Filled Promotional Goodie Bag and “Big Ticket” Incentive Drives Conference Participation for Regional Oracle Application User Group

Objective: To identify effective giveaway promotional products to self-brand and draw participation and interest.

You might attend a conference for connections, for camaraderie or for the opportunity to learn the latest tools and techniques in your space. You might also agree that there’s much fun to be had in collecting freebies and giveaways while perusing exhibitor booths. Members of the Northern California Oracle Application User Group (NorCal OAUG) – an affiliate of the OAUG, being of the same mind, look forward to their group’s annual Training Day attendance during which attendees learn more about the Oracle applications they use every day, such as those for business process outsourcing and project management. The NorCal OAUG team knows from experience that Training Day participants come expecting free stuff. Not wanting to disappoint, the team reached out to ePromos’ Account Manager Lonni Ornstein, who has provided branded NorCal OAUG promotional products for the last five conferences.

The plan for this year was to give each registrant a conference bag filled with NorCal OAUG imprinted promotional products, along with a bingo card and flipside survey asking for feedback on the sessions, exhibitors and conference as a whole. The idea was to persuade attendees to walk the exhibit floor, attend the sessions and get stamps on their bingo cards at various exhibitor booths. With a card filled to expected number of stamps and completed survey in hand, attendees could then receive a “big ticket” prize. The NorCal OAUG team knew from conferences past that this product more than any other would incent people to visit the booths and sessions—and to complete the survey.

Solution: Branded jumbo tote, water bottle, lanyard, notebook and USB drive /pen/pointer combo.

Lonni and the team bounced around product ideas until they settled on this year’s choices:

• The 13 x 15 x 10-inch Jumbo Reusable Grocery Tote, an eco-friendly alternative to the team’s tote choice last year, crafted from 100 percent recyclable materials with dual-reinforced 20-inch carrying handles and a covered cardboard bottom insert.
• The 22-ounce Catch-22 BPA-Free Translucent Water Bottle, fitting most vehicle and exercise machine cup holders, with a retractable sipper spout and straw.
• The best-selling Cotton Tradeshow / Personal Eyewear Lanyard, constructed of double-thick knitted cotton with a removable black plastic end-piece connector and slider.
• The 5 x 7-inch Translucent Notebook with Pen, including 80-lined sheets of writing paper and a sleek silver pen attached.
• And, for this year’s “big ticket” incentive, a handsomely packaged USB 2.0 Color Pen Memory Drive, a colorful plug ‘n’ play 1GB storage device disguised as a working pen. The pen top also serves as a PDA stylus, and for an additional charge comes with storage up to 2GB and a laser pointer/LED flashlight attachment.

Result: Incentive draws attendees to exhibitor booths, drives completion of participant survey.

The result was all the team had hoped for—and more. The products enabled NorCal OAUG to successfully self-brand during the conference, and the “big ticket” item drove heavy user participation in the exhibitor portion of the event. The team received a large number of completed surveys / bingo cards, and thus distributed their entire quantity of USB pen drives. The NorCal OAUG team also saved money—and helped the environment—by distributing branded water bottles in lieu of bottled water as participants could use their new bottles during the conference. All in all, another successful promotional event!



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Norcal OAUG Tradeshow Promos (PDF Version)