Promotional Product Marketing Concepts

The Basics:

Promotional product based marketing. Advertising specialty products. Everyone uses these terms but many business people fail to understand the power of these marketing tools. Some people refer to these items as "Giveaways, "Trinkets" or "Swag". If you have this point of view, you may be missing a real opportunity to make a measurable difference to your company's bottom line profits.

The difference between a "Giveaway" and a "Promotion" isn't just the products you choose, it's how you use them. A giveaway is just what it sounds like. You simply give your branded products away. While this can help build brand recognition over the long haul, why not take it a step further and make it a real promotion.

Let's just take one quick example. Your company can give out 5,000 mouse pads with your corporate logo and a nice looking graphic at a trade show. Your potential customers will take them home and many will actually use them. While this is certainly a good thing, why not make this event into a real promotion and benefit further. What if that mouse pad contains a url to a web page only for mouse pad recipients. Put a code on the mouse pad and have your customers log in for a chance to win a larger prize. Don't you think that's going to get a lot more people to contact your business and probably end up generating increased revenue? This is just a very simple example but the idea is universal. Remember that the purpose of your promotion is to generate income for your business, not to give "Stuff" away.

Things to remember when planning your promotions

-Make sure that the product you choose is appropriate for your audience. A USB flash drive will make a great promotional item for a computer company that markets to programmers but will probably not be the best item for a company that gives white water rapids tours.

-Make sure that you provide an effective marketing message. Make the product work for you by adding an additional message which makes a call to action. It will only cost a bit more to add these extra messages and they will be well worth it if used effectively.

-Make sure that you target your customers. It's important that you're not wasting resources by targeting your promotions to the wrong market.

- Finally, don't hesitate to get outside advice from someone who's job it is to help you choose the right products for your promotion. We'll be glad to help you come up with ideas and solutions for your next promotion. Give us a call.