Guide to Refreshing Your Marketing Collateral for Events

Marketing collateral is often the first point of contact between your brand and potential customers on an event floor. Every piece of collateral shapes how well your brand resonates with your target audience. If your marketing materials feel out of date or inconsistent, your collateral needs a refresh so your event presence reflects your best foot forward. When you refresh your marketing collateral with intention, you help your team communicate clearly, attract new customers, and create marketing that feels relevant and engaging.

Refreshing your marketing collateral does not require a full rebrand or a massive investment of time and resources. It requires a simple, structured process that helps you evaluate what is working, identify gaps, and update your marketing materials so they align with your brand identity and speak to your target audience. This guide walks you through how to refresh your marketing materials for events using five practical steps that modernize the design, strengthen your message, and deliver collateral that supports your sales team and improves your marketing efforts.

Audit What You Have and What You Need

Before you update your marketing collateral, you need a clear understanding of the types of marketing collateral already in circulation. This audit helps you determine what you can refresh, what needs a redesign, and what must be created from scratch. It also helps you avoid inconsistent visuals and messaging that can confuse your audience.

Marketing collateral comes in many formats, from brochures and flyers to case studies, newsletters, business cards, postcards, direct mail pieces, sales collateral, infographics, and social media content. Collateral is often the first tool your sales team uses to start a conversation, yet not every piece of collateral is designed for the same moment in the sales process. Case studies, for example, are perfect for potential customers who already understand your value. They are not ideal for prospects walking by your booth with little knowledge of your brand.

Review each piece of collateral through the lens of your event goals. Identify what is working, what feels outdated, and where your collateral needs a refresh. Consider questions like:

• Does the message still resonate with your target audience?
• Does the design reflect your brand identity?
• Are you still solving their problems in a clear way?
• Is the piece easy to read, visually engaging, and aligned with your tone of voice?

This audit and update step sets the foundation for the rest of the refresh process.

Once you know what you have and what you need, you can start updating your marketing materials with confidence. This clarity prevents guesswork and gives you a structured path for creating collateral that supports modern marketing strategies.

Update Brand Basics

Every piece of marketing collateral should align with your brand identity. When logos, colors, fonts, visuals, or messaging are inconsistent, potential customers may question your professionalism or credibility. Even small inconsistencies create friction, especially at events where attention spans are short.

Start by checking all brand elements. Confirm that your logo appears consistently. Make sure your color palette and font choices match your current style guide. Ensure that your visuals and messaging feel cohesive across print collateral, social media platforms, digital marketing, and your website. If you have recently gone through a rebranding or a design refresh, this step is even more important.

Look for areas where you can modernize the design with current design trends. Clean layouts with ample white space improve readability. Updated photography makes your marketing collateral feel more polished. Simple graphic elements can increase clarity and prevent visual clutter. If a piece of collateral feels like it comes from a different era, it probably needs a redesign.

This is also the moment to check foundational messaging. Your value proposition should be simple and relevant. Avoid jargon. Focus on how your product or service improves their lives and solves their problems. When your message is clear and your visuals align with your brand identity, your marketing collateral helps you build trust and resonate with your audience.

Add Event Specifics to Make Your Collateral More Relevant

Refreshing your marketing collateral for events is not only about design improvements. It is about tailoring your marketing materials so they feel specific, timely, and relevant to the audience you will meet. Every event has a unique theme, tone, attendee mix, and set of expectations. Your collateral should reflect those details.

Add references to the event when appropriate. This can be as simple as a welcome message or a small callout that acknowledges the event by name. These small touches feel more personal, the same way musical artists mention a city during a concert to make the audience feel seen.

Next, update your call to action. Your CTA should match your event goal. For example, you might direct attendees to scan a QR code for a resource, join a dedicated landing page, or access a promo code created specifically for that event. You may also include a salesperson’s contact information to streamline follow up. These small updates make your collateral more targeted and measurable.

If you want attendees to share your marketing materials, design a version that can be easily shared on social media platforms. Digital and print can work together. When a brochure or flyer directs people to post something online, you widen your reach beyond the event floor.

Use Your Collateral to Build Trust

Modern marketing is built on trust. Event attendees want brands that communicate clearly, operate transparently, and provide reassurance about how they support customers. Your marketing collateral can reflect these values in a simple, effective way.

Add short statements that reinforce the stability of your business, the quality of your service, or the way you support customers long term. Highlight customer testimonials to give your message credibility. Show your process in a simple way if it helps people understand how you work. Share details that demonstrate how your brand stays reliable for clients, especially in fast changing environments.

Sales collateral that builds trust helps your team move conversations forward. Prospects feel more confident engaging with your brand because the collateral tells them what matters most: who you are, what you deliver, and how you will support them.

Review for Consistency Across Every Piece of Collateral

Once you refresh your marketing collateral, take time to review all pieces together. Every piece of collateral should feel like it belongs to the same family. When visuals and messaging drift apart, you dilute your brand presence. When everything aligns with your brand identity, you create a cohesive experience that stands out.

Check for consistent:

• Tone of voice
• Colors and fonts
• Visuals and messaging
• Calls to action
• Readability and layout

Make sure every piece of collateral is easy to read, aligns with your brand identity, and communicates the right message for the right moment. This final step ensures your event presence feels polished, intentional, and unified.

Why Fresh Printing Matters

Even the strongest design loses its power when the print quality looks tired. Fresh printing signals professionalism and attention to detail. This is especially important at events, where prospects pick up and put down dozens of marketing materials. Collateral that is clean, crisp, and well produced helps your brand stand out.

Print collateral that is outdated, crinkled, or faded suggests a lack of care, even if the message is strong. On demand printing helps you solve this problem by allowing you to print only what you need for each event. You avoid storage damage, reduce waste, and ensure every piece of collateral looks its best.

Refreshing your marketing collateral is an ongoing process. When you update your marketing materials regularly, you keep your brand fresh and relevant. Every piece of collateral becomes a tool that supports your marketing strategies, resonates with your audience, and helps your team succeed at events.

Ready to make your next event special? Partner with Mimeo today for quality print products at the right price.

Key Things to Remember

• Start with a full audit so you understand what collateral you have and what collateral you need for each event.
• Keep every piece of marketing collateral aligned with your brand identity, including colors, fonts, visuals, and tone of voice.
• Refresh your marketing materials with event specifics so your message feels timely, relevant, and personalized.
• Use your collateral to build trust by highlighting clear value, customer proof points, and consistent messaging.
• Review everything together to confirm consistency across print collateral, digital content, and sales collateral.
• Modernize designs with clean layouts, updated visuals, and white space to improve readability.
• Make sure your CTA is simple and trackable so you can measure what is working.
• Print fresh materials before every event so your brand looks polished and professional.
• Treat refreshing your marketing collateral as an ongoing process rather than a one time project.