How to Design a Successful Custom Shirt Strategy for Trade Shows.

True or False?

Using promotional shirts and apparels as your trade shows giveaway will always yield positive results for your business.

False.

Like any marketing strategy, giving away custom clothing will not always guarantee success to your campaign. All marketing strategies, from the simple distribution of promotional items to a nationwide tri-media campaign, are just tools that can help you reach your goals. The same is true when used in the trade show setting. The overall effectiveness of your trade show apparel giveaway strategy is largely dependent on how you wield these "tools" in relation to your target objectives.

Now, the next question that you should ask is this: How can you effectively wield a promotional giveaway strategy in attaining your goals?

Again, like any marketing strategy, there is no exact formula that you can follow in order to be successful. Every marketing guru will have his or her own “proven” approach in maximizing the ROI of your marketing budget, but in truth, there is no clear and exact path that will be applicable to all. The reason for this is that each industry, and each company in that industry will require a different set of strategies to fit their own strengths, culture, and values. Though, what is possible is to have a set of strategies that can serve as a skeletal framework for your own customized approach. This set of strategies, for certain, will not cover all the aspects that can help you achieve a successful marketing campaign. But what these strategies can only do is to provide you the guidelines that you should expand on to fit your own business.

And as for the trade show clothing strategy, below is the framework that your program should have:

1. Do an extensive research on your target market.

It's never about you, and it's always about them. Doing a thorough market research is something that should be present not just in the promotional items strategy, but in ALL marketing strategy. Remember, a trade show is the venue for you to meet your target market face-to-face. Even before you step inside that arena, you should already know what they want. That way, they become more responsive to your promotional strategy. Again, a trade show apparel strategy may or may not work for the occasion, but knowing your market well increases the likelihood of its success.

2. Evaluate and pick the best trade show where you can meet your target market.

Not all trade shows are for your company. It takes a lot of preparation, a good strategy and man power allocation just to attend one trade show. In choosing which trade show to participate in, take into consideration the geographic, demographic and psychographic factors that dictate who your target market is. For instance, if you are in the real estate industry, you might want to skip on attending a general construction summit. If this construction trade show is one on property development, that's when you can put it up for consideration.

3. Choose and design the perfect trade show clothing to fit your market, event, and brand.

Again, based on the segment you are targeting, you should choose the appropriate promotional product that your target market will appreciate. Design also plays a big factor in the success of your campaign. Examples of design issues to focus on are saliency of logo to t-shirt colors and the clarity of message on printed shirts.

4. Plan a distribution program for your promotional items during the trade show which should answer the following questions:

• How can your target market find or get attracted to your trade show booth during the event?
• How can you effectively distribute your trade show apparel?
• How can you deliver your message (sales pitch) or gather information from your target market (contact details) during the distribution process?

5. Create a system to organize all gathered info.

This step is often overlooked since most believe that the success of the promotional item campaign is only measured by the success of the event itself. But in truth, this step will separate the weak from the strong marketing strategy. A solid system in organizing your gathered info will often determine the ROI of your efforts.

6. Design a lead follow-up program from the gathered information.

In other words, call and follow-up on your gathered leads.

These 6 steps will guide you in making a promotional giveaway strategy, such as customized clothing, work for you. Again, you should remember that this is only a framework and your campaign should never be limited to what is provided above.

Marc Perez is a seasoned marketing veteran. His expertise range from below-the-line and above-the-line advertising to direct marketing strategies. He also specializes in promotional item marketing. Perez has written various articles about promotional products for authority sites and ezines. More promotional apparel articles are available at PersonalizeYourShirt.com

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