Guidelines to Using Promo Items at a Tradeshow

Tradeshows are a great venue in which to market your brand with promo items, but with so many booths competing for the attention of tradeshow attendees, how can you make your exhibit stand out? Here are some tips on choosing and presenting promo items that will help make your tradeshow experience worthwhile.Arrange your promo items neatly and visibly. You want your display of promo items to be attractive to visitors. Design something eye-catching, like a multimedia, video or interactive presentation, or simply stage a low-budget demonstration of how to use a special product that your company offers. People are drawn to free stuff, so make sure your promo items are within sight of passersby. Present them in a way that invites people to take one; don’t leave your visitors guessing whether or not your promo items are free. You could even make a sign; don’t be afraid to be too obvious. The worst mistake you could make would be causing an attendee to feel too intimidated to approach your table. By keeping the table neat and manning it with enough people, you prevent the overcrowding that can cause potential customers to shy away from your booth or determine it isn’t worth wading through the mess. Stock your booth with plenty of promo items. Don’t underestimate people’s love of free stuff; you may run out of promo items earlier than you think. By keeping lots of promo items in stock you can use them from tradeshow to tradeshow, ordering more when you need them, instead of trying to estimate how many you will need for each event. Choose something non-gender specific that almost everyone can use, like drinkware. For example, give away yellow stainless steel water bottles with your logo. It’s a valuable product that everyone likes, so they’ll be drawn to your table and will hold onto the item. They may even begin to drink from it right at the tradeshow. Making all your promo items the same color -- and a bright color -- will attract desired attention: “Hey, where is everybody led light bulbs getting those yellow water bottles?”Give away bags to carry promo items. Consider giving away promo items like cinch packs or recycled totes as containers in which people can keep all their other giveaways. Having your logo on the bag that everyone at the tradeshow is carrying around on their backs is great exposure for your brand. Even if you don’t choose bags to give away, make sure your promo items are valuable, not just throwaways that will crowd the attendees’ pockets. Hold a contest to give away promo items. Choose one or a few large and valuable promo items, like a messenger bag or wine collector’s set, to give away during a contest. Hold a raffle by passing out tickets as people come by your table and telling them what time the winner will be announced, or stage a contest that requires people to answer trivia questions to win the promo items. Make the parameters of the contest clear and public, since the whole point is to attract people to your table. Don’t let your promo items go to waste. What’s the point of spending all this time and money doling out promo items if you don’t receive any business from them? Put your contact information on the promo items. Keep your booth manned at all times with friendly, knowledgeable staff who will engage visitors. People manning the booth should exhibit welcome body language, smile, and refrain from engaging in conversation with one another in a way that shuts out visitors. They should be ready and eager Iphone 4s Expand Keyboard to engage passersby. Rather than bullying them into listening to a sales pitch, staff should be inquisitive. This is a time to listen to the tradeshow attendees talk about themselves and their needs, and an opportunity to learn about your potential customers. Be direct and deliberate with your plan of action; instruct staff to elicit specific information from the visitors, even asking them to fill out cards with their names, companies, and email addresses. Then follow up. Within a few days send an email out to everyone who gave their contact information at the table. Take the opportunity to poll them in order to assemble demographics and other useful information about the people interested in your company. The faster the better to make sure your leads don’t go to waste. A little bit of advance planning can make all the difference at your next tradeshow.