Whether you’re new to the business world or you’re a seasoned pro, you can often be looking for fun, different, and exciting ways to promote your company. The world of marketing is constantly developing, meaning that you don’t always have to rely on the traditional methods of advertising to get noticed. If you really want to make a noise about your business, increase your audience, and choose the budget you work with, promotional products are a key strategy.
Promotional products are one of the most effective ways to build brand awareness and bring in new customers. People love freebies, after all, and most people will remember a brand message for months after seeing it on a promotional product.
But, just like with anything else, you’ll get the most benefit for your brands when you use your promotional products strategically to boost awareness. Whether you’re handing out branded tote bags at events, or offering a client an engraved pen during a sales meeting, you need to be thinking of how you can get that brand message in front of as many eyes as possible. Let’s take a look at some of the most effective strategies.
1) Generate Online Buzz
Promotional products might seem like a firmly analog medium, but there’s more potential for cross-channel digital marketing with promotional products than you might think. Use your promotional products to amplify your company’s voice online by encouraging customers to share photos of themselves using your branded items and showing off their new swag. Make sure they use your hashtag.
2) Give Them Out at Events
Trade events present a unique opportunity to make the most of high-visibility items, like tote bags and hats. People attending trade expos and conventions will appreciate being handed a free tote bag when they walk onto the sales floor, and some free branded pens might not go amiss, either. Attendees will need something to carry their purchased items, souvenirs, free samples, and other promotional items as they walk around from vendor to vendor. Give out your tote bags at the entrance to the show, and they’ll be seen by everyone else in attendance.
3) Choose High-Quality Items
Branded promotional products are a great way to build customer loyalty and generate sales leads, with 83 percent of customers saying they’d be more inclined to do business with a company that’s given them a free promotional item. The thing is, customers can tell the difference between a cheap, shoddy item and one well-made with high-quality materials. And while they might chuck the former into the nearest trash can, they’ll keep and use the latter for an average of seven months.
Higher-quality promotional items might cost more upfront, but the average cost-per-impression over the lifespan of the higher-quality, longer-lasting item will be lower — probably even lower than advertising online. For example, it costs just a tenth of a cent per impression for branded writing instruments, like engraved pens and personalized pencils. Customers will be more likely to keep higher-quality items, and they’ll pass them on when they’re done with them.
4) Use a Variety of Popular Items
The most popular promotional gifts are USB sticks, outerwear, sports wear, drinkware, and writing implements. These are the categories of free gift that customers will appreciate the most and use for the longest.
However, just as you target your other marketing channels to speak to different segments of your customer base, you should target your promotional items to appeal to different types of customers. For example, older customers like USB sticks and other tech-related gifts the most, while younger adults are more likely to prefer branded desk accessories. Rural customers like performance wear, while urban customers will make better use of outerwear. By offering a variety of popular promotional items, you’ll appeal to every member of your customer base.
5) Offer High-visibility Items
High-visibility times are those that tend to get seen by the most people. These are usually the kinds of things that people take with them to work or when running errands — stuff like tote bags and promotional travel mugs. Clothing items are also high-visibility — when your customer is wearing a cap or shirt with your brand message on it, he or she becomes a walking advertisement, spreading your brand message to all in his or her path. High-visibility items will be the most effective at getting your message out.
When you’re looking to boost awareness of your brand, few marketing tools are more effective than promotional products. Most people use these products at least once a day, if not more often, and when they do, they’ll be looking at your brand messaging — and they’ll remember your brand for months or even years after the free gift itself has outlived its usefulness.