When I started in this industry, I learned a lot of different terms for promotional products, such as trinkets and trash, tchotchkes, and doodads. However, I never thought these names took promotional products seriously enough, so I began to use the term business builders. I firmly believe that the use of promotional products plays a key role in building a company and brand.
A good marketing campaign can be described as a wheel with many spokes. The wheel represents the company and the spokes represent the many ways that the company can reach its audience, including television, newspaper, magazines, internet, radio, billboards, referrals, cold calling, and promotional products.
Using promotional products is a unique medium for marketing your company because of the distinct features that they offer:
1. Tangible and appreciated advertising. No other form of marketing provides a tangible product that your clients and prospects can use on an everyday basis. When you give clients a nice pen, not only do they see your name and website every time they use it, they thank you for giving it to them!
2. Implied Endorsement. When other forms of advertising need an endorsement, they have to pay a celebrity, athlete, or an actor. When your client wears a polo shirt with your company name on it, he or she is providing an implied endorsement, telling the world that someone thinks highly enough of your company to be seen wearing or using a product that has your name on it. If clients were unhappy with your company, they certainly would not be using a product that has your company name on it. Best of all, you do not have to pay for this endorsement!
3. Utility. Other than newspaper advertising—which can be used to start camp fires—no other form of marketing has a life beyond the ad itself. One of the great benefits of using promotional products to build business is that they are useful. You not only are advertising your company directly to someone you want to turn into a client, you are also providing a product that they can use.
4. Extended ad life. With traditional advertising, once an ad runs in the paper, or a commercial airs on radio or television, that’s it. The only way your prospects and clients will see the ad again is for you to spend the money on repeated placements. However, by using promotional products, you ensure that your message will stay in front of your client for years to come.
5. Goodwill. Traditional advertising rarely builds good will with your clients. No one ever says, “Thank you for marketing to me.” This is not true for when you build business with promotional products! When you give sleeves of Titleist Pro V1 golf balls imprinted with your name and logo to your golfer clients, they thank you for the product. This creates goodwill towards your company.
6. Targeted and measurable capabilities. With most advertising, the ad goes to a very wide audience. Only a small percentage of the people who will see your ad are your target market. In order to make sure your message gets through to the people you want to reach, you have to run the advertisement over and over. But if you use promotional products, you can specifically target the audience you want to reach. You can send a product to the exact person you want to get in front of…and you will not have to repeat yourself several times to get their attention; the product does this for you! Because you are able to pick and choose who receives your promotional product, you can easily track and measure the results of the marketing campaign.
Promotional products are not the only component of a solid marketing campaign, but they are solid spokes in the wheel of marketing and offer unique advantages that other forms of advertising cannot duplicate.
To learn more about Identity Promotions, please contact us at 414.831.0814 or view our website at www.identity-promo.com.