Hey, it’s Anders here, at The Infotainers HQ. This is probably the most casual you’re going to ever see me dressed. But it’s on purpose. It’s by design, not by default. This is a t-shirt from some of my clients. I have a bunch of them here. I tend to collect a lot of them. Just only from clients, not from other booths. But t-shirts, especially in the tech industry, are the best booth bait, the best giveaways. Because they don’t cost a ton, and yet you can get so much for them. People will go nuts for them. In fact, back at Tech Ed, formerly, what is now MS Ignite, they used to say that people wouldn’t even pack all of their clothes. They’d just wear one t-shirt and they’d pick up the rest of their shirts from the rest of the conference. So t-shirts are very powerful.
You can make people do a lot of things for them. They will go crazy for them. You can make them watch a demo, make them watch a presentation, of course you’re going to scan their badge. You want to make them work for it. Now here’s a few things that I just want to talk about that you can do with t-shirts. One of them is that you want to make sure that you’re at a vertical show for you. Meaning, majority of the attendees are prospects for you. If you’re at a horizontal show and you’re giving out t-shirts, you’re not going to get the same bang for your buck. In fact you’re going to give away a lot of t-shirts to a lot of people who aren’t prospective clients and that’s a problem. So you want to it at a vertical show, only, to make this really worth your while. Got it?
The other thing you want to think about is, is the fact that t-shirts are logistically a nightmare. You have to have a place to store all these boxes. You have to have different sizes. You kind of got to know your demographic, what kind of sizes they’re going to be most of the time. Are they going to be a little on the bigger side, or are they going to be smaller? Are there a lot more women, men? That kind of thing. T-shirts will be unisex but the sizes will be of concern.
If you are using t-shirts there’s a few other things you can do. You can have a wear-it-to-win contest. A wear-it-to-win contest is where you have a draw, everyone gets a ticket, and you show up wearing the shirt of the company, and then you do a live draw. So you have to be present to win. And if you’re wearing the shirt, and you get the draw, you win the prize. And it looks great for your trade show booth to have like a hundred, two hundred people, around your booth, wearing your shirts. It’s great third party credibility. I highly recommend it.
One thing you really want to make sure you don’t do. You want to make sure you stick to your rules. If you have to wear it to win, make sure they’re wearing it when they win. Don’t give them the prize if they’re not wearing it. A few years back at VMworld 2011 or something – I’m going to put a link, put a video below this, so you can check it out – a company called FalconStor had a draw for a Segway, it was wear-it-to-win, and they gave it away to someone who wasn’t actually wearing the shirt. It caused a riot. You’ll have to check out the video, it’s great.
So, t-shirts–highly recommend using them as a giveaway in your booth. Don’t rely on them as your only source of traffic, though. Because when you run out, what are you going to do? Something to think about. All right. Thanks for watching.
Looking to add t-shirts to your trade show giveaway arsenal? Touch base with my friend Roz at www.EverythingLogo.com.
Here’s the video I mentioned that results in a t-shirt throwing riot. Don’t do this!