You launch a great social media contest you have been planning for weeks. You have everything prepared and ready to go. You’ve done contests before and know they work well for your business. You post the prize but….no one’s participating.
What’s going on?!
Or perhaps you are at a trade show. Everyone seemed super interested in your company and took your giveaway items. But no calls, no referrals, nothing. You thought the trade show was a great success but…maybe it wasn’t after all.
Or maybe – you’re making mistakes with your swag and giveaway items and you don’t even realize it.
5 Common Mistakes of Business Swag
Swag is great, but you have to make sure you’re using it correctly. During this busy holiday season, you just can’t afford to be making mistakes with your swag. Here are five common mistakes you may be making, and how to avoid them:
- Your swag is irrelevant to your audience. No one’s participating in your contest because the prize is just not appealing to them. For instance, if you’re a business in Florida hosting a Facebook contest, and most of your customers are in Florida, but your prize is a mittens and hat set (in August, no less), then very few will participate. You have to pick items that you know your customers will like, appreciate, and that are timely for the season. Otherwise, there’s really no incentive. However, if you host that same contest on a chilly 65-degree day in Florida, you’ll have people begging to win.
- You didn’t include the most important information. Or even worse, you didn’t proofread first! The reason everyone took your giveaway items at the trade show but no one came into your business could be because you had a typo on your items. It’s always important to double and triple check to make sure your email, phone number, and address are all displayed and spelled correctly. It’s a very small thing that can cost you a lot of business.
- The swag you’re offering is not worth the effort of the contest. If you’re hosting a contest where you ask people to like, share, tag a friend, go on a scavenger hunt, run 3 miles uphill…and all that you’re offering is a pen, then no one’s going to do it. The more a contest asks of someone, the better the prize should be. You need to gauge how much effort you’re really asking of your participants and then plan your giveaways accordingly.
- You ran out of items. Whether at a trade show, festival, fair or another town event, it’s hard to judge how much swag you should bring with you. But worse than having bad swag is having no swag at all. You should always bring back-up swag in case this happens.
- Your swag needs a user’s manual. No one wants a giveaway item that they can’t figure out how to use. If there are too many steps, pieces, and parts, it’s going to confuse your customers and they’ll just leave it. That doesn’t mean you need to shy away from new swag items. For instance, some recipients might not know what a phone popsocket is but the item can be quickly demonstrated and the utility is easy to understand. But if you need a 30-page manual in order to use it, pick something else unless you have a crowd that adores reading tech manuals.
Your swag needs to be relevant, usable, and worth the effort, or else it’s not even worth your effort to purchase it the first place. Swag is a fun and versatile marketing tool. At ThinkQuik, we can help you avoid these common mistakes with your swag and giveaway items so you can concentrate on conversions and watch the sales flow in.
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