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3 tips to make your swag memorable: Marketing Hacks #23 

 September 28, 2015

By  Pascal Depuhl

Do you like to get swag?

Every body loves free stuff, right? So how do you make your swag stand out? It’s not that tough, if you keep these 3 tips in mind:

  • Make it unique to stand out – how much impact do you think another printed ¢15 pen make? Extra points, if no one else gives this away. Branded USB drives? Great – how many of those have I seen, water bottles with your logo, bags, pens, … been there done that and actually got the T-shirt.
  • Make it good – no one is going to remember anything that is less than great. Good is the new normal. It’s expected, you don’t even need to show up with mediocre. 
  • Make it personal. Give me something unique to me and I’ll keep it way longer than a mass-produced piece of swag. (Read MarketingHack #8: Do something unexpected to remember why I mailed a New York creative the magazine that featured her as a winner along with a hand written note.) I bet she remembers that today.

What does good marketing swag look like?

How do you think local influencers feel, when I hand them a copy of a DVD with ‘On Wings of Hope‘? Let’s see how that stacks up:

  • Pascal Depuhl's award winning documentary short film "On WIngs of Hope" tells the story of a humanitarian flight service in Afghanistan makes a great swag itemIt’s unique – movies are something people don’t expect to get for free. How many movies has a director given to you? How many of those are filmed in Afghanistan? How many are featured in a TEDx talk?
  • It’s won a handful of awards and has played at film festivals, had a great private première that people are still talking about (It’s featured as MarketingHack #11).
  • It gets personalized – I’ll write a note on the DVD liner; we actually designed some space on it to jot a short note with a silver sharpie.

Would you throw that out? Or show it to your friends? If you need to book a photographer to produce a video for you, would the guy that produce an award wining short documentary in Afghanistan come to your mind; especially if you have a personalized DVD he gave you?

How do I create swag that sticks in their mind?

Now I realize, not all of you are going to fly to Afghanistan to produce an award wining, short documentary; if you would, I’d need to come up with something more unique again. Well follow the same criteria I did:

  • Be unique. Take some time to think, but give out swag that is relevant to your business.
    • Only use the best. You’re gonna spend money on producing your swag, you might as well make it great. Less than good will land you in the garbage can
  • Make it personal. It takes you just a few seconds and makes a huge impact on your audience of one. It’s maybe even the most important of the three tips.

I’d love to see what you come up with – show off your best stuff – tweet me @photosbydepuhl and use #MarketingHackSwag.

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Pascal Depuhl


Miami product photographer, video producer, cinematographer and chief mindchanger at Photography by Depuhl

I love to share the knowledge I've gained over the past two decades. Catching light in motion.

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