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Some tradeshows propose a "put your flyer in visitor's bag" option.

We are currently considering buying it for a product launch, but I am wondering if this is worth the money ?

What experience do you have with this kind of things ?

How do you measure the success ? I could measure the change in visits on the website, but how could I know there are due to our talk at the event, our booth or the flyer in the bag... ?

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5 Answers

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First of all, flayers are dead. Nobody really wants a piece of paper. You should give something useful, creative, funny, memorable etc.

Speaking from my own experience, at the last trade show we offered a little skit about the world economic crisis and a letter: "we’d like to share with you a first skit which, through its humor, will relieve some of the daily stress while at the same time helping decipher what, how, who, with respect to the Great Recession.

As a measurement, at the end of the skit, in-staid of our site, we put a unique link specially created for the skit and the trade show (example www.company.com/skit-trade or a blog link etc.), meaning that the people accessing that link come only from the trade (we did not give that skit to other people).

It was a success!

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Yes I was thinking of a special link... Just have to find something to motivate people to type further than www.mycompany.com and go to www.mycompany.com/myspeciallink, but I think we can do that ! In our case I think it may be a special video... – pillona Feb 1 '11 at 21:14
up vote 3 down vote

just my previous experience, no actual research behind this.

Your flyer will actually be seen by 2-20 people in 100. The 2-20 depends on flyer quality, uniqueness, the type of people at the convention. How many that view the flyer and become a client is not a part of the equation I know, but hopefully you can make an educated guess.

So if the cost of the flyer is worth 2 in 100 viewing it, based on your sales conversion estimate, then go for it. If not, but it is worth it if 20 out of 100 really look at it, then that depends on how good at marketing you are.

As for measuring success there are tons of ways to do that. Picking the right one would depend on what you consider success. 20 client, 100, 1000, etc.

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I forgot to mention that we are a B2B company with long sales cycle... so we are not expecting thousands of customers to be converted... On top of that, a customer who learned about our company can be converted months after... Maybe the simplest way is just to ask converted customers how they heard about our company... However, this means that it is going to take some time before being able to know if the flyert thing was worth it or not... – pillona Feb 1 '11 at 17:10
up vote 3 down vote

You can measure it by having a bring-this-card-to-our-booth-and-go-in-the-draw-for-a- promotion. You will see people walk directly to your booth if the giveaway is good (e.g. an iPad). You will get some word-of-mouth amongst the attendees if you have a good giveaway.

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good way to know if people are reading it or not, but a bit biased because a lot of students or people who do not really care will come to my booth to win an ipad... – pillona Feb 1 '11 at 17:03
agreed. you have look at the audience and decide what to offer. With our products we would not go to a show if students are attending, it means the organizers are trying to get the attendance numbers up. when a conference is advertised as 'a day out of the office' you know it's not worth attending – james Feb 1 '11 at 18:22
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I would suggest that you bring your flyer to the booth and let people pick it up or ask for it. This cuts down on waste b/c only the people that want it, take it.

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That's what I think, but I want to know if I am right or not... – pillona Feb 1 '11 at 17:02
That is how we do it. If the cost of brochures + getting in the bag doesn't seem like a big cost, you can just go ahead and do it. Otherwise, you might want to think about it more. – Scott Feb 1 '11 at 18:52
up vote 1 down vote

Normally when you spend money to be a vendor in many tradeshows that organizers won't charge extra for that.

If you are considering printing cost, that's pretty much nothing, so do it.

If you need to pay certain price to put your flyer on there, without giving us the cost and attendee numbers I don't think it's easy to say something.

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The tradeshow we are targeting charges 1500$ for it. Usually there are around 5 000 attendees. But I am not searching to solve this as an equation. I just want to know what to expect from this type of action and how to measure we reach expectations or not... – pillona Feb 1 '11 at 16:56
In my experience this is the only thing attendee will take back to home. Many attendees won't visit your booth but they'll have this flyer. They'll get bored during the even take a look at this and this'll bring more people to booth as well. So I think overall it's a big part of a trade show. So if you spend money to be in there, spend money to be in the bag as well. – the dictator Feb 2 '11 at 9:35
Printing costs for a sheet of paper may be near nothing if you print in house, but if you go with an outside vendor for full brochures and the like they can end up being a dollar or more a piece. That's why I would consider costs.... – Scott Feb 2 '11 at 14:18
Nothing = <$500 :) So bad way to put it. But it still should be really cheap, I think $1 sounds expensive. Take a look at online printing shops I'm sure you can find a better deal. – the dictator Feb 2 '11 at 14:59

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