learned is absurd to me and hopefully, you as well. Once you have decided that offering accompanying literature is an element of your event that is not to be left out, the next task is to actually create it. Dispensing literature that appears disheveled is just as bad as not dispensing any at all. Your literature needs to appear clean, informative and professional and in Part 2 of this article, you will learn 4 tips on creating top notch accompanying literature for your event.