SWAG

Stuff We All Get

I love SWAG. I love freebies, and I don’t mind becoming your company’s walking billboard if I like your product. I’m proud to be a SWAG-hag.

If you are looking for SWAG for clients, staffers, convention-booth giveaways, etc., consider a few things.

Make it something useful. I’m a big fan of tote bags, pens, and USB thumb-drives for these items. At a convention several years ago, we gave out poster tubes with our logo on them, and people were flashing that logo all over the convention, since we’d given them a way to keep the other people’s SWAG (the promotional posters dozens of them were giving out) undamaged. This year, consider face masks and and little bottles of hand sanitizer, or even better, straps and holders for face masks and and little bottles of hand sanitizer.

Make it something fun. This can include desk toys, magnets with amusing sayings, buttons or ribbons that can be worn on the convention badge (nicely-designed badge holders are also great SWAG). That positive emotion connected with your brand is a good thing.

Make it something lightweight. I love mugs, but they are fragile and heavy, so they are only good for in-house gifts, such as SWAG for the staff customized with the company’s mission statement as part of a strategic initiative. When choosing SWAG, consider how someone will get the item home from your venue.

Make it high-quality. Don’t put your logo to junk. Make sure the items you choose reflect well on you and your company. This also ties into the price-points—don’t buy SWAG just to buy SWAG. SWAG is an advertising investment, so figure out what will improve your sales, and budget for that.

(Photo by Jess Bailey on Unsplash)