Postal’s Offline Playbook for In-Person Events

In the ever-changing landscape of event marketing, integrating creative offline touchpoints into your strategy not only takes attendee experience to the next level, but also boosts your return on investment (ROI) at in-person events and conferences.

As Postal’s Global Campaign Strategist, I’ve guided dozens of clients to achieve these objectives.

In this blog, I’ll run-through the same step-by-step playbook for executing offline campaigns at in-person events so you can book key sales meetings and show your boss true ROI from your next conference. It’s time to ditch the branded koozies, stress balls, and other items that quickly turn into leftover swag, folks.

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My formula for offline campaign execution at in-person events

This is my high-level playbook for executing offline campaigns at events through Postal’s Offline Engagement Platform that can easily be replicated and made unique to any brand.

Step 1: Understand the context of the campaign

It’s crucial that your team deeply understands the ins-and-outs of the event. Think location, purpose, target audience, timeline, budget, and internal stakeholders. Success metrics should be pre-defined as well as the tools required for execution.

Step 2: Source your gifts

Sourcing the right items for your target audience is another important part of executing. Fortunately, we have covered: as a Postal customer, you can create custom branded projects through Paper Plane Agency, bundle and kit them with Postal Warehousing, and browse thousands of products from vendors around the world in the Postal Marketplace. If you need additional help or suggestions, myself or another member on our professional services team will be more than happy to provide our expertise.

Step 3: Develop a sending strategy

Crafting a well-designed sending strategy maximizes the impact of your offline touchpoints and your budget. The various approaches I recommend include sending items directly (you’ll need address information for this), utilizing Postal MagicLink for seamless recipient experience, sending personalized gift emails, and automating the process based on specific contact criteria.

Boost registration & attendance before your event 

These proven ideas will give you inspiration for how to incentivize registration, build excitement, create a sense of urgency, and increase brand awareness leading up to go-time. Explore these real campaigns that created buzz and drove attendance.

3 Offline Campaign Ideas to leverage before in-person events or conference

These are three examples from clients that I’ve worked with who saw success when it came to building hype around their event.

1. Custom local kits

Campaign context: Goal - drive registration & excitement for a prospecting event

• NYC Event
• 4 months out
• Flexible budget
• Targeting executives at 100 key accounts
• Mix of branded + unbranded items

Gift source: Paper Plane Agency
Sending strategy: Personalized gift emails - promote incentive with LinkedIn ads, marketing newsletters, and sales outreach

• Automated Postal Trigger when contacts register for event
• OR tagged contacts in Postal & send group gift email

2. Conference survival kits

Campaign context: Goal - encourage event attendance and book meetings at upcoming conference

• $100 per gift send
• Enable sales reps to book meetings with target prospects in exchange for item
• Conference in 4 weeks

Gift source: Postal Marketplace
Sending strategy: Send via MagicLink - create MagicLinks with meeting booking functionality for each of sales reps to use in emails, LinkedIn messages, templated sales outreach, etc.

3. Physical invitation

Campaign context: Goal - create excitement and exclusivity with contacts who've already collected address information for your upcoming event
Gift source: Postal Marketplace
Sending strategy: Direct send - send handwritten invitations to contacts that you’ve already collected address information from

Just as a thoughtful gift can boost employee morale, considering speaker gifts at your next corporate event can enhance the overall experience for both attendees and presenters.

Incentivize engagement during events

During your events, it's crucial to engage attendees and leverage warm connections to book meetings, enhance booth interactions, and ensure lightning-fast follow-up. These case studies from clients I’ve worked with include a curling-themed game at a booth and MagicLink business cards at in-person holiday parties that booked meetings.

Case Study: booth prizes

Campaign context: Curling-themed game with prizes given out to booth attendees
Gift source: Postal Marketplace
Sending strategy: Print QR codes on stickers and attach them to two-inch medals; every attendee who won a medal could scan the QR code to claim a prize
Campaign Results: Named “Best Booth in Show” - 140 prizes given out and 22 sales meetings booked

Case Study: MagicLink business cards

Campaign context: Book meetings at in-person holiday parties with warm connections
Gift source: Postal Marketplace
Sending strategy: Create a Postal Collection of holiday gifts, a MagicLink for each rep with meeting booking functionality, and print 25 business cards for each reps to hand out at in-person holiday parties
Campaign results: Booked 20 meetings for January during December holiday party circuit

Driving conversions post-event

Sales conversations should never end when the event is over—they should be getting started. These offline campaign ideas will inspire you to maintain momentum, build rapport with key stakeholders, and convert conversations into revenue.

Offline campaign ideas to keep the conversation going

Branded notecard + free trial offer

Campaign context: Generate brand awareness, book demos, drive account engagement
Gift source: Postal Marketplace
Sending strategy: Determine desired CTA - “Are you hoping to book a demo?”, drive recipients to a landing page on your website, draft copy + design notecard, and create MagicLink for gift + add QR code to design

Branded swag + custom insert bundle

Campaign context: Drive registration for upcoming webinar with warm leads from conference

• 5 weeks out
• Limited budget
• Use leftover mugs swag 

Gift source: Paper Plane Agency / Postal Warehouse kits or bundles
Sending strategy: Direct send - Print customer inserts with Paper Plane; send to warehouse, submit warehousing request to build “bundle” of leftover mugs + insert card, and Send Direct to conference engagers post-event to drive next steps

Creative summary: integrating offline campaigns into your in-person event strategy

Before events

During events

After events

‍Get started with Postal to access the largest B2B marketplace and creative service professionals to help take your in-person events and experiences to the next level.