Anyone that has ever run a booth at a trade show will tell you it’s a great idea to have a “Give Away” in order to drive traffic to you. Early on, we gave away free web services such as free hosting, free site designs, and even free SEO. All of which were fine, and seemed like a good idea at the time, but we eventually realized it’s much better to give away a physical item… something your prospects can touch and ogle over.

Don’t waste your time or money giving away just any-old-thing. I’ve seen all sorts of silly things given away; clock radio’s, drivers/putters, even a fancy plunger (it was a plumbing convention). Nothing creates excitement like a fancy plunger! Right?

About two years ago, we decided to try an iPod as our give-away, and it made an immediate impact on our success. Again, the goal of participating in a trade show is to drive foot traffic into your direction in order to sell your product. We don’t sell iPods, but giving one away certainly did the trick for getting people into our booth, and getting them talking to us about our products. Apple has already created the buzz, it’s possibly the easiest way to cash in on some of that buzz.