Viral marketing is the practice of building a campaign intended to be spread from one message recipient to another. Long before the days of social media, promotional products were one of the first tools used in viral marketing. Messages on T-shirts, mugs, pens, and so much more are spread from person to person without any additional expense to the advertiser - in stark contrast to TV and radio ads that have a cost associated with every repeat presentation. The average promotional pen gets passed around and has 7 owners over its lifetime. If the pen carries the right message, that's pretty powerful.

A while back we posted an articlethat described a successful trade show marketing program that employed a promotional product with viral marketing techniques. That campaign succeeded in tripling the number of visitors to a booth. The original version employed a promotional bracelet with removable tabs to pass along to others. The new program distributes luggage tags, a more useful item to people who traveled to a trade show. Recipients tear off one tab and deposit it in a drawing for a big prize. But then the fun begins. The luggage tag has two more tabs to be torn off and passed along to others around the trade show floor.

Each time one of those tabs is brought back to the booth, the original recipient gets another entry in the drawing. And of course, the new person gets one too, and goes out eager to spread the message to still more people. The initial launch of this refined program brought a 35% increase in booth visits for the exhibitor - and when the dust settled a couple of months later, paying clients were up 21%. As they say, your mileage may vary. But some variation of this technique can work across a wide range of industries. It sure beats just giving stuff away. The next time you have a show, call us for ways to make promotional products work for you.