Trade shows are an excellent way to get your product and brand name out in front of hundreds of people. Trade show promotional products can help get your name recognized and help to attract potential customers to your trade show exhibit. If promotional products are not used properly they can be a drain on your company’s budget.

Some exhibitors think of giveaways as a last minute detail. They only provide them because the competition is doing it. Giveaways can help with your branding and marketing if you use them correctly. Promotional gifts help keep your company’s name in front of qualified leads.

Think of your promotional items as perpetual marketing materials that are used over and over. That is why you need to buy quality promotional items. If you buy cheap pens that don’t work or leak, people will not think highly of your product when they use them.

Everyone knows attendees love giveaways and most of them don’t plan on buying anything from you. You should have different items for different types of attendees. You can give cheaper promotional gifts to people who probably don’t qualify as a lead. You can train your staff to qualify attendees quickly and give higher quality gifts to potential customers.

If you want to get the most out of your trade show exhibit you need more than just an eye catching display and friendly staff. You have to be able to attract your target audience to your exhibit and qualify them quickly. You can then use promotional gifts to build up your company’s brand. The most important thing is to make sure you follow up on qualified leads after the show is over. All of these things will make your trade show exhibit a successful event.

Sometimes it is hard for the small and medium sized businesses to compete against the larger companies.  Knowing who and what you are up against is the first step in planning a good strategy. You should gather as much information about the show as you can so you will be able to make informed decisions. You will need to know the layout of the show, the size and location of your exhibit and information on the organization running the show.

You will want to arrange your trade show exhibit properly. Make sure larger items are in the back and smaller item are in the front. Everything should be on eye level so visitors don’t have to strain to see your products or marketing material. You want your exhibit area to be uncluttered and easy to move around in. You can have a PowerPoint presentation that is continuously playing and showing off the products and services you have to offer.

To get the most out of your trade show you can use giveaways, prize wheels or promotional gifts to lure customers into your exhibit. You can have demonstrations or presentations to draw in potential customers. Another good way to attract attention to your exhibit is to use a money machine or something similar. Any of these things will get the visitors attention and they will want to come over to your exhibit to see what all the excitement is about.

Trade shows are an ideal way for small and medium size business to get their brand and company recognized. Your exhibit has to make an impression and be used to lure people into your space to find out more about your company. If you prepare in advance and make your exhibit interesting and interactive you will be on your way to having a very successful trade show.

Trade show promotional items when they are used properly can result in a successful trade show for your company. Some companies don’t use them to their full value and are ineffective in getting people to remember their products or services. You want your giveaways to be something that ties into your products and services. It should be practical so your company message when be seen repeatedly for a long time.

Promotional items should be part of the budget from the beginning when you are in the planning stage of creating your trade show exhibit. There are many companies that throw in the promotional items as an afterthought if there is any money left over in the budget. This is not a good marketing strategy. If your use them as part of your company’s trade show marketing plan they can be used as a valuable tool.

To get the most value out of using giveaway items is to actually have multiple items that are given out to specific people. Promotional items and giveaways will draw visitors to your exhibit. However, not all of these visitors will become qualified leads. If you give high quality promotional gifts to every visitor you will quickly drain your budget and will get nothing of value in return.

You should invest in at least two different giveaways. One of the items can be less expensive but still of good quality and will get your message out there. You can then also have a higher quality giveaway that you only give out to your best customers and qualified leads. You can also tell your present customers to come see you at the trade show to get their promotional giveaway.

Promotional items and giveaways are great way to thank your present customers for their business and to generate new leads. They are well worth the expense if you use them properly. If used properly they will increase your exhibit traffic, get your message across and produce more leads for you to follow up on.

Trade shows are a way for a company to increase public awareness, generate new prospects and generate more sales. When you are planning your trade show exhibit it sometimes helps to step back and look at your exhibit from the visitor’s perspective. To get a better idea about what your target audience is looking for you can visit other trade show exhibits and collect their giveaways and marketing material. This will give you an idea about your competitors and also might give you a new perspective on setting up an appealing display.

Trade show giveaways and promotional items are a great marketing tool. Your giveaways should support your marketing message and should be more than just inexpensive novelties. You want something that ties into your company’s products or services. For instance, if your company provides software solutions you could giveaway flash drives with your slogan, logo and contact information. If your business is food related you could hand out miniature booklets on healthy recipes or potholders. No matter what your company provides as far as services or products you will get more value out of a promotional gift that ties into your company’s message.

Your promotion products should be of good quality and offer value to your visitor, such as thermal cups, calendars, or calculators. This way your company’s message will live on long after the trade show is over. They should also reflect your company’s message or services.

