Trade Show Giveaway Blunders

By Mark Brousseau

At almost every trade show, including TAWPI’s Forums & Expo (yes, that was a shameless plug!), exhibitors give away countless promotional items in hopes of influencing attendees’ decisions to buy their products and services. It’s easy for exhibitors to rack up a considerable tab for these give away items (or tchotchkes, as marketing types refer to them).

But do they work? That depends on how effectively exhibitors use them, says Candy Adams in an article in the March issue of Exhibitor Magazine. Without proper planning and execution, giveaways can be a waste of money, Adams writes. She passes along the following 12 common giveaway blunders:

1. Choosing your giveaway before setting objectives.
2. Misunderstanding your target audience.
3. Selecting giveaways in a vacuum.
4. Giving the same gift to all levels of customers or prospects.
5. Giving away items banned by show management.
6. Not considering the total cost of your giveaways.
7. Distributing low-quality items.
8. Winning the Tacky and Tasteless Award.
9. Omitting your message or logo.
10. Creating an unrelated contest.
11. Just laying your company’s giveaways out on the counter for any passing booth beggar.
12. Making your promotion a one-time show.

Have you seen a company that used giveaways especially well? E-mail me at m_brousseau@msn.com.

Reduce Trade Show Costs

By Mark Brousseau

Potential recession aside, exhibitors always are on the lookout for ways to get more bang out of their trade show buck. One strategy may be to minimize costs and avoid unnecessary charges on their material-handling bill. In the February issue of Exhibitor Magazine, exhibit-management consultant Candy Adams provides the following six ways to save money on material handling:

Stop shipping unnecessary items. Think: massive quantities of literature.

Consolidate small shipments. General services contractors typically charge exhibitors a weight minimum for each shipment they handle, which can add up.

Choose your shipping method carefully. Palletizing your pad-wrapped pieces can mean significant savings, for example.

Meet the inbound target dates and times. If your carrier misses the targeted window of time for its truck to arrive in the marshalling yard to unload your freight, you’ll be saddled with additional material-handling surcharges or penalties, Adams notes.

Verify weight slips. Adams recommends stopping at the service desk the day after your freight arrives on site and ask to see your inbound certified weight slips.

Audit your material-handling invoice. Review every line item of your general services contractor’s invoice to make sure your have been billed correctly.

Do you have any tips to pass along? E-mail me at m_brousseau@msn.com.

The Skinny On Trade Shows

By Mark Brousseau

Many vendors wonder about the true costs of exhibiting at trade shows. Now, Exhibit Surveys Inc.'s 2006 Trade Show Trends Report provides some answers. According to the study, exhibitors spend an average of $126 per attendee that enters their exhibit and expresses an interest in their products and/or services. Moreover, exhibitors spend an average of $236 per attendee that engages in conversation with a staff member. How does this compare to your company's exhibit costs? E-mail me at m_brousseau@msn.com.

Setting Trade Show Expectations

By Mark Brousseau

Go to any trade show – big, small, crowded or sparsely attended – and you’re sure to hear some vendors grousing about how lousy it was. Quite often, the problem isn’t the trade show; it’s the lack of objectives and expectations that the grumbling exhibitors set for the show.

Many exhibitors try to determine their expectations for trade show expenditures after the fact. These same companies would never dream of embarking on a product development initiative without setting clear objectives, so why in the world would they spend considerable time and money on a trade show without doing the same?

What companies need to do is define clear objectives and expectations before ever placing a deposit on their booth space. These objectives might include generating a specific number of leads, building corporate visibility, meeting potential partners, coddling key customers, providing so many product demonstrations, or creating buzz about a concept.

With these objectives in place, exhibitors avoid the sliding scale of expectations that typically leads to disappointment (and uncomfortable conversations with the senior management who sign off on the expenditures). These objectives also enable exhibitors maximize their expenditures by helping ensure that they don’t buy too much (or too little) booth space, bring too many people (or the wrong people), print the wrong product collateral (or too much), have a needless or inappropriate booth giveaway (more on this another day), or create the wrong product demonstrations or booth signage. Want to know more? E-mail me at m_brousseau@msn.com.