Tradeshow Promotions

Tradeshow promotions or "giveaways" are a vital part of the marketing mix. Tradeshow promotions provide both public relations and sales promotional opportunities. The most significant part of participating in a tradeshow or exhibition is the cost of the stand (booth) and chunk this takes out of the marketing budget. Post event key performance indicators look at return on investment from sales achieved but immediately during and after the show the principle criterion is stand traffic. As with a website, poor traffic numbers or poorly targeted traffic will deliver low sales yields.

The Principle Characteristics of Great Giveaways

Exhibition visitors want to be excited and invigorated when they attend a trade show. After all most can now find out what information they want from a company website. Tradeshow visitors are becoming accustomed to being rewarded for their efforts. Great tradeshow promotions have been found to have three principle characteristics:

Appeal – the promotional items must have real appeal to the target audience.
Relevancy – tradeshow promotions should be relevant to the event and brand identity.
Value – gifts must have a perceived value in order not to be binned post event.

How To Generate Outstanding Stand Traffic

Organisation should strive to develop a reputation for great marketing giveaways through out the year. This will also help to increase their year on year stand traffic, brand loyalty and create some buzz marketing. Tradeshow stand traffic can be increased using the following promotional guidelines:

Place relatively low cost giveaways at the front of the exhibition stand within easy reach of people if they would just walk onto the stand. The idea is similar to the sweets found at the check out in supermarkets – you need instant appeal. Branded lolly pop sweets (not chocolates that melt), mints and toys are ideal here.
Competitions run with the event organisers for ‘on-the-hour' prizes. Here the organisation may offer special executive gifts, USB gadgets or samples of its products or services that have a real sense of value for a prize draw, question and answer competition or trail around the stand or exhibition itself.
The gifts have to be interesting and exciting to have appeal and relevancy to the organisation. Often stands employee “pretty girls”, magicians and entertainers to walk around the trade hall giving out leaflets relating to a competition or using the giveaways and providing a map back to the stand.
Marketing buzz can also be generated prior to the show through public relations activities both to the existing customer base and also through media exposure. Aligning the promotional giveaway with a key industry journal ensures that your exhibition presence receives column-inches and value exposure in the media.

The same principles can be applied to seminars and conferences.