Promo Products For Events & Exhibitions

Promotional Products for Events, Exhibitions and Trade Shows

Exhibitions, events and trade shows pop up in almost every company’s marketing calendars and are an essential way to grow your brand, meet new customers, raise awareness and ultimately drive the success of your company.

Trade shows see thousands of eyes pass by your brand, but how can you make sure your business stands out?

We’ve compiled the ultimate guide to making sure you have the right promotional merchandise for the event itself and ideas for giveaways, freebies and brand marketing afterwards.

Promotional Product Ideas To Set You Up For Success

The first step to successfully exhibiting at a trade show or fair is getting your brand set up to get noticed. Whilst we can’t help you build your stand, we can help make sure the promotional merchandise for your event stand attracts the eye, shows off your logo and grabs people’s attention.

Teardrop banner flags are a great addition to your stand’s marketing, as you can easily pick them up and move them depending on the flow of traffic in order to maximise the attention they get. These are easy to set up and can be used for a variety of events such as conference meetings, trade fairs and, of course, exhibitions. These come with a simple carry bag to get to and from your event.

Another strong addition to your stand to grab attention are Roll up banners. These have a huge area for you to advertise your brand in full colour, they are set up in minutes and stand tall to attract the eyes of your customers at any event. They also make nice additions to the office post-event, adding colour and branding to the workspace!

On event day, you’ll have lots to think about, but the most important is often your return on investment (ROI). To make an event worthwhile you need to keep a busy stand, be engaging with visitors and make sure customers remember your brand. Promotional merchandise is great for driving attention and engagement.

One of our favourite ways of making sure your customers are talking to your staff is to ensure they clearly know who they are - which can be difficult at busy events! Promotional lanyards, T-shirts and name badges are a great way to do this.

Now, whilst you might not require that many for a particular event, these items can be used whenever your business is seen outside of the office - not just at trade shows but at photoshoots, external meetings and socials.

Event Giveaways & Freebies

Now your customers know who your staff are, how do you get them talking? That’s where the freebies come in. We recommend giving out freebies but ensuring that they are handed out by staff as opposed to just placed out on the stand. Having staff give out your freebies ensures that they fall into the right hands and that the customer has also had human interaction, which is far more memorable.

Great promotional gifts for freebies at events are curvy ball pens, with everyone exchanging business details, a pen is a useful and simple way to get your brand remembered not just at the event but after too!

Branded trolly coins are another great freebie because they are relatively low cost and re-used by almost everyone you gift them to because they are so handy!

At events, a silicone wristband is simple to hand out, gets your branding recognised and is a universal gift that can be worn by all your visitors. These stylish wristbands are a cool and colourful accessory - a modern, durable corporate giveaway at a low cost to appeal to a wide audience. These can be printed in full colour to flaunt your company message in an eye-catching design or embossed for a more permanent finish.

If you’re looking for something more modern to impress your clients with, promotional USB sticks are great items for your event strategy. This is a really useful gift which adds value to your customers as it’s a device they will use on a regular basis. They are available in a variety of different colours, designs and memory sizes.

Event Merchandise Creates the Right Impression

A recent industry survey asked respondents who received promotional items from trade shows how favourable their attitude was towards the firm who gave them the items. They were also asked how much more attractive the firm seemed after giving away the items.

The answers showed that 76% of respondents believed the company was more favourable whilst 78% found the organisation to be more attractive to them. Traffic is vital at a trade-show, there's no point in paying for a stall which doesn't attract any visitors. Promotional products give stalls the opportunity to boost their visitor numbers.

As Snickers said, ‘you’re not you when you’re hungry’, which is why snacks and food are a great giveaway for events. Whether you’ve been busy networking or just run an event like a triathlon, we’ve got promotional products for customers who have worked up an appetite!

Tinned mints are great for trade shows, as nobody wants to be left meeting new people with bad breath! These tins can be branded in colour and contain about 25g of mints to keep your customers minty fresh.

If you want a product that’s really going to stand out & get your customers drooling, Custom printed Toblerone’s are bound to be a hit. These make great prizes for competitions at trade shows, partnering your branding on an iconic chocolate bar. Hosting competitions is a great way to create a buzz around your stand and using promotional merchandise as prizes ensures your brand is remembered long after the competition is over.

Another great gift for events that can be enjoyed by visitors of all ages are Sweet cUPS. These can be branded with your logo on the label, which your customers can then refill time and time again.

Bag the Swag

Now, other stands may well have the same idea as you, after all, we know freebies work. But where are your customers putting all their newfound freebies? That’s where promotional bags come in!

There’s a reason these are one of our best-sellers. Handing out branded bags gives your staff an opportunity to connect with your customers, they’re useful throughout the event and they are likely to be used after too! These bags can be printed on both sides and are also eco-friendly. Be sure to fill them with your business cards, leaflets and literature before passing them to customers.

Spending the day on your feet interacting with customers can be really tough on your staff, so how better to keep them hydrated than with branded water bottles? You’ll also find event visitors, trade show staff and customers will appreciate this simple marketing device, we all get thirsty after all.

We’ve guided you through setting up your stand to achieve more, the most popular products for event giveaways and freebies, ideas on how to brand your staff and the best promotional snacks and drinks to keep you going; the rest of your success is down to you.