The usual scenario at trade shows are booths upon booths chock full of giveaways, and of course innumerable amounts of people lining up to get their hands on whatever freebies are available. Individuals walking around with over-stuffed bags, practically bursting with promotional items and giveaways are everywhere; it’s a scene all too familiar to regular trade show goers, especially a booth worker.

From a booth person’s perspective, those bursting bags aren’t just full of silly amounts of promo items, they’re also overflowing with flubs and failures. Yet, there is actual truth to such a statement. It is known that many companies use ill-planned and awfully orchestrated promotional campaigns at trade shows. Yet, not all do. Some have the upper hand and achieve prosperity. And those who are successful at trade shows with their giveaway items follow the following, rubric, if you will, to instill means to finely-tune and well-engineer their giveaway campaigns.

To position your company’s giveaway procedures ahead of other trade show booths and avoid contributing to bursting attendee bags, ask yourself the following questions:

What Is Your Item Achieving?

If your answer is nothing, that’s not good. What your premium item should seek and hopefully attain for company betterment are undertones of memorability, effectiveness in communication or motivation, positively-driven promotion and augmented admission. Messages that fail to communicate are ineffective, indefinitely. Be sure to make your message clear. Tailor a product that influences both through tangibility and sensibility.

What Item Is Best Suited For “Campaign X?”

The options are endless, but this doesn’t mean just any item will do or turns out to be perfect. Before selecting an item a defined intention must be underlined. Consider what your campaign is attempting to do with this prospective item. Is it intended to compliment a unified marketing theme, convey a particular or meaningful message or educate giveaway receivers for specific reasons?

By knowing exactly what your item’s purpose shall be the easier your selection process for a promotional item will pan out.

Who Will Be Getting Your Giveaway?

Better yet, ask “who would your company prefer distributing their promo item to?” Answering this question will better specify a target market or particular demographic to which a focus can be concentrated toward.

By honing in on specific people to target while at trade shows, a refined premium item can be selected and tailored as seen fit. And clearly, different targets will call for varied promo specifications. But, it is important to cater to these requirements, simply to not waste company investments and gain heightened target appeal come trade show unveiling.

How Much Is Enough, or Too Much?

Budgeting is important, but buying items of higher quality and thus higher value proves beneficial for any company on the hunt for that perfect and successful premium item.

Concerns for a budget plan should factor in promotional ordering issues such as quality, quantity and specialty requirements and/or requests. If saving money is preferred, as I’m sure it is, opt to order in bulk and recycle purchased promotional items for multiple trade show exhibits.

The above questions you should be asking for your company’s sake are only a few of the concerns that should be taken into account for successful premium undertakings at a trade show. These giveaway basics are great for foundational and preparatory purposes to utilize in initial campaign setups. Do the above and steer clear of supplying meaningless promo items to already stuffed attendee bags at your next trade show event.