Giveaways and promotional products are a very effect marketing tool and should be part of your trade show marketing strategy and not just an afterthought if the budget allows for it. Using these tips will also put you ahead of your competitors who dispense novelties that will probably get tossed away or broken before the show is over.

Trade show promotional gifts are a great marketing tool. They can be used to get your brand recognized and help to bring prospects into your trade show booth. By using reusable promotional gifts with your company name and logo on them, they will be seen over and over. Retention is the way to get your name recognized by potential customers.

You want to be visible to the prospects, so you want your company name to be on their desks, in their briefcases and in their home. Every day promotional items such as pens, bottle openers, and key chains have the greatest return.

The key is to get your name in front of prospects and people who would use or need your product. If you just simply put out your promotional gift items for everyone to pick up you are wasting money that will never be returned.

The main reason promotional gifts are used is to drive traffic to your booth. Most companies are overlooking a powerful way to use their promotional gifts. You should always remember your present customers. Giving them promotional gifts helps build customer loyalty.

One of the biggest reasons that customers or clients leave their current suppliers isn’t because of price or service. It is because they do not feel appreciated and feel you take their business for granted. By giving your customers promotional gifts you are saying “thank you” for doing business with us.

Another thing to remember is the quality of the gift makes a difference. You don’t want to just buy something because it was the cheapest price. Most promotional products have a high end and low end product. You don’t want to give out gifts that don’t work or fall apart; that puts a negative spin on your company’s reputation. A good rule to follow when choosing a promotional product is not to buy the cheapest.

Promotional gifts are a great marketing tool to bring in new prospects and to also keep current customers happy. If you use them correctly you will reap the benefits.

I’ve touched on this before – tying your giveaways into the season and tapping into a festive mood as you seek to attract attendees to your trade show display and have them take away a giveaway they are going to use again after the show – this keeps you and your business fresh in the mind of the attendee long after the show itself as well as getting your brand and name in front of other people in the attendee’s business and private life.

Fourth of July is soon going to be upon us and already I’ve been stocking up on giveaways in keeping with the party mood this creates as one of the major holidays in the year.  Virtually everything I have has a US flag prominently displayed or in fact dominating the giveaway decoration while my company logo is integrated with this (we have a the company character holding the flag, wearing a shirt made of the stars and stripes or you guessed it, a model in a stars and stripes bikini).

It’s not just the 4th July that you have to work with – in a few days it’s “Secretaries Day” so a bunch of flowers are in order for she who keeps you on the right track – it doesn’t matter whether the day in question is acknowledged by all or something little more than marketing mush for a little known niche.

These special event days are very helpful in getting your giveaways into the minds of the attendees and spurring demand for them whiel at the same time, they are highly likely to be used after the show and so satisfy the need to keep being used and in plain sight long after the show itself has ended.

Here are a few events/celebration days coming up you can look to use with your trade show giveaways:

• 4th of July
• 22nd April – Secretaries Day
• 10th – 16th February – Cardiac Rehabilitation Week
• Easter – day varies in April
• 3rd – 7th March – Employee Appreciation Week
• 3rd Wednesday in May – Employee Health & Fitness Day

Take a look on any work calendar or internet site and you’ll find numerous other major and not so major celebratory occasions you can tie into with your promotional giveaways.

Trade show giveaways need to fulfill a couple of main criteria – they serve as an attractor at trade shows pulling in attendees and they also serve to help keep your name and business at the forefront of the attendee’s mind after the show is over.

Finding the right range of giveaways requires some thought and application but this is also a continuous process and not something you do once and forget about it.

Eco-friendly giveaways are helping to attract attendee’s attention more and more because green issues are so high up on the social awareness agenda and from a moral standpoint, they are a no-brainer – there is no downside to using eco-friendly giveaways.

Some of the best eco-friendly giveaways I have come across so far include storm radios – radios for use in emergency situations and usually doubling as a storm lamp with a hand crank to charge the battery and allow for continuous use in any given situation.  For me they are a great gift to have but just because you hear the phrase “green” does not mean you are restricted in what you are currently doing.

Think about your last trade show – what did you see available as giveaways?

Pencils, pens, mugs, bags, caps, t-shirts, novelty items, desk furniture, rulers, stickers, badges, credit card scraper, key fobs, bag clips, flyers – and many, many more.

Any one of the above items can be sourced as recycled or made from recycled materials – going green doesn’t mean you have to specifically choose green eco-products that look like a hippie fashion accessory, there are plenty of products available which have been made from green materials fro decades but the public simply hasn’t been aware of it to begin with.

