This next strength is one of the most cost effective ways to separate yourself from the competition, because quite simple, the act of giving a promotional product CREATES GOODWILL not only at the time when they first received it, but each and every time the recipient uses it or looks at it.

Nothing says more about you, than a thoughtful gift. Here are some ways you can create goodwill.

· Client’s birthday – How nice would it be for them to receive an unexpected birthday gift from you?

· New client acquisition – That $10 to $20 gift you send them after they became a client, can do wonders to start of your new business relationship

· A premium giveaway – When a minimum purchase is met, provide a premium giveaway

· Anniversary – Celebrating those clients that have been with your for 1, 5, 10, 15 years or longer. Send them a gift of gratitude that they will cherish

· At your industry tradeshow, give a high value gift to all your VIP clients who stop by your booth

It seems many companies have forgotten the art of saying “thank you.” With the economic environment we find ourselves in today, a small token of your appreciation can and will go a long way. So look into implement a client appreciation program. The cost to keep a client is far less that it is to acquire a new one.

Look for our next blog where we will talk about strength number 5 of a promotional product.

Share this:

This continues part 3 of 5 that talks about the 5 Marketing strengths of a Promotional Product. This is one of my favorite aspects of a promotional product because it brings out the creative uses for promotional products.

This strength will test your creative juices because you are going to have several A’HA moments as you are reading this. So the third strength of a promotion product is:

THE MEDIUM BECOMES THE MESSAGE.

Here are several examples that will help you visualize. We just exhibited at EXHIBITOR 2010 and we used scented pen, yes there are now scented pens. as well as scented tote bag. One of the challenges at any tradeshow is getting an attendee to stop and listen to your story while you try to qualify them as quickly as possible, before you move onto the next attendee. We had three scented pen. What we would say to a passing attendee’s is this. “Are you ready for a SCENT-SATATIONAL idea today.”

We would then ask them to guess the scent on the pen; we had mint, cherry and coffee scented pens. 90% of the attendees participated. They would go wow, you’re kidding, we go NO, and we got right into our one minutes sales qualifier by saying, “then let me show you some SCENT-SATIONAL ways to make your next trade show more effective. The medium in this example is the pen. The imprint on the pen, directed them to visit our website, to see More SCENT-SATIONAL ideas. And they had a unique pen, no one else gave away at the show.

Let take a pyramid shaped HIGHLIGHTER. These are excellent sales call leave behinds because they sit very prominently on a desk and will not end up in a draw. The pyramid has three sides available for imprinting. So one way to use this idea is to hand over the promotional highlighter to your potential buyer and the rep might say.

”Mr. Jones, thank you for taking the time to meet with me today. Today I am going to HIGHLIGHT our products and services.

As they are talking to the buyer, the sales rep can point to the promotional highlighter to reaffirm the key points they want the buyer to remember. When the rep leaves the meeting, your silent salesman (the highlighter) is there reminding them daily of your key value points.

Here is one idea we helped a sales team creatively communicate the solutions they offered. We took a Rubik’s cube. On one of the sides, we imprinted on seven of the squares the solutions the company offered. The two remaining squares we printed the company logo and the sales persons name and number. This allowed the sales person to point to each solution during their client meeting.

THE MEDIUM BECOMES THE MESSAGE is also excellent strategy to use a promotional product as a direct mail piece for appointment generation. For instance, you can mail a pizza cutter and the sales copy on the outside of the box might say ”LOOKING FOR A SLICE OF YOUR TIME.” The sales letter inside would continue the rest of the sales message.

How about a mini-garbage can. Take a sales letter and crumble it up and place it inside the can. Your headline sales copy could include: “In case you’ve been throwing my letters into the trash I wanted to do it for you this time”

These are just some of the different ways a promotional product is the medium to carry the message. It’s very creative and it will get the recipients attention.

Here is a small list of promotional products that I bet you can come up with a catchy sales intro that your sales reps could use on the tradeshow floor, in a client meeting, at a networking event or a clever tag line with a promotional leave behind.

