Promotional products are defined as products used in promotional marketing with your brand and logo on them to increase brand awareness. You are pitching your logo branded items to prospects when you give them these gifted items. This could be at a job fair, tradeshow, county fair, school, family or work event, your logo branded item will be seen.
Logo products are making business cards obsolete. Business cards no longer have such an impression on prospects, they tend to toss them aside and forget about them. However, you give someone a pen, t-shirt, or coffee mug, and they will certainly remember who you are and hold on to it.
It doesn’t matter the size of your business, whether it is large or small—promotional products are an effective marketing tool. All the large retail companies use the power of giving away logo merchandise to make impressions. Promotional products will help build your business if you are new, or generate additional business if you are struggling.
Get Your Brand Out
Your brand is an important aspect of your business. This is how you are perceived in the eyes of consumers–customers or not. Your brand is your reputation and what you do. If you are a new business, it’s important to facilitate brand awareness, which is what promotional products will do. It is a way to instantly and cost-effectively gain recognition.
Now you’re probably thinking how do promotional products get your brand out. The answer is simple—your logo and brand are imprinted on all of your promotional products. By giving away high-quality, useful promotional items, you are exposing your brand and creating a lasting impression.
Lasting Impression
How do you create a lasting impression with your promotional products? To increase your return on impression, and making it a lasting one, your promotional products should be selected with the following factors in mind:
- Target audience-your target audience is important because you need to know what form of promotional products to gear towards that audience.
- Usefulness intertwined with a business niche- writing instruments will always hold rank among promotional products. However, think about your business niche, if your niche is makeup, you don’t want to invest in logo branded USB drives. Consider a nice makeup bag or makeup applicator.
- Daily use items- think of something that is used every day or higher than average usage
- Attractiveness- Although quality and utility ranks higher than attractiveness, you still want the promotional product to be appealing. Whether it’s a bold color or unique design, think of what will keep your brand memorable.
- Most in-demand products- this correlates with your target audience.
Speaking of lasting impressions, the quality of your promotional item will place an effect on ROI. Consumers often remember advertisers that give them quality promotional items.
Promotional product marketing ranks the highest in physically stimulating the target audience. Daily use items such as a pen, calendar, bag among others are integrated into the daily lives of consumers. Prospective customers will remember your business and brand and eventually will pass it on. This helps generate referrals and introducing others to your business.
Key Facts About Promotional Items
Writing Instruments, drinkware, t-shirts, and bags hold the highest percentage of promotional products owned in the United States. These promotional products are owned for 9 months up to 2 years on average, which is higher than the average of all promotional products combined. The average length of time is 7-8 months for ownership.
83% of consumers enjoy receiving gifted items with logos and messages. 53% of consumers use the products once a week, while 6 out of 10 people will own the products for 2 years.
The average household according to the Advertising Specialty Institute, owns at least 30 promotional products. Generation X with the highest amount, followed by Millennials and baby boomers.
Power of Promotion
Customers are 89% more likely to remember the name of a brand on a promotional item over TV or magazine ads. The more a consumer sees your brand the more memorable it becomes.
Promotional products are an excellent way to boost the effectiveness of your other media marketing when added to the mix. According to recent studies by the Advertising Specialty Institute, 85% of consumers will do business with a company after receiving a gifted promotional product. On top of that 500%, more referrals are received from the use of promotional products.
Boost RoI
Promotional products are not measured by financial measures, but rather by the impression left on consumers. The more useful your promotional product is and the more swag it has, the more your brand is recognized which improves your reputation. This will, in turn, will increase your sales. When a consumer is shopping:
- They see your products,
- They will recognize your brand,
- Remember the promotional item received
- More than likely do business with you.
Promotional product marketing ranks the highest in physically stimulating the target audience. Consumers will wear t-shirts, write with the pens, drink out of the coffee mugs, etc. —and your brand and logo are right there every time they use it. As long as they continue to use and own the items, your ROI is greatly increased. This reduces your CPI and will increase sales.
Most Cost-Effective Option
Promotional products have the lowest CPI (cost per impression) than any other form of media advertising. You can get items in bulk imprinted with your brand and logo for a fraction of a penny. This is based on the length of ownership per impression and the number of impressions generated to give the promotional products a final CPI of less than a penny.
Conclusion
The use of promotional products is the most cost-effective way to build your business brand. The impression that they leave is continuous, as promotional items are passed on from one person to the next. Remember, promotional products can easily be produced in large amounts and they are inexpensive. By adding promotional products to your advertising media mix, you are optimizing your marketing advertising tools and increasing the overall effect. Which will give you the type of promotional marketing campaign needed to make a lasting impression, boost your ROI, increase sales and lower your CPI.
