by Mark Kearney
Marketing Edge Magazine – November 2008

Your trade show booth is eye-catching, you’re handing out mugs and T-shirts with your company’s logo, and you’re poised to make some long-term business
contacts. But most passersby grab the gifts, thank you and move on. What happened? Experts agree that the key to a successful promotional giveaway is what you do long before you even set foot on the trade show floor. Giving away items to passersby may generate some goodwill and keep them happy because everyone likes receiving freebies. But more importantly, you need to plan ahead to determine why you’re giving away a certain product and what it will ultimately do for you. Will it generate new business? Is it linked to a specific image you want to portray? Will it keep your company’s name top of mind or just be something tossed into a drawer once the show is over? Will it help encourage clients to consider your products and services when it comes time to make hard decisions? “The bottom line is if you handle promotional products properly you will be reinforcing your product, service or program with a tangible reminder,” writes Barry Siskind, a trade and consumer show specialist. “If you give them away to anyone who walks by, you are doing nothing more than attracting the collectors.” Scott McMaster, vice-president of sales and marketing for the Toronto-based ESP, a leading supplier to the promotional products industry, agrees. “If there’s no retention on (the giveaway) then it’s not worth doing it.” McMaster says it’s essential for giveaways to be linked to a message that a company wants to convey. That means spending time ahead of a trade show planning the look of your booth, how you want to staff it, what you want to give to people stopping at the booth, and more importantly, why. Visitors may like the pen, watch or computer accessory you hand them, but that doesn’t mean they’ll remember your promotional product along with the dozens of other

items they may receive at a show. “The (trade show) floor for giveaways can be absolutely insane,” McMaster says, which is why his company tries to differentiate itself as much as possible from others on the floor who may be handing out the standard pen or T-shirt. Such gifts must be useful to the recipient, a decision maker or influencer, Siskind says. Rather than going through a catalogue of promotional products and choosing the first thing that fits into your budget, take some time selecting. “This starts with a clear picture of who your attendee is. What are their business habits? What kinds of promotional products will be most useful and appreciated?” A study by the Texas-based Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR) shows that someone who leaves an exhibit with a tangible reminder has “a better feeling about that exhibitor than one who left empty-handed,” says Siskind. But that doesn’t include those attendees who walk into your booth and help themselves to the piles of promotional products on your counter. What is your message? For example, one firm he knows gave away flexible pens to underscore the message that their company is flexible about how it does business while an environmental company handed out thermostats to support its message of less energy use. You want visitors who stop to ask questions, get answers and then receive something connected to your message to reinforce the visit. It’s important that the person you spend time with is the decision maker who will use the product rather than give it away to one of his/her children or an employee, Siskind says. Spend time getting to know that person and ask detailed questions to determine if this is a contact that will help your business. “Make a big deal about reaching under a desk” for a special high-end pen or calculator — something that’s five to 50 dollars rather than a couple of bucks — that connects to your marketing plan, so that the person will remember you and your company, he says. The reinforcement can come from what is printed on the item and the item itself. A car dealer might give away a key chain while a landscape firm could have samples of wild flowers or a food company might dispense kitchen gadgets. “The closer the connection to the actual product or service the more the message is reinforced,” he says. But don’t wait too long for follow-up. Some experts recommend getting in touch with that decision maker within 48 hours and reminding them what you gave out and why. Too many trade show participants take too long to follow up, Siskind says. Leslie Oesen, vice-president of ASI Canada, agrees that handing out items may not be enough. Quick follow-up is vital because of how overwhelming attending a trade show can be. She cited one time where the post trade show contact took too long and “I’d forgotten I’d even been at
the booth by the time they followed up.” Thinking ahead about what you’re giving away and to whom is crucial, she adds. “Most people’s attitude is throw something on a table but they have no direction of what (these gifts) should do. You need to ask ‘what is your purpose and budget?’” Giving away promotional items can drive traffic to your booth and perhaps provide visibility for your products or services, but they don’t have to be expensive. “People are going to a trade show anyway.” Knowing what kind of product to distribute at a trade show is a challenge, though, says Siskind. No one product works in every situation and trends come and go quickly. A few years ago mouse pads were a top item but no one wants those now. USB flash drives are popular these days but Siskind believes their rapid drop in price will make them passé within a year or so. “You have to continually be on the lookout for new and interesting products related to your company. You can’t just give out cool stuff for the sake
of being cool.” Oesen finds that food-related giveaways such as gum and mints can be welcome because of the dry environment in many trade show venues. But their lasting effect may be minimal if they aren’t tied to something that is linked to your business. The number of people attending the show is also a factor in what you might give away, Oesen says. With a smaller show of fewer than 300 booths you may not need to spend too much effort enticing them to your location because they’ll come by anyway. Too often, however, she finds that trade shows don’t usually lead to future sales but are more about gathering leads and building public relations. McMaster differentiates between suppliers and distributors when it comes to what is given out at shows. ESP might simply want to provide a product that emphasizes a new category or colour that will be available to distributors. The company distributed a retro-coloured cosmetic bag at shows about a year or so ago to demonstrate that the firm could
offer something different in the bag category, for example. At a trade show in Las Vegas, ESP provided rolling grocery bags that the team at the booth could assemble for visitors. Included in the bag was the company’s catalogue, but more importantly the giveaway allowed staff time to talk about other products it had to offer. That can be as important as the visibility that came with visitors moving around the floor with the bags, he says. Distributors tend to provide high-end products, with watches, barbecue sets and USB flash drives being popular choices. The value of these products sends a message to a potential client that says “Hey, I care about you,” McMaster adds. Watches, when displayed in a gift box, are not only higher end they aren’t usually hampered by such considerations as proper sizes and colour like other giveaway products can be. End users like to give away tote bags with innovative colours and a clear logo of the company that can carry other items given away at a
tradeshow, he adds. Oesen likes items related to the actual business — glove compartment safety kits for automobile firms, for example. Certainly, high-end items at trade shows can create buzz. Instead of giving away lots of little items, suppliers, distributors and end users may do draws a few times a day for special, more expensive prizes as a way to get attention. Oesen cites an example of visitors to a booth getting keys to a leased car with only one of them designed to
work with the automobile that’s on display. The person with the right key wins. Other innovations used in the giveaway business to generate show traffic include sending potential visitors part of a gift (say, the pencil of a pen and pencil set) before the show to entice them to come by for the other part. One firm provided a logoed calculator case ahead of the show asking people to come to the booth to pick up the calculator. Coupons or swipe cards can also be used to redeem gifts and at the same time collect data on these potential customers. McMaster’s not sure that splitting gifts to draw traffic is always effective. He finds that some people won’t bring in the coupon or the mailed out item but will simply stop by, say they received it and ask for the rest. That doesn’t mean they’re necessarily interested in doing business with you.
A trade show is an opportunity to reinforce your marketing message, Siskind adds. But try as much as possible to talk to booth visitors before you hand over the
gift, he says. “Take advantage of everyone you have a chance to talk to. That is what face-to-face marketing is all about.”