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Today we are all inundated with advertising messages, from the more traditional media outlets (radio, TV, newspaper) to social media messages. So you may ask the question, “do I really need business promotional items?” You may assume you are in front of your customers and prospects all the time on twitter, facebook, Instagram and maybe your ad campaign? Maybe, maybe not.
In many companies there is a designated person or department that is getting their social media messages out to world and receiving them. So unless you are ‘Individually” connected, is the person reading your message the one that makes the buying decisions? Is your email campaign getting through or is it caught in the firewall?
Create an Emotional Bond
That’s why a smart business promotional item becomes a key component of your marketing campaign strategy. The right promotional item can help further create an emotional bond and keep your name/brand in front of your customers and prospects.
I’m not the only one that says this, but I do say it often, a promotional item is the one piece of advertising you can give to a prospect or client that they say “thank you” for. And a useful item is kept and remembered much more than any ad or post.
According to the Promotional Products Association 2013 Awareness and Usage Study, 47% of respondents kept a promotional product for more than a year. This is a far longer period of time than any other form of advertising. Just image how many times your client or prospect sees your logo during that time! And 82% of all respondents own 1-10 promotional products and 88% could recall the name of the advertiser.
I’ve been in marketing a long time. And I’ve worked for advertising agencies and corporations and the list of business promotional items I’ve received is vast. And yet I can still remember some items I received from campaigns over 20 years ago – why? Because I kept them and used them for years and I bought the branded products they represented. In some cases, the promotional items actually outlasted the companies, but the campaigns they were a part of had a long lasting effect on me.
Does your business promotional item speak your “brand” image. Is it high quality? Is it useful? Does it make sense with what your company’s product or service offerings are?
If so, there are so many ways that promotional items can be used to continually promote your business to your clients, prospects and your employees:
- Building brand awareness
- Promoting an event
- Leave behind gift after a meeting
- Business development/new customer generation
- Trade show giveaway – Pre and post show as well as at the trade show
- Direct Mail – a bulky direct mail item is opened more often than a flat envelope
- Introducing a new product/service
- Introducing a product enhancement
- Thanking employees for jobs well done/employee service awards
- Thanking customers for their business
- Customer Referrals
- Creating community good will
- And so much more
If you want to continually stay in front of your customers and prospects a well thought out promotional product can own desk top space where your name/brand will be top of mind when a need arises. Isn’t that really all we want?
