Giving away lanyards is a popular marketing strategy used at many trade shows and conferences every year. Anyone on the trade show circuit will know what it’s like to go home with a neck full of brightly coloured lanyards.
They are also great for increasing security in your workplace. Giving employees branded lanyards with their access cards can help to reduce instances of intruders going unnoticed in your premises.
If you’re exploring promotional lanyards as a marketing tool, you need to make sure you can enjoy a
1. Increase visibility
The simplest way that lanyards can increase your brand is by increasing visibility. The goal of giving away lanyards is to get people to wear them. If you create a compelling design that people actually want to wear, there is a chance you could become a firm favourite.
Remember that you won’t be the only one at the event giving away lanyards, so you need to make your design compelling enough (or funny enough) that people are proud to wear it. Bonus points if you can get them to use your lanyard long-term. The best way to do this is to choose a timeless and fun design that connects with your ideal target audience.
You can also make your lanyard more useful by including handy extras, like a bottle opener or breakaway section. With a breakaway section, individuals can add their keys to their lanyard and then hang the lanyard up at home. They can then unclip their keys from the main lanyard section and carry around the smaller lanyard and clip.
2. Inspire brand loyalty
If you have a strong brand following already, you can inspire brand loyalty with a few well-designed lanyards. Imagine you run a trade event, and there are some attendees that come back year after year. Now imagine you make the lanyards collectible and limited edition, so those people are going to be falling over themselves to get this year’s lanyard design.
Think about how you can inspire brand loyalty with your designs and make it something that people seek out at events. If you can become the “cool” lanyard brand, then you can guarantee event attendees will come looking for you. Change up your designs every year so that your lanyard becomes a mainstay of the event that everyone is talking about.
3. Increase networking opportunities
If you send your employees to a networking event wearing your branded lanyard, they will be much easier to spot in a crowd. So anyone who wants to speak to a member of your team will have a much easier time starting that conversation. You could even include an opening question on the lanyard to help conversation to flow more easily.
To help avoid confusion about who is wearing a freebie and who actually works for your company, offer staff-specific designs that are distinct from your promotional lanyards.
4. Tie them into a campaign
Sure, you can just give away lanyards and hope that people take them home and find a use for them. But you can also think about the bigger picture. Tying your lanyard giveaways into a wider marketing campaign is more complex but certainly possible.
You could run a promotion that rewards individuals for snapping a picture of their lanyard in a far flung destination. You could ask social media users to share how they put their lanyards to use after a conference, and the most creative one wins a prize.
Key takeaway
Lanyards can be a powerful marketing tool when used correctly. If you’re planning to introduce them to your workplace or give them away at an event, you need to be sure you’re thinking about the bigger picture.
- Differentiate your designs so that people who work for your company aren’t wearing the same designs as the ones you give away.
- Tie your lanyards into a wider marketing campaign around an event and encourage those who take a free lanyard to share a picture on social media.
- Think carefully about the design and how you can change it up every year to make your lanyards more desirable and collectible. If you make your design desirable enough, individuals will seek you out at events.