The UK events industry is a humungous sector by any measures, over 1.3 million business events are held in the UK every year! Through exhibitions and trade fairs alone, the UK attracts over 13 million visitors, generating £11 billion spend. The amazing part is the events industry hasn’t even reached its peak yet with 83% of agencies predicting a growing headcount for next year. But how can these events continue to grow, what brings people back year upon year to these trade shows and exhibitions?
The world of events is incredibly versatile to say the least, as the years go by the visitors change, and as they change, their needs and requirements change, for example 20 years ago, do you think there was a requirement for widespread Wi-Fi? Now free Wi-Fi is almost a pre-requisite feature when selecting an event venue. It is this constantly changing adaptability combined with great exhibition and trade show content that seems to be the reason why trade shows and exhibitions continue to thrive today. One aspect that has remained the same is the corporate gifts and giveaways or as they are known across the pond ‘Swag Bags!’
Today more than ever the success or failure of your event can pivot upon the gifts you distribute, I saw an example of this earlier in the year when a blogger was judging the success of a large tech conference before the event, solely judged on the contents of the goodie bag. Ultimately it is important to thank the attendees at your events because without them your event is sure to be a failure, but how you thank them is purely up to you.
There are so many instances that provide you with the opportunity to thank people for attending your event:
- Thanking people for registering for event as described in previous blog, this can be done before or during the event
- Exhibiting at a show and thanking people for visiting your stand by distributing trade show giveaways
- Thanking people on entry to your event with a bag containing information and show guide, this gives the person a bag to collect items from previous scenario
- Thanking people for coming as they leave your event with a bag containing a selection of gifts
- Thanking people for coming to your conference providing them with the tools they need during the event
Each one of these scenarios require a different strategy, for example the exhibition giveaways would need to be a product that you can buy enough of to distribute to everyone who visits your stand. This product needs to be affordable whilst remaining interesting enough that people would want to keep it and use for brand re-call purposes. On the other hand you have scenarios where you will need to give corporate gifts to VIP attendees, these gifts should pertain a high perceived value to reflect the importance of that person visiting your event.
Whatever your event is the message seems to be clear, it is important to thank people for attending, as they may become a loyal customer, and if you’d like to learn more about loyal customers check out yesterday’s blog!