5 Promotional giveaway tips to enhance your brand at exhibitions

5 Promotional giveaway tips to enhance your brand at exhibitions

James Biggin, Steel City

 Submitted by: Steel City (www.steel-city.co.uk), Post published: 30th May 2019

Following on from thoughts about how to best present your company at an exhibition, we thought it would be useful to give you some tips on how branded merchandise can be incorporated into your next exhibition

We believe promotional giveaways are a great way to not only draw visitors to your stand, but also help to increase brand recall following an event and provide easy-to-access contact information.

#TIP1: Use branded merchandise to help you assess if the visitor to your stand is your target clientele by offering…

Firstly, a low cost item such as confectionery, stress items, pens or lip balms will help to start a conversation and ask a couple of qualifying questions.

If the visitor is identified as a good prospect, a second higher value promotional item can be offered in exchange for more information such as completing a contact form or listening to a demonstration. Branded drinkware, technology or executive gifts – items that are useful and will be used long after the exhibition would be a good choice at this point.

Finally keep up your sleeve a small selection of deluxe, highly desirable gifts which you can tempt your prospect visitor to and offer to them as a follow up gift. Branded umbrellas, high quality clothing, technology, moleskin notebooks and leather items would all be greatly received at this point.

Branded Powerbanks and technology accessories are worth investing in as are often highly desirable.

Words of Wisdom: Always have your merchandise in the middle of the stand (not the outer edges). Freebie collectors will rarely come onto your stand to “grab and go”!

#TIP2: Make it useful and relevant

Assess each event you exhibit at. What type of event is it? A trade show for example is very different to a conference. Depending on your budget, at a trade show you may need a large quantity of lower cost items to cater for the number of delegates whereas at a conference, there may be a fewer, more targeted visitors you may want to invest slightly more in. Each event will cater for a different visitor audience with various interests– think about what kind of product reflects these and suits the industry area applicable. The time of year will also come into play with branded sunglasses and phone fans perfect for summer and ice scrapers and gloves better for winter.

Branded Phone Fans are fun, useful and ideal for summer giveaways at events.

#TIP3: Be eco-friendly/sustainable

A massive movement at the moment is to make eco-friendly and sustainable choices both in our personal life and in the workplace. There are lots of creative branded eco-friendly and sustainable options available to get behind and support. The Sproutspoon and pencil, desktop gardens, biodegradable pens and bags for life are just a few ideas.

The Sproutspoon is a 100% biodegradable 2 in 1 spoon with integrated tea.

#TIP4: Be unique

Be memorable and stand out! By giving a bit of time and thought to your promotional product choice, you will ensure the attendees will remember you for years to come. If there is a message or movement you are passionate about and want to associate with your brand, you could use a branded gift to showcase it at the event. For example, you may want to support the reduction of waste with reusable travel mugs, lunch boxes or bags for life.

We recently created this notebook with a poem to highlight the true benefits of the product we provide as well as reflecting our brand ethos.

#TIP5: Every item should carry your logo and call to action

What is the reason for you exhibiting? Is it to raise your brand profile or promote a new service or product? By having a clear call to action on your branded giveaway, you will make your message remain in the receivers mind long after the event. Need more guidance as to what to include on your branded gift? Check out our blog and video answering this question here.

Words of Wisdom: Printing the event or date on your promotional merchandise could give you more focus to the event rather than your business.Your logo and call to action should be clear on your chosen branded giveaway.

We hope you found these tips of value! We passionately believe that Promotional merchandise is one of the key marketing tools to utilise when planning your event. When well thought out, and used in conjunction with digital marketing, PR, advertising and other communications, branded merchandise will help you to get the right people to your stand and generate the quality leads that you and your team require.

Any promotional merchandise should support your product image, reflect your company positioning and differentiate you from the competition.

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