Tradeshow Giveaways or Throwaways ?

Tradeshow giveaways are a must have for exhibitors. Ideally your tradeshow giveaways should form part of a wider traffic generation strategy but how do you ensure that your tradeshow giveaways don't become after show throwaways ?

Apply The AIDA Marketing Principle

AIDA stands for Awareness, Interest, Desire Action and can be used when selecting your giveaways.

Awareness

Who are you targeting ? Organisations often take a scatter gun approach to giveways. More strategic thinking is needed. Visitors can be segmented into four categories:

• Key customers and contacts who you already do business with.

• Targetted pre-show prospects who are offered complimentary rewards for visiting the stand.

• New prospects encountered at the show interested in developing a business relationship.

• General visitors, catalogue and tradeshow giveaways collectors.

Interest

What are you trying to communicate ? The quality and perceived value of your tradeshow giveaways and their imprint should have synergy with your marketing communications strategy and tradeshow objectives. Your giveaways should be targeted at your audience. They should create buzz and interest in your stand, products, services and company.

Desire

What gifts are you going to provide ? Visitors want to be excited and rewarded. Tradeshow giveaways can be used as rewards for attending on-stand demonstrations, briefings or contests. The key point here is that tradeshow giveaways are given away for free. As your giveaways increase in appeal and value, so should the effort extered by your stand visitors to get them.

Action

What do you want your visitors to do with the gift ? The best promotions center on a theme that leaves the receiver with a clear call to action. Gift longevity is important because the gift must last at least until the receiver has completed the call to action.

Promotional Budget

Gift pricing is volume and lead time dependent. So try to drive up quantities by connecting your tradeshow with other marketing activities – exhibitions, seminars and conferences, sales promotions and day-to-day customer visits. You can then get more quality gifts for the same budget spend.

Promotional Gifts Consultant

A promotional gifts consultant has access to the latest innovations and trends for tradeshow giveaways. Often they can provide you with further assistance and help you supply giveaways that are “on message” and make your event a great success. Typical giveaways range from lower cost mint strips to more expensive gadgets. A reasonable mid ground can be achieved using pens, toys or branded bottled spring water.

For more information see our guide on using tradeshow giveaways to generate traffic.