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Top 5 reasons to avoid Attendee Bag sponsorships

Posted on 05. Sep, 2008 by PJS in Promo items and concepts, Tradeshow tips and tiffs

You’ve fundamentally decided to exhibit at a show.  Now it’s time to choose your exhibit package.  Of course these package options consist of various levels and each level holds its own set of benefits.                     
So based on your goals and more than not, budget, you secure your package.  Now is the time when the show coordinators start pushing the “Additional Marketing Opportunities/Sponsorships”.  Now there are a lot of additional marketing opportunities. I’ve facilitated over 200 shows and probably seen them all, but the one that is almost always a standard is the Attendee Bag sponsorship.  STAY FAR AWAY my marketing brethrens. 

The opportunity:  Pay a fee and show will insert representation from your company in the attendee bag. This representation is typically a collateral piece.  In some cases you may be able to insert a “show approved” promotional item, but this is usually at small shows. 

In theory this seems like a great idea. Every attendee gets an Attendee Bag, your collateral is in each bag, so you are reaching out to every attendee.  Newcomers to exhibiting shows get ALL FIRED UP OVER THIS.  “Oh my God, we’ve hit the mother load.  We can reach out to 20,000 people without speaking to a soul.  Call the show manager, maybe we can cancel the booth and just go with the Attendee Bag”.

THIS IS NOT THE CASE.  The problem is the show often does not designate how many exhibitors will be represented in the bag and even if they do, they packed that bag to the brim. They oversell this opportunity.   So the bag is stuffed with (from the eyes of an attendee) a bunch of papers and the odds of them looking through this mess and getting to your company are very rare.               

                                                                                       
Here are the top 5 reasons to avoid Attendee Bag sponsorships.  (This is what attendees do with collateral in Attendee Bags).                                                                            
- Immediately hit the first garbage can they see and dump all contents, thus making room for collateral they pick up from companies they want to speak with. 

- Brush up on their origami.

- Use as scrap paper to write down notes and phone #s

- Give to their boss to show they actually walked around the show floor (when they were actually out partying around town).

- Walk around the show, attend conference sessions, get back to the hotel, realize there are a bunch of papers in their bag and THEN dump everything out in the garbage.

Conclusion:  Stay away from this tradeshow/event marketing opportunity.  Now note: there are some conferences that will give you this benefit for free.  Many will participate figuring “why not, it’s for free”.  BUT, remember, there are still costs to print and ship but if there are no benefits, why waste the $$$?

Tags: attendee, bag, maketing, opportunities, promotion, sponsorships, tradeshows