Comb, ruler, pencil, fly swatter, clock, flashlight, deck of cards, yoyo, fan, umbrella, coffee mug, knife, or a calculator.

As I mentioned, this is my favorite strength. This is what makes what I do so much fun, throwing out ideas that you can use to make your company’s message memorable and show the perspective clients how creative you are from your competition.

Look for our next blog where we will talk about strength number 4 of a promotional product.

Share this:

This continues part 2 of 5 that talks about the 5 Marketing strengths of a Promotional Product. So let me ask you this question. Do you keep a newspaper after you have read it or an industry magazine? I mean, there’s a magazine full of advertisers trying to grab your attention about their product and services. For me, I might tear out an article of interest, and for the most part I throw it away, never to be read again. And if your target audience is between the ages of 20 and 35, that age group doesn’t even buy newspapers.

So the way in which we all have to market our business today has completely changed, from just a few years ago, which brings us to strength number 2 of a promotional product.

IT PROVIDES LONG TERM ADVERTIZING VALUE.

When you hand someone a useful, needed and wanted promotional gift, that item can continue promoting your company’s name for years to come.

· 58% of people hang onto their promotional product for at least a year or more

Here’s the best part, you can change up the type of promotional item you use by implementing a quarterly program, providing useful items your potential client can use.  By implementing a sales continuity program with your target audience, by putting useful promotional products that become a part of their daily life style is very strategic in helping you achieve your end goal. Which is landing a new client.

We have a term we used called CPI (cost per impression) which means, every time the person you gave the item to or someone else see’s your name by virtue of seeing your company name on a promotional product, this lowers your CPI index to sometimes cent’s on the dollar.

Let’s say you are a grocery store and run campaign where you give a FREE eco-friendly tote bag to your customers, say a $4.00 value. I know there’s a cheaper bag out there, but we want one where the focus is on quality and functionality and not just price. If it looks too cheap, they will not use it and your $4 just went to waste. Now, if that shopper visits your store with their much nicer imprinted bag just once a week, every time they use the bag they see you name, as well as other consumers will see the grocers name on their bag, this is brand awareness at its best.

So if we take the $4.00 tote bag and divide that by 52 weeks, that’s just .07 cents a week the grocer spent to get his name out there. Only a billboard has a lower cost per impression, because they have thousands of cars driving by the billboard daily.

This is also an excellent strategy for tradeshows. By handing out a big bags you expose your name to all the attendees on the exhibit floor, when they stop for lunch, in the educational sessions and at the networking session. These are all opportunities a potential client gets to see your company name Also if you get the chance to sponsor the show bags at a industry tradeshow, look into that cost, as that is also an excellent branding opportunity.

Another great example of long term advertising value is calendars. Calendar advertising is a powerful media, that many companies are missing a golden opportunity to get noticed. Studies show -

• 83% of customers purchase from advertiser who supplied them with a calendar
• 94% of business people can recall the advertising message on their calendars
• On average, a person looks at a calendar 12 times daily (4,380 impressions per year)

Everyone needs calendars. In fact surveys indicate that 98% of all homes and practically 100% of all business use at least one!  Studies also show that the majority of people who do not receive complimentary calendars would like to receive them. Therefore, it stands to reason that the firm which distributes calendars to its target audience is meeting a recognized need and will be appreciated for the gift.

Calendar advertising places your sales message in the best of all advertising locations; a prominent place on the wall or desk where the message will be highly visible and recognized 365 days a year.

So let’s recap. We have identified our target audience. We should have a good idea where they are most likely going to be when they make a decision about your products and services. Now we are looking for a useful, needed and wanted promotional giveaway that provides long term advertising benefits. Remember, out of site is out of mind, but a promotional product gives you long term visibility no other marketing tool can.

Look for our next blog where we will talk about strength number 3 of a promotional product.

Share this: