The Magic of Using Booklets for Tradeshow Giveaways

Candy, squeeze balls, pens, and key chains -- these provide questionable value to anyone visiting or staffing a tradeshow booth. More and more meeting and marketing professionals are considering something a little different - booklets. They are a way to attract higher quality prospects, reap a handsome return on the investment of time and money in attending shows, and help set a company apart from the crowd.

What is a booklet? The ultimate purpose of a booklet is to educate a target audience. It contains tips, techniques or strategies to help accomplish certain tasks. Typically it measures 3 ½" x 8 ½", has 16 to24 pages, fits perfectly into a purse, pocket, or briefcase, and can conveniently be mailed in a standard #10 business envelope.

The following five points highlight how you can use booklets as a powerful marketing tool to increase sales from tradeshow leads.

1. Why booklets make a great tradeshow giveaway item.

Booklets have a lasting value, more than many handouts currently used at tradeshows. Yet booklets are not overpowering in any way. One major purpose in exhibiting at a show is to educate your target audience about how you can provide solutions to their challenges. A booklet packed full of a useful tips might address those challenges. In addition, it heightens your company's credibility as an expert in the industry, and draws the prospect to you when it's time to purchase.

Your company's name on a coffee mug or pen doesn't quite have the same impact when a prospect is looking for solutions to their challenges. Rather when they easily read your information in a booklet, you're perceived as knowledgeable. Also, you leave the reader with the distinct impression that you are looking to establish a rapport, and a business relationship with them. Handing out booklets separates you from those with a dish of candy at their booth, or those who offer yet one more shopping bag. And, the cost of booklets is less than many other giveaways and can effectively and easily be used throughout the year in other parts of your sales and marketing efforts.

2. Who uses booklets as a giveaway?

Anyone in any industry who is selling or exhibiting at a trade show is a candidate for using booklets as a unique promotional tool. A company can write and produce their own booklet, have a booklet produced for them, or purchase copies of someone else's booklet on a topic of interest for their target audience. Small, mid-sized, and large companies alike use booklets. The minimum purchases are usually completely manageable, and there is an economy of scale as you purchase larger quantities.

3. What kind of information to include in a booklet?

The best information to include in a booklet is common sense, grass roots, basic, practical "how-to" content on a topic relevant to your business and important to your customers. The material can be solutions to everyday concerns, which people often overlook. Sometimes the "magic pill" answer to challenges turns out to be information that is known but merely forgotten. The booklet acts as a reminder. It can also serve as new information for novices to an industry.

4. How else you can use a booklet to market your company?

Once you have produced a booklet, you can often find other organizations that can benefit from it. This then helps to recoup your production costs, should that be of concern. For example, a manufacturer could sell it to distributors. You also continue marketing your own company, and generate new revenue in the process.

Other uses include direct mail campaigns or licensing the rights to your booklet to another company. Licensing might also involve translating it into other languages to reach additional markets. Licensing agreements mean that the client produces the booklet. Your company grants specific rights, by written contract, for the client to do all the production of the booklet manuscript that your company owns.

Identify prospects in your own industry by looking at the vendors, suppliers, and manufacturers. Each is a marketing niche. Approach them in a common-sense way. Remember that you are providing solutions to many of your clients' problems.

5. What common mistakes do companies make when exhibiting?

One of the biggest mistakes companies make when exhibiting is in repeating what other exhibitors are giving away, or repeating what the company has done year after year regardless of the results. An uninteresting handout makes the statement that a company has put limited thought into their clients' needs. The importance of educating the clients about how you can help them cannot be overstated. When your company makes one more sale because someone reads the booklet you gave them, the investment of purchasing or creating the booklet pays off handsomely.

Getting a return on the overall investment of the tradeshow is ultimately the primary reason for attending the show at all. Some industries, such as the pharmaceutical industry, are now making a concerted effort to pull back on money spent on excessively expensive and inappropriate giveaways, and are turning toward giveaways with educational value.

Using a booklet as a tradeshow booth giveaway creates magic as you enjoy better-qualified leads that produce larger sales over a longer period of time with well-educated clients. A small investment in the booklet is definitely worth the large return.

Paulette Ensign, http://www.tipsbooklets.com helps individuals and companies transform their knowledge into booklets used for marketing and motivating.

Susan Friedmann CSP, http://www.thetradeshowcoach.com a leader in the tradeshow industry, helps companies niche market within an industry.

Susan and Paulette have both 'been there and done that,' writing and successfully marketing their booklets and teaching audiences worldwide how to duplicate their success. Between them, Susan and Paulette enjoy more than three decades of professional experience and have sold in excess of a million copies of several booklet titles.

---

Tradeshow Booth Cures - Knick-Knack Knockouts

Okay, we were kidding about the smoke, but not about... Read More

Marketing Yourself and Your Business to Thriving!

We all watch the commercials on TV. We hear them... Read More

How Much Is Your Popcorn Worth? Powerful Lessons In Marketing & The Psychology Of Selling - Part 4

Let's continue to discuss the various marketing principles that are... Read More

Attract More Clients by Raising Your Profile

One of the most common issues I'm asked about is... Read More

Michael Jackson, Classic Marketing Blunders And Your Wallet!

You couldn't help but be captivated by the unbelievably cute... Read More

Marketing Planning Made Simple - Another Small Business Power Tool

Marketing planning must be really difficult and complex, otherwise why... Read More

Marry Your Marketing Plan

Make a vow to keep up your marketing schedule in... Read More

Use The Neglected Weapons In Your Marketing Arsenal

Business marketers have a lot of weapons in their arsenals... Read More

Have You Captured Me Today?

There are many Web sites I visit every day and... Read More

How To Choose a Qualitative Research Market

Qualitative research, whether individual interviews, in-homes, focus groups, ethnographies and... Read More

11 Rock Solid Techniques For Generating Product Ideas Anytime Anywhere!

Whatever business you are in, either online or offline, you've... Read More

Small Business Pricing: Setting A Price For Your Product / Service

The importance of pricing can not be underestimated as incorrect... Read More

Big Money With Folios

One of the easiest, if not the easiest, ways of... Read More

Financial Services Marketing Insights: A Marketing Compass

What we now call "marketing" began long before the name... Read More

Learn How to Market Your eBusiness in Real Time: Dissect, Study, Emulate

Everything you will ever need to know about internet marketing... Read More

Creating a Marketing Plan for Your Website

Have you created a marketing plan for your Website? If... Read More

Postcard Direct Mail Marketing Works (Its Cheap, Quick, Affordable and More)

Used the right way and with the right audience, postcards... Read More

Marketing to a Critical Mass

In "Developing a Marketing Plan", we covered the first steps... Read More

Direct Mail Offers: Eight Steps to Making them Effective

Every direct mail package you drop in the mail should... Read More

Marketing Success - Marketing Strategy - Brand Identity Guru

Marketing message x Credibility x Visibility = Marketing SuccessThese three... Read More

Build A Successful Business By Staying Connected

Over the course of your business life you'll come in... Read More

Top 10 Tips To Market & Build Your Professional Practice

In building and running a professional practice (or any small... Read More

The Importance of Business Marketing

Business marketing is one of the most important parts that... Read More

Direct Mail Response Rate Boosters (12 tips and ideas)

1. Mail to a different list Your list is the... Read More

Contrarian Marketing at Benettons

Perhaps, with apologies to Dale Carnegie, we should call this... Read More

Four Keys For Successful Foundation and Corporate Fundraising

Earlier in my career, I worked for a training and... Read More

How To Start A Mail Order Business

The Mail Order business is not a business of itself,... Read More

10 Steps to a Great Newsletter

A newsletter can be a wonderful, economical way to communicate... Read More

Creating a Marketing Timeline That Works: 17 Simple Ideas for Marketing Your Small Business

"Goals are dreams with deadlines." -Diana Scharf HuntWhen clients come... Read More

Marketing Apathy Solutions: 10 Solutions for Overcoming Apathy Beginning Today

Are you suffering from feelings of indifference or a lack... Read More

Using Business and Greeting Cards Effectively

Business cards and greeting cards almost go hand in hand... Read More

Five Deadly Small Business Marketing Mistakes

Here are some marketing mistakes that take a heavy toll... Read More

The Importance of a Marketing Plan

There aren't many things in life that you would get... Read More