There’s a reason some branded merchandise gets used for years while other stuff barely makes it home from the event. Usually, it’s not because one company found some wildly original product no one had ever seen before; they just made better choices about what to put their name on.
If you’re ordering swag for an event, your team, clients, or customers, there are a few things worth figuring out before you start filling a cart.
1. Who’s getting it?
This sounds basic, but it’s surprisingly easy to start shopping before you’ve really thought about the audience. Swag for employees doesn’t have to do the same job as a conference giveaway, and something meant for your best clients probably shouldn’t be selected using the same criteria as 2,000 items you’re handing out at a booth.
Start with what you know about the people receiving it. Are they traveling? Working from home? Commuting? Are you giving them something at an event where they’ll already leave with a dozen other branded products? The more specific you can get about the audience, the easier it is to rule out things that simply don’t make sense.
2. Is it actually useful?
“Useful” doesn’t have to mean boring. It just means there’s a reasonable chance someone will use the thing after they get it.
A product doesn’t need to be unusual to be a good choice. There’s a reason certain things become staples: people use them. A well-made tote that gets carried every week is doing a lot more for your brand than something chosen primarily because it felt different.
This is also where knowing your audience helps. A useful item for someone commuting into an office several days a week may be completely different from what makes sense for a remote team or someone spending three days walking around a conference.
3. How are people getting it home?
If you’re ordering for an event, this matters more than you might think. Your swag may look great arranged across a booth, but attendees have to carry it for the rest of the day and potentially get it onto a plane afterward.
Size, weight, packaging, and portability are all worth considering for conferences and trade shows. If you’re shipping directly to employees or clients, you have more flexibility, although shipping costs and packaging become part of the equation instead.
Basically, follow the swag past the moment you hand it over. Where does it go next, and is getting it there going to be a pain?
4. What level of quality makes sense?
You don’t have to buy the most expensive version of everything, and you probably shouldn’t. The right quality level depends on what you’re ordering, who it’s for, and how you expect it to be used.
For a large event order, you may care most about finding something well made at a price that works at volume. For an employee gift or smaller client order, spending more on materials, construction, or finishing may make sense.
It helps to look beyond the product photo, too. Fabric weight, materials, construction, dimensions, and other product details can tell you a lot about what you’re actually ordering, especially when several options look nearly identical at first glance.
5. How much branding does it really need?
There’s a temptation with promotional products to use every available inch of imprint space because, well, you paid for branded merchandise. But the biggest possible version of your logo isn’t automatically the best one.
Sometimes that’s exactly the look you want. Other times, a smaller logo, an unexpected placement, or a simpler treatment makes the product much more appealing to use outside the context where it was given away.
You want people to know where it came from. You also want them to keep using it. Those goals don’t have to compete with each other.
6. How long do you expect it to stick around?
A giveaway for a single event and a gift celebrating someone’s fifth year with your company don’t need to meet the same standard. Deciding what role the item is supposed to play can help you figure out where it’s worth investing more.
If you want something to become part of someone’s regular routine, durability and versatility deserve more attention. If the goal is simply to give attendees something useful during an event, you can make a different set of tradeoffs.
There’s no rule that says every branded product has to last forever. There should just be some relationship between what you spend, what you’re giving it for, and how long you expect someone to use it.
7. Would you keep it?
This isn’t the same as asking whether you personally love it (you may not be the target audience, after all). But it’s worth looking at the final choice without the sales pitch around it.
If this showed up in your event bag, would it come home with you? If your company sent it to you, would you use it? If it didn’t have your logo on it, would it still seem like a decent product?
That’s usually a more useful test than whether something looks impressive in a catalog.
Before you place the order
Good swag doesn’t have to be complicated, expensive, or particularly groundbreaking. It needs to make sense for the people receiving it and the reason you’re giving it to them.
If you get those things right, you’re much more likely to end up with merchandise people keep using instead of another box of leftovers sitting in the office supply closet.
And if you’re staring at 400 options that all look basically the same, that’s where we come in. Tell us what you’re planning, who it’s for, and what you need. We’ll help you narrow it down.