In the wake of the coronavirus outbreak a lot of conferences, trade shows and events are being cancelled. Big events like Adobe Summit, Mobile World Congress, Google I/O and many others have already cancelled. Others like SXSW haven’t cancelled but have seen some of their biggest partners and sponsors pull out. Lola.com has a good running list of which events have been cancelled and which are still on.
Marketing departments spend a big percentage of their budget on event marketing and these cancellations can have a huge impact on a brand’s marketing efforts for the year. While some of the fees spent on sponsorship maybe returned, many costs are not easily reimbursed. Flights, hotels, booth materials (including swag) may have already been purchased.
Possibly worse than these lost expenses is the missed opportunity to engage with your customers and potential customers. However, you can use your swag budget to connect with the audience even if the event has been cancelled.
Use Swag Inventory to store and ship products to the event’s audience.
Any order you place on Swag.com can be held in in our warehouse to be shipped as needed. Here are a few ideas of how you can use swag inventory to reach out and connect with your audience.
Have a roster of attendees?
If you have a list of the cancelled event’s attendees, you can upload the file and we will send out your swag for you. This is a great way to engage the audience and get noticed by using swag you would have been giving away at the event.
Have emails but not physical mailing addresses for these attendees?
Use our giveaway feature where your list can choose a swag item, enter their information and we will ship it directly to them.
Don’t have a list of event attendees?
Use the opportunity to promote a giveaway around your cancelled sponsorship. This is an opportunity to be creative in a bad situation. Maybe design some swag around the event being cancelled. Promote it on your social accounts or to your email list. We’ll handle all the shipping for you.
Moving to a virtual event?
Many events that are being cancelled are holding virtual summits in their place. Many of these will include their sponsors in some capacity. Swag can be a great way to ‘virtually’ attract interest in your company. Offer a giveaway to the virtual attendees, have them fill out a form and collect their email address, then follow-up after the event with the swag.com giveaway link and we will send your promo items for you.
We know a cancelled event (or multiple events) can be a big hit to your marketing plans for 2020, but don’t give-up. There is still plenty of opportunity to engage with the audience for these events. Let’s talk about how swag.com can help.
