Ep. 18 | How to Do Swag and Giveaways in a Virtual World

Patrick Rife : 0:05

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another episode of The Pixilated Podcast. This is Patrick Rife.

Alex McGlynn : 0:10

And I'm Alex McGlynn.

Patrick Rife : 0:11

And today we're going to talk about how to do swag in a virtual events world Do you want to kick it off?

Alex McGlynn : 0:17

Sure. So the first thing, we're gonna go through some virtual swag and we'll go see some tactile or after that hand held swag, like stress balls and stuff. So first is free trials. If your product already has a free trial, it's a good time to give it away to attendees. If you don't have a free trial, make one or make something up, do something like that and give people a chance to actually try out your software and try to get some use out of it. It's a good way to give your attendees something.

Patrick Rife : 0:50

Yeah. Next up is discounts and coupons. A lot of times we're trying to get people to do something and typically it revolves around them spending money, so what better way to entice them to spend some money than to give them some kind of special discount coupon, some kind of incentive during a checkout process.

Alex McGlynn : 1:08

Yep, I'm just taking a quick step back on the free trial thing. The reason I said that is a lot of companies make it hard to find their free trials, or you have to go through some process or a demo or something where you can try to get rid of that for your conference. Just make it easy for people to sign up. it'll, it'll pay dividends, trust me. Next thing, e-gift cards, it's pretty obvious, you know, Starbucks gift card, gift card for like a local restaurant, for your company. I mean, there's a lot of different things you can do. But it's easy to give that away. Now.

Patrick Rife : 1:39

So next up on the list is a virtual food voucher. So at any other conference, your attendees would probably be getting some kind of box lunch or something along those ways. So it's a great way to kind of extend that portion of it. Perhaps you end up deciding to focus and having some kind of lunch and learn with people and and the way that you're getting them to together on lunch together is by providing what that lunch looks like.

Alex McGlynn : 2:03

Next up is free educational giveaways of some sort. So if it's going to be an E book make sure it's a really good ebook can be a market report that you maybe typically charged for but you're going to give for free to the conference attendees, it could be a free online class if you or course or continuing education course you guys offer anything like that. Or even like free product training for for new signups. There's a lot of different things you can offer on that side that people are going to find really valuable as long as it's presented in a good way.

Patrick Rife : 2:33

Yep. And then lastly, on this side would be like a named donation. So everyone that makes a donation, obviously you get honored for that typically. So that would be an opportunity for someone to kind of get a little bit of the focal attention placed on them.

Alex McGlynn : 2:50

Absolutely. Out switch gears to tactile swag is just because it's a virtual event doesn't mean you can't send people things. So first off is a local partner drink mixing kit. We stole this idea from LinkedIn, local Baltimore. They did it for their three year anniversary party. They partnered with a local whiskey distillery to deliver Moscow Mule mixers, whiskey mule mixers, to people's doors. And it was kind of just a little kit where you could make yourself a cocktail. It's a really cool idea. There's a lot of other vendors, I'm sure in most cities that would be willing to do something similar. It's a great way to for them to get their name out and get their product out. And it's really cool for your attendees.

Patrick Rife : 3:31

Yeah. So next up would be some kind of like a like a self care box, if you will, or any, any of the membership mail delivery box style platforms that are out there. So you know, one option could be to find one of those delivery services or boxes that that plays well in your niche. So I'm sure that for every niche that is out there, there's some kind of some kind of box of the Month Club that, that would complement it. I also think that what we're going to see in our post-COVID times is we're going to see some some fulfillment partners that are going to spring up who are going to be there curating boxes specifically to align with whatever your conference event point of view might be. So I think that we're probably going to see some of those services that start to bloom.

Alex McGlynn : 4:22

Yeah, absolutely. I kind of along those same lines is like a local flavors box. So if you're hosting a virtual event, there's a chance it was supposed to be hosted in a physical location. So you could take that location, whatever It's famous for, send attendees a little gift box with some cool things from that, from that place. If it was always going to be a virtual event conference, and maybe send it wherever your headquarters is, you know, if you're in San Francisco, local San Francisco companies, put a box together, highlight some local brands and send it out. People love that kind of stuff, and it's pretty easy to coordinate.

Patrick Rife : 4:55

So next up is going to be like a social distancing swag box so there's no reason for us not to name the elephant in the room. It's a clever way to, to kind of get conversation going, and everybody's thinking about it already, so nothing wrong with just owning it. So with that being said, if you're gonna own it, why not embrace it. So thinking about clever pieces of swag that might support that kind of point of view. So whether it's some some type of stick that would allow people to say, you know, you're you're closer than six feet to me or branded PPE, or face masks, all the way across to figuring out other virtual ideas. Similar to maybe PixiWeb, or crowdsourcing, like the playlist for the after party, zoom call. I think all of those are creative ways to to bring together a need for social distancing with some in real life elements of your event.

Alex McGlynn : 5:52

Absolutely. And so this last one, it's kind of a combo you can do it one of two ways. One could just be a you know, traditional partner box you're going to send him an attendee, from you as a company with, you know, your typical branded swag, whether it's stress balls, or backpacks or notepads or whatever. Alternatively, if you're hosting a conference with more than one company, or a tradeshow type thing, I'm sure that those companies would be more than willing to provide you with swag that can be boxed up and sent out to all attendees. I mean, we have loads of swag here. And it's kind of just sitting collecting dust right now, but we can't do anything with it. And if we were going to be part of a virtual conference, we'd be more than happy to provide something like that. And again, I'm sure that's true for most companies. So either coming directly from you to to your customer, or putting a group box together that has cool swag from multiple different companies. But either way again, it's a fun fun treat to get after the event or during the event.

Patrick Rife : 6:49

Yep. So with our mention of free trials being out there we are today launching our free trial that you can head over and check out so. Head to www.pixilated.com/free-trial to sign up for your free trial of PixiWeb today. So that brings us to the end of this episode. Before we go if you would please remember to rate, review, and subscribe. It helps us to find a broader listener base and ensures that you are notified every time we publish a new episode. Until next time, this is Patrick Rife.

Alex McGlynn : 7:25

And I'm Alex McGlynn

Patrick Rife : 7:27

Peace