Trade Show Promotional Products

The key to a successful trade show is understanding the power of your promotional products.

It unlocks the door of interaction, regardless of how rusty it's feeling that day. It creates that first point of contact between you and potential clients- because at the end of the day, with hands-full of flyers, catalogues and business cards, who isn’t going to make a beeline for the stand giving out free bags?

Promotional gifts will always be the most highly regarded form of advertisement with consumers because they inspire positive emotion; they make people happy. Regardless of attending as a buyer or a visitor, there comes a point at any trade show where you start to wander aimlessly, awkwardly avoiding eye contact with the stand holders who hover at the side-lines, ready to pounce at the smallest flicker of a glance in their direction and recite their pitch to you.

Don’t get me wrong, a well put together pitch is important, but it is that initial interaction that is key, and that needs to happen naturally. Make me, come to you. This summer I attended a large stationary show in London. Temperatures soared and the length of the drink line was upsetting.

A man walked past me with a branded bottle of water. “Excuse me”, I gasped at him, “where did you get that?” He pointed out a stand and I matched the logo on the bottle to the stall and a group of dehydrated eavesdroppers raced to it.

I am now at the stand, and I want to kneel down and kiss the women’s feet for being so thoughtful- but mostly for having the foresight to check the weather and use it to her advantage by way of a promotional product.

I tell her this and she laughs- but note how I have come to her, and I have started the conversation. As she hands me the bottle she tells me about her company and the work they do. I sit and thoroughly browse her catalogue as I sip my water, and as her colleague offers me a top-up we exchange contact details.

At the end of the day, no matter how good you think the product you’re selling is, it’s the promotional products that will instinctively draw the crowds to you at a trade show. After all, the sign of any good company is one that invests in itself.