Trade Show Giveaways Frequently Asked Questions

You’re at a trade show and are possibly unsure about what would be appropriate to offer to patrons to draw them to your booth. Frequently asked questions about trade show giveaways are not as uncommon as you might think. 

But if you still have reservations about how to proceed, you’re not alone. Here are some frequently asked questions about trade show giveaways and corresponding answers that should help your business decide what would best help represent the company. 

Why Are Trade Show Giveaways a Good Idea?

You’re setting up a booth at a trade show. That in itself can be an expensive endeavor considering the rental of the space, and delivery and setup of the items. Yet you might still wonder what you can do to further draw potential customers in to talk to you.

Promotional products can be an effective way to accomplish this for a variety of reasons: 

• To further the goals of your marketing plan through brand awareness.
• To get your marketing message in front of your target audience.
• To engender goodwill by having a tradeshow giveaway that is useful.
• To paint the company in a positive light; for example, by issuing an eco-friendly gift.

These are just some of the ways that putting real thought into trade show giveaways can really give you an upper-hand over the competition. 

What Are Some Good Ideas For Tradeshow Giveaways?

The idea is for the show attendees to associate your company with positive attributes such as excellent work or products produced, trustworthiness, great value and reliability. So your aim should be to get products that are useful in some regard and preferably an item that is not of a one-time use variety or a product that is likely to get thrown into a drawer or cabinet somewhere and never looked at again.

One additional thing to keep in mind is that buying in bulk will almost certainly be cheaper per unit than buying in single or smaller quantities.

Some examples of items that fit into this category for your target market include:

Water bottle: This is a good two-fold promotional giveaway. First, everyone needs to drink water, so it is a gift that should be extremely useful. Also your company will be viewed in a positive light for gifting an eco-friendly and more sustainable gift than if you got bottled water with your company printed on it. The latter are extremely disposable and might be in a trash can within minutes. A water bottle likely won’t.

Coffee mug: In 2017, a survey by the National Coffee Association said that 64 percent of Americans 18 years and older have at least one cup of coffee per day. So there’s nearly a 2 out of 3 chance that the person sidling up to your booth drinks the beverage either hot or cold. A nice ceramic mug with your company’s branding on the side

USB drive: Not everyone wants to store their valuable information on the cloud, and it’s always good to have a backup even if you do. Giving this to those who stop by your booth will be an opportunity for them to see your company’s name and/or logo every time they access their stored memory on the stick. 

Mouse pad: You want the promo items you give out to be something omnipresent if possible. Many businesses still use desktops, which all include a mouse. Also, many laptop users add a bluetooth mouse for easier use, so you’d be covering most people who use a computer.

A tablet or laptop bag or sleeve: Although a cell phone case sounds like a good idea in theory, the sheer quantity of different phones would make giving those out completely impractical. However, laptops or tablets generally come in 2 to 3 standard sizes and most white collar businesses issue one or both to employees. You could get a 16-inch laptop sleeve, or 10-inch tablet sleeve and cover a plethora of devices, literally and figuratively.

Pens of good quality: To get nicer pens, it might cost more money upfront but the thinking is a better made pen will last longer, therefore stretching out the length of time your brand’s name is in front of a customer. A pen that can be reused and have its ink replaced is perfect as a promotional item.

Also this is not an end-all list. Depending on your business, some of these items might not be as impactful. Knowing your customer base will go a long way toward deciding on what to give out.

Did you know another way to attract customers to your booth is with food? Check out our list of 3 Trade Show Snack Ideas that Attendees with Love. 

How Should I Distribute My Trade Show Giveaways?

Some of the item ideas listed in the previous section might not be financially feasible to hand out to every single person who strolls by the booth. You might set up games, raffle drawings or reserve higher-end giveaways for patrons identified as current important or potential important clients.

You can also have a tiered system where certain potential customers get certain gifts. A good way to do this is if you send out invitations of some sort, you can color code them as an easy visual cue for the people working your booth to quickly know what to give out. If you expect to encounter casual passersby to the booth, a much cheaper item would be warranted for them.

Either way, it stands to reason that each individual person who visits your booth would be limited to a single item, mostly to try to keep down your own cost of how much you spend on giveaways. You want to limit or not make some costly trade show mistakes.

Ship Your Trade Show Giveaways With R+L Global Logistics

Now that you’d zeroed in on what you’d like your trade show giveaways to be, let R+L Global Logistics ship all your items to the next event. We can help load all your items at the point of origin and get them to the trade show with no fuss at all.

R+L Global Logistics will make sure everything for your trade show freight gets there on time and we have the 99.5 percent on-time rate to prove it. Also we partner with freight haulers all over the world to ensure we have a driver ready to ship your full truckload.

You’ll receive access to a team who’s done this work many times over and will do it right. We also have a great customer service team on call and real-time freight visibility to put your mind at ease through every step of the journey.

If you’re ready to have your trade show giveaways and booth materials shipped, start today by getting a free quote or calling us at 866-415-8986.