Tapping into the green trend is not difficult – just ask your supplier about their green eco-range and look at the existing substitute products you can immediately include in your existing range of giveaways while at the same time, take a look at your existing stock and you’ll be surprised at how much of what you have already bought is already recycled and therefore “green” to begin with.

The issue will be how you make your attendees aware you are now ecologically friendly

I was in Las Vegas recently for PMA 2009 which is one of the world’s largest exhibitions for consumer electronics and as you can imagine there was a huge amount of drone and chatter going on in this cavernous series of exhibition halls.

Not only does Nevada host PMA but Las Vegas is certainly one of those towns which has a lot of pizzaz and va-va-voom with the strip and casinos and a definite 24 hour, round-the-clock lifestyle.

I saw several trade show displays with slot machines on them and this was a surprise to me – attendees were falling over themselves playing them and I just could not understand what was going on – I mean, here we are in Gambling Central for the world with slots all over the place, and yet, in this arena, surrounded by state of the art techno gizmo’s here are these guys playing slots like they were about to be phased out forever?

I grabbed one of the guys I’d seen and recognized from a show a couple of years ago and asked him what was going on – the company behind the booth with the slots was allowing attendees to win vouchers which could be cashed in for casino gambling chips which I thought was pretty neat given we were in Vegas.

I got hold of one of the exhibitors, Mike Hollenbrook and we talked about business, PMA 2009 and what was going on – they had used slot machines before and always they provided a great attraction mechanism with flashing lights and sounds of money being paid out.  With the exhibition taking place in Vegas they had gone a step further after a successful tie -in with a casino on the strip.  Casinos want people pulled into their gambling and gaming arena while the company was meeting a bunch of highly-paid convention visitors who would be bound to unwind somewhere in Vegas in the evenings so what better way than get the casino to sponsor the slots and prizes for the convention attendees in exchange for which the casino was given a head start on the convention attendees attention.

I like this kind of deal best of all – someone else pays for it and you get something to bring in the attendees to your booth – everyone wins unless you have a really bad evening on the tables for real!

One of the things I have touched upon in the past is using entertainers to break the ice and attract the crowds to your trade show displays but a recent trade show in Chicago really rammed home the practical point.

A trade show team had hired a local improv ensemble and despite having one of the smallest and least popular spots on the floor they really slayed the crowd – if you can picture men in black (suits) rolling around looking red-faced through laughing so much you have a good idea.

This highlights one of the main themes I hope has been developed with this blog – use your imagination and you can turn business and trade show logic on its head to great effect!

Usual practice is to hire the best slot you can get on one of the high traffic locations on the floor and catch the attendees as they pass by.

Here this exhibitor hired a 4 man troupe which ran a stand-up cabaret in the far corner of the floor and deliberately took a slot that was in a low traffic area of the show – the idea being that the improv would generate an audience that would need some space to enjoy the show.

I called the lady in charge and asked her a couple fo questions, one being wasn’t this all a bit of a gamble but she was clear it wasn’t.  Turned out she likes her improv and stand-up so much she takes the mike herself on the odd occasion but wasn’t brave enough to do it herself on the day.

The cost savings in taking a low rent space also more than made up for the cost of the entertainers on the day and they were hired locally so there was no issues with logistics but, one point was to deal with a reputable agency so they know exactly what you are expecting on the day.

Some of the best people I’ve seen at trade shows all have something in common – they know how to work a room and they just ooze schmooze!

Stop pretending that a high class booth with Tiffany cufflink giveaways and the GoDaddy girls on loan is what it is all about – they all mean precisely zilch when it comes down to producing the results you are looking for; good contacts leading to good business orders and sales.

Everything we are working towards is $$$$$$$$$$$$$ !!!!!!!!!!

The very best trade show promotional tool you have is yourself and your staff – you may have a bad exhibition presence and a really dire product or service offering, but, you still have you and that can make all the difference between sales glory or business disaster.

Make sure you take time out to work the trade show itself – circulate and make yourself known – this is just the place to be  introducing yourself and sharing with complete strangers just who you and your company are – it does take confidence but with practice you will have no problems.

Schmoozing 101

Dress to impress – don’t be outlandish but dress like you mean business not least as if you feel you look the part you will also act like it too!

Smile and offer your hand – people find it virtually impossible to resist smiling back at you – try this as an experiment – next time you pull up at the stop light, look over to the next vehicle and smile at them – guaranteed you’ll get a grin coming right back at you!

Forget corny lines – tell them your name and who you’re with and have something vaguely intelligent to ask such as, “What have you found the most interesting so far?” – make sure it is an open question so they get engaged with you.

Schmoozing is work!

Don’t forget this because it is important – I’ve seen too many people working the room with a martini or bloody mary in hand and it’s obvious it has not been the first.