You Ask, I Answer: Vendor Swag Recommendations and Ideas?

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You Ask, I Answer: Vendor Swag Recommendations?

Holly asks, “Can you recommend some ideas for what makes cool vendor swag for tradeshows and events?”

Great question. Vendor swag needs to be:

Aligned to your brand – if people saw it, would they get a sense of who you are and what you do?
Unique or different – something others don’t have
Useful – something with a practical application
Obvious – it’s clear what it does
Safe/easy to travel with – avoid things airport security will take away
Valuable – a good differentiator
Sustainable – a lot of swag ends up in the trash, so either make it so valuable that no one would throw it away, or it easily breaks down if thrown away

The worst swag is the opposite of all the above – cheap carnival trash made of plastic, identical to every other vendor except the logo.

Today’s swag review featured ideas such as:

Etch a Sketch from Scribble Live
Multivoltage USB outlet from Mautic
Apigee screen cleaner
Computer case screwdriver from Code42
Yeti stuffed animal from Talkwalker
AC power bank from SHIFT Communications
Antler dog treats from World Innovators
Power bank from Social Media Marketing World
International travel outlet converter from Veeam
Screwdriver set from Pantheon.io
Apple AirPods from AirTable

You Ask, I Answer: Vendor Swag Recommendations?

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In today’s episode Holly asks, Can you recommend some ideas for what makes cool vendor swag for trade shows and events? a great question.

Swag.

folks in the industry love to say is an acronym stuff we all get.

vendor swag is supposed to be a memory aid is supposed to be something that you give away so that people remember who you are.

Or they remember your brand.

And ideally, they reach back out to you after the trade show and say, Hey, I remember this thing.

Let’s talk about, you know, let’s talk.

Rarely does it accomplish that goal.

Most of the time, it just ends up in a trash can because vendors prioritize things like cost over all other factors.

So there’s seven, the seven factors that the swag needs to have in order to be useful to learn to be memorable.

Number one, by far it must be a lot lines to your brand.

If people saw this piece of swag, would they understand who your company was and what they did.

So this one is a Screen Cleaner from Apigee Apigee has nothing to do with your screen Apigee is a cloud API service.

Right? So this is not a great fit.

Second, your your swag has to be unique or different something that others don’t have every booth all has pens and stress balls and socks, right? What’s different, what’s unique? Third, your swag should be useful.

Something that has a practical application again, there’s an awful lot of stuff out there you’re like okay.

Especially if you’re giving away stuff that’s intended for people’s either kids or some other person in the in the family unit for your swag should be obvious what it does, to be clear what it does this type of this This is a Screen Cleaner.

I was at a conference recently and somebody said is this breath spray liquid don’t spray that in your mouth that’s that’s toxic so your swag should be obvious five your swag should be easy and safe to travel with.

I was at this one show they gave away these phenomenal multi tools.

This has a knife on it.

This will get taken away at the airport.

Cool swag.

Can’t take it home.

Same with anything as liquid, right? No liquids.

Six, you sweat should be valuable.

It should be valuable not necessarily expensive, but valuable in some way that sets it apart as a differentiator, right people want this thing they will actively go to your booth to see the thing.

stuffed animals are always a positive one for that one.

And seven your swag should be sustainable.

either make it so valuable that people come to take it or make it compostable because an enormous amount of tradeshow swag ends up in a landfill.

And if it’s cheap plastic, guess what you’re making the world a worse place and the world swag is the above is all the above the opposite of it right cheek Carnival trash stuff crappy stuff made of plastic.

every vendor has it.

Nobody knows the difference.

So let me show you some examples of stuff that is good swag.

So this is one from Scribble Live.

This is an Etch-a-Sketch Mini Etch-a-Sketch for those of us who are Gen Xers, this is a nice throwback from the past great for kids.

And this is from Talkwalker This is their Velcro Yeti.

stuffed animals.

always an easy win as long as it’s a larger brand.

This is actually their mascot so it makes total sense that this would be swag.

Mark Hedo gives away these multi squids now five different connectors on here that connects and has a nice little clip for your backpack or belt.

Again, very useful right? and technology company piece of technology makes total sense.

This one is interesting.

This one is world innovators.

I took this one because it is actual his dog treats from the town that they’re based in a lot event To the credit, make stuff that are great for kids.

But for those who are pet parents have for babies.

They’re drastically underserved dog toys, cat toys, things like that.

If you want to set yourself apart from all the other stuff, tried to somebody animals, so you also have their loyalty for like life.

On the topic of useful Pantheon, which is an IT company, a development company gives way a really nice screwdriver set, very useful.

Very different, right? It looks different, it’s useful, it’s unique, and I’ve never seen another vendor have this, or even something quite like this with this much robustness, always super useful piece of swag there.

Veeam International technology company gives away international power adapter, very, very sensible, especially if you are doing any kind of work with outsourcing and you’re trying to attract audiences from multiple locations.

smart choice.

Alliance well, Social Media Marketing World power banks, right And these are actually nice one so this is not necessarily unique in and of itself a lot of people do give away really crappy power banks.

These are really really nice ones.

So there’s they want the valuable route as a differentiator.

Speaking of Callbacks that probably the the one that I had commissioned from Ali Baba is this massive one.

This is from my previous employer shift communications.

This is unique because has an AC power outlet it can actually plug regular appliances into this thing.

Now these things are expensive, like 80 bucks each, but for holiday gifts for clients, or for maybe just speakers at your conference, super useful.

No one will ever argue about a power bank that’s that large and then we get into some other stuff here.

stuff that is definitely possible.

We got Mautic gives away a nice power block that has multiple USB outlets with multiple voltages on it.

So not just the cheap one out blocks but actually has 2.1 amps which will charge larger devices useful technology company piece of tech Technology code 42 screwdriver same idea smaller, less, less expensive to the Pantheon one intended for if you look carefully This is all these are only for working on specific types of computers again, totally logical that this would be computer only.

And then probably the one that stands out the most.

This would this was a speaker gift because obviously be an arm and a leg to do this for everybody air table gave away AirPods right brand name brand resonance, smart choice, super valuable.

But AirPods from AirTable just kind of rolls off the tongue.

So these are all examples and the price points very well like if you if you go to Alibaba and you do the whole procurement process with an outsource or somewhere in another nation.

You can get some of these things for like crazy, crazy, inexpensive prices.

These power squids, you can get them for about like 1520 cents apiece, you have to order 10,000 of them.

But well done.

This one’s nice because the cables are long on it.

So you don’t necessarily have to spend a huge amount of money you do have to invest a lot of time thinking about it.

When we commissioned these habits, it took me probably the better part of two months not consistent work.

to just look through vendors, look through options, see what who could even engineer something that had a power bank with an AC outlet on it.

And it took a lot of thinking, like what is aligned to the brand, what is aligned, what is useful, what is powerful, what is safe, what is obvious.

And so you want to use those criteria when you’re selecting trade show swag, alignment, unique, useful, obvious, safe, valuable and sustainable.

That’s the criteria to make trade show swag that stands out.

Good luck with it.

It is a lot of fun.

It’s like Christmas or the gift giving holiday of your choice.

But it is something you can do on your company’s budget.

So hopefully you found these tips useful as always, please leave your comments below.

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