Creative swag doesn't just mean buying the newest, trendiest gimmick as as giveaway. Your swag is a marketing piece, and as such it must have impact. To have impact, it must be appropriate for your market. Before you rush out to buy those Beanie Babies, be sure you've done your homework, and you know what will actually work as a reminder of your brand to your customer. If your prospect won't use what you've given them, you're flushing dollars down the toilet; and swag can be very expensive, so that's a lot of dollars!

Most tradeshow marketers spend hours perfecting their copy, making their booth look exciting and inviting, and making sure their catalogues are well printed. Few actually take the time to work out a good swag campaign, and yet swag campaigns can be far more expensive than any of the other elements - including the booth itself. To invest properly in swag that will deliver the results you require, brainstorm creatively with your audience in mind. If you don't know much about your audience, take a step back and complete some heavy research first. If you can't afford to invest in market intelligence, then read everything you can, and call a minimum of 50 of your best customers with a set of questions that will help you gear your efforts in the right direction. Fifty sounds like a large number, but in proportion to the business that most tradeshow marketers expect from their yearly participation in these shows, this is really a minimal investment of time!

Once you have a handle on your market, have a brainstorming session with your team. If you don't have a team, create one! Friends, family and colleagues can all be helpful, if you don't happen to have a professional team at your disposal. Just make sure that you educate your little group on what you already know about your prospective and current customers, and then you'll be off to the races. Next, jot down any and all ideas of items that would make good giveaways. Don't worry about price in this first session, or about alignment with your corporate brand. Just brainstorm, and try to come up with as many zany ideas as you can.

Next, from your oh-so long list, choose ten of the best ideas and start pricing them out. Use a spreadsheet to keep track of what prices you were able to find for each item and from where. If you are working with tight timelines, include how long it will take for your order to be processed, too. Once your spreadsheet is complete, have a look at the

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