However, most business owners tend to forget a few things when choosing the promotional items for trade shows. When selecting the most suitable promotional giveaways to effectively market your business during trade shows, the first thing you should avoid is to buy promotional items that are trash can material. These materials are definite ‘throwables’.

Don’t spend your hard earned money on giveaways that do not get the job done. Provide ‘reusable’ merchandise that your target customers get to use over and over again, which can increase your retention in your customers’ minds. Invest on items that have value for your clients like fridge magnets or notepads perhaps. Remember that items seen by your target customers everyday are those likely to give you the most return.

Similarly, do not waste your time on promotional giveaways that do not qualify or target your customers. Let’s take for example your business card printing pieces. You don’t just hand them out to every person who walks past your booth. More than likely that half of your color business cards would just be thrown in the garbage even before these people get to their homes and sort them out. These equals to wasted money and time that you’ve invested to get them printed.

When giving out your print cards, you know that you should only hand them out to those who actually need your product or service, and who are more likely to purchase from you. Don’t waste your time and effort in getting the attention of those who don’t need your product. The key here is to efficiently target your efforts on those who’ll give more value to your items rather than just another freebie to take home.

Another thing that you should avoid is to put too much attention on getting new leads and forgetting about your current customers. Maintaining your roster of existing customers is also a full time job. You can build loyalty among your customers by using your promotional giveaways to say “thank you" or to just make them feel important.

And lastly, don’t base your choice on price alone. Always think of quality first. When it comes to choosing the promotional material for your trade show, be it usable items or print materials such as your postcard printing pieces, make sure that your item would last so that your customers would also remember you for many years to come.