Swag Ideas to Attract Crowds to Your Trade Show Booth

Swag Ideas to Attract Crowds to Your Trade Show Booth

Trade shows are an excellent opportunity to get your brand seen by consumers, industry partners, and potential investors. Yet, you certainly won’t be alone in aiming for this goal. Any show will have multiple brands vying for the attention of the crowds.

Indeed, the qualities of your brand speak for themselves. Your staff may be excellent ambassadors, too. But you also must get attendees to come close enough to experience these things. Among the elements that can help here is the swag you have to offer. Let’s look at some considerations that enable you to make strategic choices to boost your show visibility.

Be Practical

One of the characteristics of trade shows is that most brands will provide attendees with some kind of swag. You want to avoid giving the impression that your merch is just going to sit around in the junk drawer. Just another beer koozie is unlikely to bring people to your booth. On the other hand, offering practical items is more enticing and likely to forge positive associations with your company.

So, what are we talking about when it comes to practicality?

Everyday Use Items

Practical swag should focus on the types of items people use in their everyday lives. This giving approach is a way to insert reminders of your brand into their daily activities. They’re also items that — even when they’re not directly using your services — serve their needs. 

Some common things that can be useful here include branded tote bags, reusable water bottles, or portable chargers. Note that “everyday use” doesn’t apply to everyone, and you should still market to your target audience. For example, if you’re targeting men in home improvement, offer tools every man should have in his garage. For instance, tape measures — either metal, fabric, or digital — are compact items they can use to start projects. They’re also easily brandable. If you’re targeting sneakerheads, offer branded socks and laces.

Durable items

The applications of your swag are unlikely to be practical if they’re made from materials that easily fall apart. Yes, investing in swag — particularly for large events — pushes per-item costs up. Nevertheless, avoid sacrificing the quality and durability of items for low prices if you can. Firstly, longer-lasting items will stick around with attendees, leaving a more significant impact on their lives. Additionally, the item's durability sends the message that your company cares about quality, which influences brand perception. Sometimes, buying more items per order saves money without sacrificing quality, as many print-on-demand companies reward larger purchases with lower prices. If this isn’t a standard offer with the company you’re buying from, there’s no harm in reaching out to ask for a discount.

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Reflect Shared Values

More brands are recognizing how important shared values are to customer relationships. When attendees see that your company has a commitment to the same ethical standards they hold, it shows you’re in alignment with the holistic impact they want to have on the world around them. Your approach to offering swag at trade shows can help you attract more ethically conscious consumers to your booth.

A good example here is the growing importance of sustainability to consumers, with many people making purchasing decisions based on a brand’s environmental values. Consumers want to reduce the harm they’re doing to the planet, influencing the brands they interact with. Alongside being proactive about reducing emissions and investing in renewable energy, your swag at trade shows should have high sustainability standards. Prioritize merch made from recyclable or biodegradable materials. Bamboo notebooks and reusable straws can both be practical tools while relaying the importance of ethics to your business model.

Another component of using swag for shared values is communicating social responsibility. Consumers want to know that a company will have a positive impact on communities, rather than just pushing for profit. For instance, invest in branded coffee from fair trade farmers or tools manufactured by small local businesses. With your practical swag items, you can state that for every item given away to attendees, you will donate another to local charities.    

Distribute to Maximize Engagement

The swag itself is not the only key to attracting crowds at trade shows. Your approach to distributing the great items you’ve invested in is also important. By being strategic here, you can boost engagement.

There are various tactics you can employ, including:

• Utility-driven engagement: Get swag that enables utility-driven engagement. Effectively, this means that attendees can start using it immediately — for instance, lanyards, pens, and hand sanitizers. You get to have immediate and relevant conversations with attendees and get positive responses.
• Strategic swag placement: Your booth layout should be designed to get people to learn more about your brand and interact with your reps. Where you put merchandise can help here. You can place eye-catching swag-for-all items at the outskirts of the booth to draw attendees closer. From here, you can showcase premium or more exclusive merch that draws them in further.

Alongside these methods of distribution during the show, you can also consider teasing your items beforehand. Targeted outreach is a good way to draw audiences at trade shows, and you can use your emails to industry contacts or your adverts in industry press to highlight that you’ll be at the event and giving out interesting merchandise. This can drive interest in what you’re doing and make yours a must-attend booth.

Conclusion

Your swag isn’t the be-all and end-all of your trade show success, but it can certainly make a difference. Ensuring you make strategic choices around the quality of merchandise, how you present it, and how it represents your brand can encourage connections with attendees. Be sure to get feedback on your swag, too. By discovering what attendees did or didn't like, you can make informed choices for the future.

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