Promotional Items For Trade Shows

Even companies that seldom do marketing and fulfillment often buy promotional items for trade shows. Trade shows, where industries go to show off their newest and brightest ideas, are also the place where most companies spend big dollars on promotional items because the people they impress at trade shows are the people who can make or break a new product or product line.

Promotional gifts at trade shows fall into three different categories:

Attention getters
Every trade show stand has to have something to give away that is inexpensive, easy to carry and very visible. That something should, of course, have the name of your company and/or product on it. It should be something that is useful enough that those who take one with take them home at the end of the show and continue to use them, therefore increasing the visibility of your brand name and product.

The problem is that most companies presenting at trade shows and home shows and bridal shows and other types of shows where promotional items are an expected thing never get past the “inexpensive” part of the suggestion. They happily order up hundreds of cheap plastic key rings or pens and put them out on the table at their booth, then wonder whether they ever really got their money’s worth.

Of course they didn’t! Think about it. What do you do with a pen when it’s handed to you as you’re walking around? Most people… tuck it into a pocket. Where no one else will see it. Plastic pens are great promotional gifts, but they’re generally hot effective as attention getters at trade shows. One of the very best trade show takeaways is – believe it or not – the lowly carrier bag. Think about it again – if everyone around you is handing you key rings and pens and little gimcracks, what are you going to be most thankful for? There you go. Everyone else’s carefully planned promotional items will get dropped right into yours – and your name will be all over the show.

Incentive gifts
The second category of promotional items at a trade show or exhibition is incentive gifts. You’re handing out your attention getters willy nilly to anyone that walks by… but people have to earn your incentive promotional items by doing something – preferably something that will lead to a sale of your products or services. These promotional items should be more valuable than your attention getters, but not so expensive that they break your advertising budget. A good rule of thumb is to figure out how much you’re willing to pay to make a sale, then divide it by the number of prospects you usually need to pitch to before you make a sale. Basically, your incentive gifts are “payment” to people to listen to your sales pitch or sign up for your contact list.

Thank you gifts
The final category of promotional items you should have on hand at your trade show is thank you gifts. As opposed to incentive gifts, which are meant to entice people into listening to your sales pitch or setting up an appointment with your sales staff, thank you gifts are for those who actually commit to a purchase, as well as for those people who have the potential to bring in really big orders. These are the most valuable tier of promotional items, meant to impress and solidify business relationships.

For additional information on promotional items, business gifts and marketing promotional products why not check out the market leading online suppliers where you will find a massive range of items to choose from and also get exceptionally low prices combined with highly professional fast service levels.

Gareth Parkin is the co-founder of Ideasbynet, the UK's leading online promotional items and promotional products company based in the north of England. Established in 2001, he has taken the UK gift market by storm by the application of modern business thinking and the latest search engine marketing techniques. For more details visit www.ideasbynet.com