To get the most out of your swag, follow these 4 helpful tips!
At a minimum, your branded items should include your company name or logo. If you have a very unique name or are already really well known, you may not need to include your domain name as well. For instance, no one needs to be told that to find out more information about Dell, they should go to www.dell.com. But for everyone else, you also need to include your domain name.
If you have a long domain name that’s not going to be easy to fit on your swag, you can always buy a shorter domain name and redirect it to your main website. For example, if our domain name was actually, www.LionSharkDigitalMarketingCompanyWestMichigan.com we would want to buy and use www.LionSharkDigital.com on our swag. (As a bonus, this will let you track how much of the traffic coming to your site is as a result of handing out your promotional items at events!)
If you would prefer that people get in touch with you in a way other than submitting a contact form from your website, provide the information that they’ll need to do so on your promotional items as well. This may include a toll-free phone number, email address, social media handle, or Skype user name.
Choose Something Useful
Now that you know what you need to include on your swag, you need to start thinking about what that swag should actually be. You can offer something standard like a pen or key chain, or you can opt for something more exciting like a mini basketball hoop or portable speaker. No matter what you choose, just ask yourself if people will actually use it. There’s nothing worse than investing in having promotional items customized and then not being able to give them away because people don’t see the value in having them. You also don’t want to make something that people will take just because you’re giving it away, but then will end up in the trash once it leaves the tradeshow.
Obviously you’ll have to balance cost with functionality because something may be incredibly useful and fun but it’s too expensive to get a lot of them made up for your upcoming event. Once you have your budget set, look through your available options and then try to determine what will appeal most to your target audience.
Make it Aesthetically Appealing
Just because something is useful to prospective customers doesn’t mean they’ll want it. Be sure that your promotional swag looks good to entice people to take it and actually use it. This will ensure that you’ll get the most bang for your buck by having as many people as possible exposed to your brand name!
Give Away Judiciously
Keep in mind that you don’t have to give away swag to everyone! You can always have a competition at your booth to give people a chance to win higher priced merchandise or offer it as a reward for completing a demo or listening to a sales pitch.
If you don’t want to be that exclusive with your promotional swag, you can just instruct everyone at your booth to only give away items after making conversation with people coming by. This will at least prevent tradeshow floor vultures from just swooping in and grabbing a handful without taking the time to learn anything about your business!
Kate Pierce is the owner of LionShark Digital Marketing LLC, a West Michigan internet marketing company. Her areas of expertise include Paid Search, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media, Web Consulting for small businesses, Copywriting and Local Online Marketing. She lives in the Grand Rapids area with her husband and enjoys cooking, watching sports and spending time outdoors. Like a true digital marketing expert (i.e. geek), she loves talking about marketing theory and SEM trends… so don’t say you weren’t warned!