Custom Promotional Items to Boost Your Brand

Going to a trade show or convention is a fantastic way for you to advertise your company to new people, make essential connections with other businesses in your sphere, and maybe even acquire a few ideas from your peers. Given that you can’t attend every show that crops up, however, you need to make sure that the ones you do attend garner as much attention as possible. Likewise, how you present yourself during the event will greatly influence further consumer and competitor reactions to your brand.

Promotional gear can be a great way to do this while leveraging an immediate positive interaction -- everyone loves free stuff.

Such items not only generate goodwill and brand awareness while at a show, particularly snazzy promotional gear can also create a fantastic means to break the ice and get talking with potential clients and connections. Take the opportunity to discuss the product if it ties in with what your company offers, or to ask the recipient what brought them to your stand.

Hats, T-Shirts, and Hoodies

Among the easiest and snazziest ways to promote your brand during the show is to get a hold of some branded clothing. Hats, t-shirts and hoodies are all excellent pieces of clothing to get branded as a way to promote your business, as they’re immediately visible to anyone approaching you and can be a little more light-hearted and casual than some other forms of advertising. This, in turn, makes your booth more approachable, more interesting, and less intimidating.

While such branded clothing is a good way to suggest a laid back and approachable appearance, it’s also rather professional, especially if you have more than one person at your table. Clothing specific to your brand functions almost like a uniform, creating a sense of unified purpose and making people more trusting of your brand. This way, you can promote yourselves as a company to be taken seriously without appearing too amateurish or too stuffy. Businesses like Ragehats can make this easy and cost-effective, frequently even allowing you to design the clothing right on their website.

One thing to keep in mind: sizes. If you are going to supply clothes, make sure you have plenty of sizes to ensure you have something comfortable for everyone. However this may create issues with both getting hold of sufficient numbers of different shirts, and finding ways to transport them to and storing them at the show.

Special Offers and Free Snazzy Promotional Items

Remember that trading shows and conventions are special events. And as a special event, they should come with special promotion. Therefore, a good way to raise more awareness about your brand is to offer people something, just for visiting your stall.

Nothing gets people to like you more than free or discounted stuff.

When giving away items at a show, you need to be careful to strike that delicate balance between desirability and cost. On one hand, you want the items to be something people visiting your table will actually want or find useful. On the other, you need to also make sure that you can actually afford the expense of such charity. Otherwise, you’ll wind up with one of two scenarios: either visitors will be turned away by your perceived cheapness, or you wind up paying more for the promotion than you'll get from the additional attention.

Good examples of promotional items you can give out at a tradeshow or convention include phone covers, caps and t-shirts, mouse pads, mugs, pencil cases, USB thumbdrives, and bumper stickers. All these can be cheaply made and mass produced for trade shows at most printing stores.

Apps

This is especially essential if your brand focuses on apps or SaaS as its main point of business. Create a simple, free or cheap downloadable app specifically for the convention that showcases what you and your company can do, as well as other goods and services it can offer. These do not need to be very in-depth or complex, however, do take the opportunity to show off what your skillsets when creating them.

Branded Water Bottles

Conventions and trade shows frequently involve a lot of walking around dry, sometimes dusty buildings, constantly talking to people about fairly serious matters of business. And the available concessions are seldom cheap. Enter the monogrammed water bottle. Not only do visitors have something to keep them hydrated, you can get some free advertising out of it as well. Further, it’s a little more practical (at least in an immediate sense) than a phone case or car USB charger, and will make the recipient better inclined towards your brand. These are people, after all...which, in a way, brings us to an ample close: no matter who you intend to speak to with your marketing or promotions, you're speaking to people.