The Way to Your Audience’s Heart is Through Shwag

I’m a sucker for free stuff. My very first forays onto the internet in 1995 consisted of scouring the 5 sites out in cyberspace for free samples, whether I needed them or not. So you can believe my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw the goodies we got at BlogHer 08 (and I fear I may have missed a third bag by not attending the last party). Product samples, magazines, books, candy, free memberships to online sites, shirts…the list is exhausting. See?

I’ve written before about the importance of investing in better promotional products and not wasting your money on crappy pens no one wants. But the shwag we got went beyond that. I hate getting t-shirts, because I don’t wear them. But at the conference I found myself elbowing people to get shirts from picnik and Café Press because they were actually cool. And you know what? I’m going to check them out online. Picnik also gave us a 1 year membership to their online photo editing website. Yea boy.

I could go on and on about what I scored, but this plane seat is hurting my back end. So, if you’re going to spend money on promotional products, do it in a way that will make people excited. Pens and notepads do not. Kits to check the level of alcohol in your breast milk do. (Well, they would have gotten me excited 3 years ago when my son was a baby) If you create a buzz, you will win new customers. That being said, how do you create a buzz without falling flat on your face?

1. Know your audience. We were a bunch of bloggers, primarily women and mothers. The shwag was heavy into chocolate and cute shirts, as well as cool stuff for our kids.

2. Choose an experience or a product. Products aren’t the only way to go. BlogHer had awesome experiences, like a Sesame Street room with Grover (in person and on cupcakes) and Microsoft experts on hand to answer tech questions. Boca Burgers sponsored a snack break with samples. Intuit offered free computer maintenance makeovers. Sometimes the experience is easier to send home with future customers.

3. Be smart about the shwag. Most of the attendees at BlogHer flew there. So the large Method bottle of body wash got left behind because a) it stunk and b) it was waaay too heavy. Shwag smaller and smarter.

And as a sidenote, there was a very cool company called Zwaggle there that took the shwag we didn’t want and recycled it or gave it to some deserving group. I’m not sure how many magic 8 balls or kid luggage tags the poor need, but it was a nice gesture, and better than throwing it away.