Exhibitions or trade fairs can be excellent places to hand out promotional gifts. The fact is, however, that planning for these events can often be far more challenging than planning for a standard promotional gift campaign would be.

Why is it so challenging

There are several different factors that can make planning promotional gift campaigns that work in an exhibition setting much more of a challenge. You need to consider a number of different factors that you would not need to think about if you were simply handing out items to customers either as a thank you for sales or as a part of cold calling.

Numbers alone can be problematic

The first factor is that you may need a larger number of promotional gifts if you are handing them out at a trade show or exhibition. These events are often well attended and you want to make sure that you have a large enough stock of items. This can mean that due to budgetary constraints, you will need to think carefully about the cost of the items you will be handing out.

You also do not want to appear cheap by handing out poorly made items or items that do not have anything to do with your company. While it is possible to get past these issues it may mean that you will need to do much more research in order to come up with suitable gift choices.

A wide range of tastes can be difficult to contend with

Because there is a wider range of people attending an exhibition or trade show it may seem challenging to pick an item that will be more universally appealing. You may be trying to draw new customers in by handing out promotional gifts but if you give trade show attendees items they do not want there is a good choice that they will simply be discarded. This means that you may not end up with a good return on the cost of ordering the gift items in the first place.

Time frames can be an issue

Time frames can be an issue especially if you want to become involved with an exhibition or trade show on very short notice. A large number of items can take some time to manufacture or personalize and this means that they would need to be ordered well in advance. If you are coming into the planning stage at a later date you may find that the range of items you can choose is drastically reduced.