5 tips for a better annual meeting print program

Time to start thinking about our annual meeting once again and I wanted to share some good ideas for making your next print program even better. (By print program, I'm speaking of a printed brochure-type thing handed out to attendees with all the program information in it.)

1) Schedule summary on the back cover: Best idea I had last year -- a summary of the entire schedule printed on the back cover of the program. Where's the breakfast? When are the breakouts? -- It's all right there. Keep it simple, keep it clean.

2) Make the map fit on a page: Instead of a fold-out, which I find annoying. With a minimum of Photoshop work, I was able to put the map of the Desert Springs meeting areas on one page, and then used the facing page for brief descriptions of the areas (i.e., here is the main ballroom, all of the general sessions are here, etc.)

3) Cut out things no one reads: For me, it was references to registration desk hours (no one gets a program until the register, so they already know where registration is and few attendees have a reason to come back once they've picked up their packets).

4) Along those lines, I also compressed the speaker bios into the session schedule. Our old programs used to list speakers in the session descriptions and then go on to have a section of speaker bios in the back. Saved several pages.

5) Limit artwork, keep page count low: Even if your meeting lasts three days, this brochure/program is only really useful for a few hours. By the last day, everyone knows where they're going and what they're going to do. Keep the fancy design elements and art to a minimum. I also find that this lets the sponsors' ads and logos stand out a little more.

Cutting down on the page count, doing the layout myself on PageMaker, and taking away the full bleed on the cover cut my annual meeting program printing budget by about 60%.

Tagged: Associations, Meetings.