The first thing  you might want to write down is this, when you apply the 5 strengths of a promotion product to the item you ultimately choose, it must be USEFUL, it must be NEEDED and it must be WANTED and relevant. So as you take the time to go through this exercise, you will not only help yourself, but you will be providing valuable information to the promotional products distributor you are working with.  If the distributor is not able to provide back ideas based on the 5 strengths we are going to highlight, then you might not be working with the right distributor.

So lets start with strength number one. It should be TARGETED. Meaning you control its distribution and who gets it. For instance, when used as a direct piece you are only mailing it to a qualified name.  If you are exhibiting at a tradeshow, we suggest you do not have your promotional items sitting in a bowl for anyone and everyone to help themselves. We recommend you only hand over a giveaway to an attendee who has qualified themselves first.  If you are working a networking event you only present a giveaway to those that are most likely to need your product and services or who might be a source of referral, otherwise just give them a business card. By choosing to be selective in who receives your promotional gift you minimize waste, thus maximizing your marketing dollars. Here are some statistics to help you understand the power of imprinted promotional products and why you want them as part of your marketing mix.

• 83% of people love to receive them
• 48% of people want to receive a promotional products more often
• 58% of people hang onto their promotional product for at least a year or more
• 91% of people keep promotional products in their kitchen
• 74% of people keep a promotional product in their workplace

So ponder this question. Where is the buying decision made for your product and services.  Are they in their kitchen, their office, in their car, in their garage, or in their garden.

For instance, let’s take a pizza restaurant and if they understand that 94% of people will keep a promotional product in the kitchen, that opens up a whole new world of promotional items they can use in a campaign to own that homeowners kitchen with their imprinted products such as pizza cutters, bag clips, cutting boards, potato peeler, jar openers, flashlights, etc.

So let’s take the most basis promotional item a pizza restaurant can use, a coupon magnet. Their coupon magnet should be on every fridge in the community they serve. It should be delivered with every pizza and one should be left with each home on either side of the house they just delivered, hey, they are already there, so why not.  So just think how many times you go to your fridge on a daily basis. There is a good possibility come Friday night, a homeowner is looking in the fridge and there is nothing there, but they have been seeing that Pizza coupon all week. Without the magnet on the fridge, good chance they will look for other coupons. But a fridge magnet can help with those impulse decisions.  So in your business, could a simple $ 1.00 magnet be the hand out or direct mail piece for you.   This same strategy can work for any business whose customer is the consumer.

So take a moment and write down the profile of your target buyer and think about where they might be when they are in most need of your product and services.

Look for our next blog where we will talk about strength number 2 of a promotional product.

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The 5 marketing strengths of a Promotional Product – Part 5 of 5

Here we are at the last of the 5 strengths of a promotional product. This is the one strength that if your promotional product can achieve this, then you are onto a winner. The final strength is:

THE ENDORSEMENT FACTOR.

When someone uses a promotional product it indicates that the person has a favorable working relationship with that company, which implies they endorse it.

It could be as simple as a calendar on a clients wall or on their desk. Everyone who visits with that person in their office will see your name as the advertiser, thus implying they endorse you.

Wearable’s such as caps, T-shirts, polo’s and outdoor clothing are great endorsement vehicles. So are water bottles and bags. That why it is so important to ask yourself, is the item I am picking, USEFUL, NEEDED and WANTED. It could be something they probable would not go out and buy themselves, but they are more than happy to receive as a gift from you.

So if we take a look at the 5 marketing strengths of a promotional product, the more strengths you can incorporate into your chosen item, expect to get a better return on your marketing dollars.

· It’s Targeted

· It Provides Long Term Advertising Value

· The Medium Becomes the Message

· It Creates Goodwill

· The Endorsement Factor

Our biggest observations are how many folks are buying the same items, especially at trade shows. We see it with on-line stores pushing a top 100 of the most popular giveaways. These are the lists you want to avoid and go for something different that truly aligns with your target buyer and your overall objectives.

If you didn’t already now, there are over 800,000 promotional items available for you to choose from? We encourage promotional buyers to be creative, by choosing an item that incorporates the 5 strengths will go a long way to make your promotional gift more memorable.

That concludes the 5 marketing strengths of as promotional product.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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