8 Tips For Choosing Prizes For Your Trade Show Prize Wheel Game

One of the biggest questions clients of our Virtual Prize Wheel game ask is: What kinds of prizes should they give away on their prize wheel?  After seeing some clients struggle with this choice, I want to share with you some advice, so you can have a smoother experience and get more people into your booth.

Here are 8 considerations when choosing prizes for your prize wheel:

1. Offer a Big Prize!

It surprises us how much lead capture information you can collect from visitors for a chance to win a big prize like a trip.  So, offer a big prize.  A big prize gets attention, and gets people to stop by your booth.  Even though they know they probably won’t win it, just the chance to win a valuable prize will motivate them to play.  You are playing on their greed, so go big.  And you can give away more than one, too!

2. Offer Multiple Levels of Prizes

If you are at a show where every attendee can mean huge potential sales, then be sure to offer multiple levels of prizes that you can advertise to get more traffic.  We are often asked about the best breakdown between Top Tier prizes and low end prizes. Here’s a rule of thumb that we use with our clients.

– Top Tier (1-3 Prizes) 5% of total giveaway

– Middle Tier (2-3 prizes) 35% of total giveaway

– Bottom tier (2-3 prizes) 60% of total giveaway

The Top Tier prizes (your big prizes) will be the main prizes that draw people into your booth. However, your medium level prizes will contribute to your positive word of mouth when booth visitors talk about your company to their colleagues.

3. Make Your Big Prize a Trendy or Luxury Item

Not only should your big prize be eye-catching, it should also be something people want, but usually won’t splurge on. Everybody has an iPad, but not everyone has a drone (not yet, at least!). Getting a higher-end version of a common item (like a Yeti Cooler) works, too.

4. Brand Giveaways with Your Logo

According to our survey about trade show giveaways, having a giveaway with your company logo was considered the most important feature of a giveaway.  Branded giveaways help people remember you later when they get back to the office.

“I think trade show giveaways work best when they are branded and tie into the marketing message and theme of your booth. It needs to reinforce the exhibitor’s brand and remind the attendee of that single message you want then to take away from your booth.”   

– Exhibitor response from SocialPoint research on Trade Show Giveaways

Attendees not only get something they want, but they take your logo back home or to the office with them.  This can be anything from t-shirts to phone chargers to backpacks to sports bottles to notebooks to … you get the idea.

5. Choose Prizes Based On Your Campaign Theme

You may have a marketing campaign based on a specific theme in your booth, and thus give away multiple prizes that reinforce that theme.  So if your theme is a beach vacation, you could give away beach towels, sandals, sunglasses, and a trip, just like one of our clients did.

6. Give Away Your Products

If your products are low-cost enough, make them some of the prize wheel offerings. Or, give a discount for your products as a prize.  This will give you an idea of your lead quality – how much interest attendees have in winning that prize, and if they redeem the prize, you can track the sale to the trade show.

7. Size Matters:  Consider Smaller (Sized) Prizes

There are two important considerations when it comes to the size of the prizes:

1. Keep in mind that you will have to store these prizes someplace in your booth. Storage comes at a premium in your trade show booth, so consider giving away smaller-sized prizes.  One of our clients gave away 250 Starbucks gift cards – that took almost no space. (And considering the caffeine addiction of most trade show attendees, that’s also a popular prize!)

2. If you are giving away Yeti Coolers, skate boards or other sizable prizes, keep in mind that booth visitors have to get those home. Does the prize fit in their luggage or will they have to ship it? Will you offer to ship the prizes for them? Keep in mind that smaller prizes are easier for attendees to carry home

8. Consider Your Buyers’ Demographics

We have seen prize wheels that are offering everything from frisbees and hats to trips to Jamaica and Yeti tumblers.  Think about the kind of person you are trying to entice – what are their levels of sophistication and income, what generation do they come from, what things matter to them in their career and life?  A prize that would be fantastic for one audience may be ho-hum for another.

Whether you use a regular prize wheel or our Virtual Prize Wheel game to get more traffic in your trade show booth, these 8 tips will help you select the prizes that will best fit your audience, get more people into your booth, and have them go home happier to have stopped in your booth.

You may have reached this page via a Google search because you wanted advice on how to choose prizes for a prize wheel, but were not yet considering using a prize wheel for your company’s trade show booth.  If that’s the case, click here to read 17 reasons why you need a trade show game.