I’ve written extensively about how you should use giveaways and promotional items as a reward for prospect behavior at your trade show display; don’t hand out gifts for nothing as this does not give you anything in return and how you need to break the idea in an attendee’s mindset that they are simply entitled to take your gift without at least engaging in a business discussion and qualification exercise first.

I’m going to introduce you to a further development of this concept and that is the Tier Gift Practice.

The idea here is that instead of one set of promotional gifts you are going to have a range of giveaways which have very definite differences in perceived attendee value.

An example is where you have candy or coffee available; you don’t mind anyone taking advantage of these and so they are your first line of giveaways.

Next you have a baseball cap with your company logo on it, and these are only given out to someone who discusses business with you and may be a prospect to follow up with down the road but then again, they are a definite maybe when it comes to prioritizing them.

Finally, you have a state of the art USB stick which are an indispensable gadget but for this your attendee/prospect is someone who you are discussing business with in a positive fashion and if not completing the order forms there and then you are arranging for a sales call to take place shortly thereafter.

Candy snatchers are not getting a USB stick or a baseball cap; those who qualify for a baseball cap are not getting a USB stick and those who are getting a USB stick you expect to be doing business with.

No matter what the gift, remember the principles of attention retention – it still needs to perform a task after it has left the arena and thaht is to help you and your company stick in the mind of the attendee so the candy should be good, the coffee fresh, the caps of a good quality and the USB stick had better be one that is going to work and be reliable when the user needs it to – or you’ll certainly be remembered but for all the wrong reasons!