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Title: Are You Throwing Money Away?
Author: Susan Friedmann
Article:
Shopping for trade show giveaways can be an overwhelming
experience. One catalog is jammed with custom printed pens,
another showcases mouse pads. Your boss mentions that last year,
everyone was giving away really nice tote bags. The sales rep
really wants you to buy keychains that can play MP3's of your
marketing message set to popular tunes. But what happens to all
this stuff after the show? Let's follow one attendee, a buyer
from a mid-size manufacturing firm. Tired after spending three
days at the show, he's returned to his office. He's toting two
bags jam-packed with trade show tschokes, which he upends on his
desk. All those fancy pens? They get jammed in a cup on his
desk. Mouse pads go into a general office supply cupboard, on
the off chance one of his office staff wears their mouse pad
out. That seems unlikely - two or three are still in there from
last year's show. His secretary snapped up the tote bag - it'll
be perfect for her daughter to carry her ballet clothes in. And
the MP3 playing keychain? He's giving it to his teenage son. But
what's this? A booklet slides out of his tote bag. It's small -
just 3 ½ x 8 ½, somewhere between 16-24 pages. It fits perfectly
in his pocket - or in a purse, as he discovers when he hands it
over to one of his co-workers. The information contained in the
slender volume - tips, techniques, and strategies all related to
your products and services -- is just too good to keep to
himself. Of all the trade show giveaways, only the booklet has
done its job. Without being overpowering, it has educated the
buying public about your products and kept your company name and
logo in view. When the buyer needs to make a purchase, he'll
think back to what he read in your booklet - and he'll know
exactly who to call. Giving out booklets heightens your
company's credibility as an expert in the industry. When
prospects read your information, they perceive you as
knowledgeable. Booklets also clearly signal that you're
interested in pursuing a business relationship. Giving away
coffee mugs signals that you hope your prospect enjoys his
morning joe. Booklets offer a lot of bang for the buck. Anyone
in an industry who is selling or exhibiting at a trade show is a
candidate for using booklets as a promotional tool. They are
very cost effective. A company can create their own booklets,
have someone else produce them, or purchase someone else's
booklet on a topic of interest for their audience and have their
contact information printed on. No matter what method you
choose, booklets simply don't cost much to produce. They also
don't have an 'expiration' date. One print run can easily and
effectively carry you through the show season and be integrated
in other sales & marketing efforts. To get the most use out of
your booklets, be sure to pack them full of common sense, grass
roots, basic, practical, how-to information. Your customers
won't turn to a booklet for dry, theoretical information, so
don't waste time and money printing up journal articles. Keep it
current, relevant, and important. Address everyday concerns in
your industry. Sometimes the silver bullet answer everyone wants
turns out to be information that is known but simply forgotten.
The booklet serves as a reminder and reinforces your position as
an expert in the field. Once you have produced your booklet, you
can often find other organizations that can benefit from it.
Selling booklets - to your distributors, for example - can not
only help recoup your production costs, but actually generate
new revenue while continually marketing your own company. Other
ideas to consider include direct mail campaigns or licensing the
rights to your booklet to another company. If you license the
rights, you grant the client specific, limited production rights
to the booklet manuscript that your company owns. Successful
booklets often have to be translated into several languages to
meet market demand. Prospects for your booklets include the
vendors, suppliers, and manufacturers in your own industry. Each
is a marketing niche, with individual, specialized needs.
Approach them in a common sense way. These booklets provide
solutions to many of their problems! Last and definitely not
least, distributing booklets helps you garner a better ROI on
your tradeshow participation Some industries, such as the
pharmaceutical industry, are now making a concerted effort to
pull back on money spent on excessively expensive and
inappropriate giveaways with educational value. A booklet is
perfect in these situations because is helps you create
better-qualified leads. This in turn leads to larger sales over
a longer period of time with well-educated clients. When your
company makes one more sale because someone reads the booklet
you gave them, the investment of purchasing or creating the
booklet pays off handsomely. Buyers are far more likely to make
a purchase based upon information they've read than upon any
number of fancy-printed pens - even if they write with sparkly
gel ink!
About the author:
Written by Susan A. Friedmann,CSP, The Tradeshow Coach, Lake
Placid, NY, author: "Meeting & Event Planning for Dummies,"
working with companies to improve their meeting and event
success through coaching, consulting and training. For a free
copy of ExhibitSmart Tips of the Week, e-mail:
susan@thetradeshowcoach.com; website:
http://www.thetradeshowcoach.com
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