Thank You for the Swag at BlogHer!

Yes, I said it! I did enjoy getting swag. Who doesn’t? But before you banish me to Freeloader’s Hell, let me explain why.

My husband is a professional trade show and convention director. He attends trade shows nearly on a monthly basis. Every time he comes home, the kids and I can’t wait to see what swag he has brought back. It’s mostly a lot of hats, t-shirts, pens and things that light up in bright colors. Although, he sometimes gets a few nice “gifts” that are really cool like cameras, martini glasses or even crystal. I always ask him the same questions, “Why do your vendors and exhibitors give all this stuff away?” and he responds, “because they’re effective tokens of appreciation for our business, or they want us to try them out and ultimately, it works.”

Companies want you to create a buzz about their product and what better way than to give it to you for free. Throughout his 20+ years of trade show experience, my husband has seen that giving out free product samples or giving away anything, works well to energize and motivate attendees to participate. It creates openings for establishing new relationships and helps to test market products/services with potential buyers and as well as to get positive reviews from influencers (bloggers, press, etc.)

People LOVE free stuff. If you want more people to come to your booth, give them something for free. If you want them to come to your party, give away a cool swag bag. Our blogger industry is not any different than any other industry. We ALL love to get free stuff, not just women/moms.  It’s human nature.

Look around you! Costco has freebies. The grocery store has freebies. My mailman brings freebie samples. The Sunday newspaper has freebies. Target has “buy one, get one free” sales.

Giving away freebies is how they get us to try their product and tell all of our friends and buy more. We all know that nothing is really free. They are expecting (or at least hoping) that you will like their product and recommend it. And if you don’t like it, maybe you will let them know what they can do to improve it.

There are always those who behave like beasts instead of adults when something is given for free. It is disgusting, but let’s not let those few disgrace all who attended BlogHer. The majority of us were not at BlogHer JUST for the swag; however, we did enjoy getting some samples and maybe even a cool electronic freebie. The majority of us did NOT throw a fit when we didn’t get a swag bag. The majority of us did NOT steal a swag bag.

We want to be taken seriously as bloggers and treated with respect. The PR/marketing reps from the sponsoring companies who participated at BlogHer are treating us as they do all other industry trade show attendees. They are establishing new relationships and opening up the lines of communication with a gesture…swag.

Updated to add link to Jory Des Jardin’s blogpost, Some thoughts on BlogHer’09: A founder’s and a blogger’s view. She is one of the founders of BlogHer and gives her perspective on sponsors as a founder and as a blogger.