What can you do to get your brand in the eyes and minds of more customers? How will customers distinguish your brand from the competition?
Here are 9 ways your marketing strategy can prosper with the use of promotional products.
1. Develop long-term awareness
In a study conducted by PPAI (Promotional Products Association International), 62% of Americans recognized the brand and name of an organization on a promotional product given to them. Promotional products should remind people about your brand each time they are used or seen. Customer relations and loyalty can improve if you are creative with promotional products - a giveaway establishes gratitude and appreciation, creating a connection between your company and the consumer. Adding your contact info on a promotional product ensures that customers will call you when prompted to, eliminating their need to “shop around” for others who can supply them with their needs. Think of promotional products as a business card that keeps on giving.
2. Invaluable advertising space
Most people are working for the better part of the day, usually behind a desk or remaining in one spot for long duration. If an existing or potential customer is making use of your promotional item or branded gift, you have invaluable advertising placement, right in your target market’s line of vision. A proper and relevant promotional product can be a long-term advertisement of your brand inside of a workplace.
A perfect example of invaluable advertising space are the unique, personalized banner pens (or scroll pens). These are unique promotional pens that have a large scroll inside the pens the pull out and provide your business with a great space to promote your business and provide some valuable resources for your customers that they can access over and over.
3. Add customized value to your marketing message
If you understand your target market, you’ll know what their behaviors are, and as such, you can personalize your marketing message to them. By making the best of the space on your promotional product with an eye-catching design or logo, you can raise the perceived desirability and value of the item for a designated audience. For example, if your promotional product is seen as stylish, people will be more inclined to hold onto it. If there is more than one kind of promotional item, they might even try to collect it. Established brands, such as McDonald’s and Coca Cola, have mastered the craft of developing collectibles. Obtaining a branded item that catches the eye can be a prosperous method to developing brand awareness, as well as adding appeal for your target market.
Here’s another example: if you are in the fitness and health industry, you might want to give away pedometers that feature your logo on it. If that pedometer gets used each time an individual exercises, your logo gets embedded in their minds each time the gadget is used. The more use the promotional item gets, the more the individual becomes attached to it, and becomes more familiar with your brand in the process. This is a great approach to building brand awareness.
Our customers use banner pens to provide more value to their customers by including resources like timetables, calendars, quick reference guides and detailed product information to their customers. This type of information helps improve the perceived value of the pen and ensures the customer retains and refers back to the promotional pen on a regular basis.
4. Influence the estimated value of an item
Most people don’t know the costs involved to produce promotional products. If anything, they’re more inclined to over-estimate the price, as their guesses will be based on the cost to produce one item, and not several. You can exploit their perceptions by buying promotional products in bulk, which ultimately reduces your expenses. This is especially useful when handing out high-quality promotional products, as the individual getting your item will believe that they have acquired something of value, and won’t be so quick to let it go. For instance, a product priced at $5 can be suggestive of a $15 value. When a product is packaged with free merchandise, the assumed overall value of the package is substantially raised way beyond the original cost of the promotional product.
5. Interact with charity groups and your local community
Getting involved with your local community and sponsoring events is a wonderful approach to establishing brand recognition, and a proven way to change the way you company is seen. Giving away sponsored shirts for a children’s sports team, or hosting a BBQ for charity goes a long way with residents in the area who support your business.
6. Incentives for employees
Employees should also be given promotional products either to motivate or thank them for a strong performance. There are several kinds of products that are perceived as high quality to your employees, which might be of low cost to your business. This can boost morale in the work environment, especially in a workplace based on sales.
7. Make your customers brand ambassadors
Anytime you see an individual sporting a hat or shirt with a logo embedded on it, that person has essentially turned into a walking billboard. Some companies execute this very well with their logo front and center of clothing, especially if it’s trendy or fashionable to wear. It also works when the product of practical use is given away for free, such as a gym bag or sweatshirt. If the promotional product has become a go-to item worn on a regular basis, you’ve made that person an ambassador for your brand, as such, created a mobile advertising platform.
8. Properly targeted promotional products are cost-effective
Studies show that 62% of people remember information about the business that gave them a promotional product. The secret is keeping costs low is to isolate customers who are likely to use an item relevant to your business. When the right people use your promotional product, the results you’ll receive will be more effective and less expensive than other forms of advertising.
9. Tangible advertising.
In the digital world, most promotional products are obtained via an email link (a downloadable eBook, for example), or discount codes (a code entered for a percentage off your purchase, for instance). That said, people still prefer tangible giveaways. People who get something for free they can feel and touch is far more interesting than a digital giveaway.
A promotional item that is palpable, customized and significant reinforces brand awareness. The revival of vinyl records in an age of digital music is a perfect example of people preferring to have something physical, in spite of modernization. People enjoy things that trigger memories, or are things they can relate to. When considering what kind of item to giveaway, keep in mind that items that can be held have greater significance to people than things they can download.
All marketing strategies should include promotional products. When paired with an efficient marketing strategy, promotional products add real tangible value to a campaign and can create an experience the customer won’t forget and a marketing piece they will hang on to for ages.