When you’re planning a trade show event, there is more to planning than just setting up your display or booth. You’ve got to be prepared for any displays, testing or productions, customer conversations, and even impressing the people with some fun swag.
Giving away swag and free gifts is just part of the game. And you want to choose carefully. You certainly don’t want to bring giveaways that are going to be cheap, unwanted items. You want to make an impression.
Check out these trade show giveaway ideas for more information about choosing your giveaways and making a lasting impression.
What is a Trade Show?
A trade show is like a convention or expo where you set up an informative booth. People then come to the trade show, walk around, and hopefully connect with you while you’re there. These are huge marketing solutions and get you in front of tons of people.
What are the Main Reasons to Participate in a Trade Show?
The trade show is all about getting your brand in front of people and hopefully gathering some leads or making new connections that will pay off in the long run. Throughout the nation, more than 11 million people attend trade shows every year. That’s a lot of people you could be meeting.
These are the top reasons you should participate in trade shows:
- Chat with clients and potentially create more business with them
- Build relationships with people and with other businesses
- See what the competition is doing these days
- Make a statement to show off what you have to offer
- Get your brand in front of tons of people
- Build new leads that you can follow up with
- Show off new products and offerings for people to see
Trade Show Giveaways Make a Good Impression
There are different types of giveaways that you can use at a trade show. You can have small things to hand out to everyone, but you can also do contests with high-end giveaways with drawings people can enter.
We recommend that you have a variety of items to give away. They don’t have to be anything big or fancy, but they should definitely be something usable. These items should always be branded.
They’ll make an impression on anyone who gets one. Potential clients will see your name and brand every time they use the item. They also make people feel special.
Here are some tips for choosing your giveaway options.
How Do You Intend to Use Trade Show Giveaways?
The biggest thing to figure out is how you will distribute these. Some vendors will only make them available to select people, while others will have things available to everyone who stops by the booth.
You could also try a variety using some of these categories.
Handing Out Free Giveaways to Everyone
You could let anyone and everyone that comes to your vendor booth snatch up some of your swag. These items are going to be your bulk inexpensive items, like pens, that are mostly used for marketing and making sure your brand gets distributed all over the place.
Using Giveaways as Prizes
Instead of spending money on random gadgets and items, you could invest that money into larger prizes to use for giveaways. In this case, you can require people to sign up for the drawing, allowing you to get contact info and names from the people willing to sign up. These will likely be nicer, bigger prizes.
Giveaways Used as a “Thank You” Gift to Prospective Clients
Other vendors will reserve gifts and giveaways for only their client prospects and people that seal the deal to become your customers. The gifts are incentives used to draw in new customers and as a thank-you.
Types of Trade Show Giveaways
Now, let’s talk about the different giveaway items you might decide to use. We will break this out into categories. These trade show giveaway ideas will definitely help!
High-End Giveaways
The high-end giveaways are going to be used for those prize gifts where you do a drawing. They might also be used as your thank-you gifts for prospects who become your clients. These likely will not be items you just hand out to everyone that walks by.
Here are some high-end giveaway ideas:
- One of your popular products
- Bluetooth speakers
- Wireless earbuds
- Custom umbrellas
- Power banks
- Water bottles
- Technology
- Flash drives
- Fancy mugs
- Customized gift sets
- High-quality coasters
- Gift cards
- Sunglasses
- Phone chargers
- USB devices
Inexpensive Giveaways
If you’re looking for things you can order in bulk and feel comfortable giving away in much larger quantities, look for cheaper items. These work well for items you offer as swag to everyone at your trade show.
- Stress balls
- Pens
- Highlighters
- Notebooks
- Simple coffee mugs
- T-shirts
- Webcam covers
- Bottle openers
- Key rings
- Tote bags
- Masks
- Pop sockets
- Back of phone card holders
- Hand sanitizer
- Ice scrapers
- Reusable straws
- Socks
- Beanies
- Cheap water bottles
All of these are things people use and enjoy, but they’re more affordable to purchase in bulk and just hand out to anyone you choose.
So, How Many Should You Bring to a Trade Show?
It’s better to be overprepared than underprepared. According to many of the studies that have been done, handing out swag is far more likely to get you customers from the people in attendance.
You could stock up with several things, but plan accordingly for each trade show. Plan your numbers by figuring out how many attendees might be there, how you plan to hand out giveaways, where you are located at the trade show, and the clients or appointments you plan to see as well.
These trade show giveaway ideas are just to get your brain thinking of items and options. Don’t forget to consider how you will be handing out the giveaways, or whether you will have free swag and some more special gifts for the deals and prizes.
Blazer Exhibits has been helping businesses with their trade show vendor booth needs for more than 35 years. Let us help you get the perfect planning underway. Contact us today to learn more.