{"id":2717,"date":"2026-01-23T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/?p=2717"},"modified":"2026-07-13T09:16:16","modified_gmt":"2026-07-13T09:16:16","slug":"does-swag-work-as-a-sales-tool-heres-what-the-data-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gogetmuscle.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/23\/does-swag-work-as-a-sales-tool-heres-what-the-data-says\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Swag Work as a Sales Tool? (Here\u2019s What the Data Says)"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a healthy question and one that has strong opinions on both sides\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Does swag work?<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

Promotional products (AKA swag, tchotchkes, freebies, branded merchandise, you name it) have been around for some time. In fact, they date all the way back to George Washington\u2019s campaign in 1789.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

More recently, companies have started to integrate swag into their sales sequences, driving healthy growth for the entire industry. And by \u201chealthy,\u201d I mean $23.3B annually, nearly double what it was a decade ago.<\/span><\/p>\n

So swag must work if that many people are buying in\u2026 right?<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a question met with pause since virtually every person has anecdotal experience of when it has gone wrong.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Who hasn\u2019t left a convention with a t-shirt that didn\u2019t fit, a pen that felt cheap, or a flash drive that didn\u2019t work? These items end up in the trash, hardly a worthy investment of your firm\u2019s marketing and sales budgets.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Fast Company even published an article <\/span>encouraging brands to stop spending money on swag<\/span><\/a>, citing broad environmental concerns. (a note: some of our industry has vehemently spoken out against this article).<\/span><\/p>\n

I started working for a promotional products company several months ago with many of the same concerns and reservations that our account executives deal with daily:<\/span><\/p>\n