I keep mentioning “perceived value” but what does this really mean?

In a nutshell, when you give a promotional gift to a recipient and they think it is worth more than you paid for it; everyone is coming out on top as a winner!

My gran always told me that a present should be something that you want but wouldn’t generally go out and buy for yourself.

With this in mind, if you give a gift that costs you $3 but the recipient thinks it’s worth $10, then you have created a higher perceived value in the mind of the recipient.  You are leveraging this perceived value to create attention and to hold it in the mind of the recipient who, in this instance, is going to be an attendee at a trade show display.

Everyone can attend a trade show and come away with bags full of useful but cheap tacky nonsense that is likely to be filling waste paper baskets by the end of the day.  Your task is to select promotional gifts which will demonstrate a high perceived value in the minds of the recipients but which you are able to bring in within a budget that may be very restricted.

The idea that “It’s the thought that counts” when it comes to promotional gift giving is of no relevance; promotional freebies are a fact of tradeshow life and you don’t want to look cheap BUT that does not mean you cannot in fact be cheap!

The thought counts in this instance only to the extent that you need to exercise your imagination in shortlisting promotional gifts for your trade show presence which create a high perceived value over and above their true actual cost.  The basics still apply; do not lose sight of what the promotional gift is being used for; to attract and retain a prospective or existing customers attention and keep it for as long as is possible.