8 Last-Minute Custom Merch and Product Ideas for Outdoor Retailer Winter Market 2018

Order these promotional products now from Anthem Branding to hit this year's Outdoor Retailer Winter Market floor running.

At shows the size of or comparable to that of Outdoor Retailer, differentiate your brand with items your competitors wish they had thought of.

When it comes to attracting your target audience at trade shows or industry conferences, it’s all about who has the best merchandise, promo products, or giveaways. Why? Because the really good ones are memorable and stick in someone's mind after the show ends, letting those who went with the same ol', same ol' fall to the wayside.

With nearly 500 exhibitors set to blanket the floor of Denver’s Convention Center November 8-11 for the Outdoor Retail Winter Market, standing out is that much more difficult and wildly important to achieve.

If you’ve procrastinated on executing the promo product and merch tactic of your trade show strategy, just found out you were going to the Outdoor Retailer Winter Market, or you're just looking for new trade show ideas, the following eight items can help you make the most out of exhibiting your brand at a trade show.

Notebooks
A timeless method of jotting down notes, reminders, and more.

For some, it sounds too old school to carry around a notebook, but how many times have you been to an event like this and lost juice on your laptop, tablet, and cellphone? It’s par for the course, and no matter how hard you plan for frequent charge breaks, it’s always better safe than sorry.

Plus, our notebooks aren’t your average run-of-the-mill glue-bound stack of wide-ruled paper. Brand the front and back cover to make a bold statement; coil a durable spiral around the pages, and see attendees carrying around a little piece of your brand with them throughout the conference and beyond.

When an attendee books a meeting with your company or chats with you about a potential project, use these branded notebooks to write the meeting time and contact info conveniently inside. There are always a million things going on at an event, especially at the scale of Outdoor Retailer. Having that handwritten reminder will help keep your conversation going beyond the exhibition hall.

Water Bottles

The Winter Market is hosted in Denver, which sits 5,280 feet above sea level. For out-of-town visitors, staying hydrated at a higher altitude helps to avoid altitude sickness most commonly brought on by dehydration. With bottles like these, your audience can stay hydrated in style!

Stainless Steel Tumblers

After a long day on the slopes, strapped into snowshoes, riding a snowmobile, ice fishing, even that conference room back at the office that's always cold, or whatever winter outdoor activity your target audience is into, having a quality vessel to keep coffee, tea, or hot chocolate warm (and beers cold!) throughout the day is a great way to craft a branded experience leveraging a basic human need.

Power Banks

Because there are never enough outlets, ever.

It’s infuriating as a conference attendee to have a lifeless device. Between adding new contacts you meet at the event to making sure all is well back at the office, staying connected should never be an issue. Hand these out to people who approach your booth, and be the saving grace across the floor. And with some great branding options, including wrapping the power bank in faux leather and etched brand assets, everyone will know where to go to snag their own.

Enamel Pins

Talk about one hell of a comeback! Enamel pins are the collectible item recently seen donning jackets, collars, lapels, backpacks, purses, totes, hat brims, and really anywhere they can be pinned. These quirky items are a big hit with a millennial audience.

Usually sold in sets, enamel pins have become a popular way to remain top-of-mind with whoever wears it and also a way to create a lasting connection by linking the pins to a moment or experience. Enamel pin sets are packaged with a backing card, a perfect spot for a call-to-action and added branding.

Enamel pins are a genius marketing tactic to showcase your brand as timely and relevant. Enamel pins are often collectibles, creating another tactic to leverage in your ongoing customer engagement strategy -- over time contributing to loyalty, referrals, and brand awareness.

Trucker Hats

Disclaimer: We’re a bit biased about trucker style hats. We can nerd out about interior taping, contrast stitching, embroidery or deboss or screen printed patches, but for the sake of our dwindling attention spans, take our word for it.

Trucker hats are not only a big deal out in the wild, but they are one of our flagship custom products that cannot be replicated or found elsewhere. They truly are exceptional products that are both extremely useful for an audience of outdoor enthusiasts, but an excellent (and affordable) way to advertise your brand.

Beanies

Denver in November is as predictable as a teenager's hormones. Thus, dressing in layers is the norm in the Mile High City, and when that sort-of-fall-but-sort-of-winter wind comes in off the Rocky Mountains, a warm, quality beanie is a life saver. Every Coloradan knows you can never have enough beanies, especially as the ski season is just around the bend. Outdoor retailers we partner with in and out of Colorado tell us time and again how great having beanies in their headwear program is for both employees and customers.

Pens

Ok, so probably 450 out of 500 exhibitors will have pens at their booth. But isn’t this a post on great items for trade shows that help your brand stand out? When it comes to branded pens, it’s not about simply having a pen with your logo and website on it, it’s about the quality of the pen and the experience of writing with it.

Let’s be honest: how many branded pens do you have stuffed in pen cups and desk drawers that you picked up from that conference years ago?

But when you get a good pen — a pen that you will be so mad about loosing, you keep it close. You love it because it has great weight, writes like a dream, and makes you look like a boss in meetings.

Pro tip: pair a branded pen with a notebook for increased brand engagement and adoption. The more ways you can brand a cohesive experience for your audience, such as note-taking with a quality notebook and a pen, the better the chance is they will have a positive cognitive memory and connection with your brand.

If you’re in this pickle now and plan on attending the Snow Show, or other industry trade shows in 2019, get proactive and learn what premium items, like our rad backpacks or hoodies, you can stock your booth with.