When used correctly, promotional items can work wonders to increase brand awareness and can be a great cost-effective way to market your business. But when executed poorly, promotional items can be a money pit that won’t give you the return on investment you expected. In this article, we’re going to give you a few simple tips to increase your returns with your promotional items.
- Know What Constitutes a Good Promotional Item
Calendars are one of the most common promotional items ever, and for a reason – people have an actual use for them. However, you also have to make sure that the promotional item you choose relates to your audience. Custom coffee mugs for small businesses would be a better choice for a cafe or a restaurant than they would for a chemical manufacturer, so make sure you take that into consideration. Try to find something that will actually be useful to your audience that they’ll potentially be using every day.
- Start with Your People
The goal of your promotional items should be to disseminate your brand as much as you can. So why not start with your employees? Give them a gift package as a welcome gift and stock it with useful promotional items. Now your employees will be spreading awareness about your brand without you having to do the legwork.
- Make Sure That It’s Consistent with Your Brand
Since you’re trying to build your brand image, you have to make sure that you have a consistent message across all platforms. Your promo items should be in line with your brand’s image and philosophy. Not only will it dictate the type of item you will be using, but what the color schemes, fonts, logos and general appearance will be. The more consistent your brand is, the easier it will be to engrave into your audience’s mind.
- Beware of Cheap Items
Don’t cheapen your brand with cheap products. Sure, a landscaping company can get away with giving away cheap refrigerator magnets, but it’s another thing for a prime luxury brand to offer cheap t-shirts with a tacky logo as a promo item. Make sure that you understand your target audience and give them something that is consistent with them.
- Give Away Anything You Might Have Left
If you’re thinking of giving away your items at a trade show only to people who visit your stand, consider giving any leftovers away instead of letting them go to waste. You can never have too many items, so make sure that you give them away to your clients, prospects or employees any way that you can. You could give them away to your newsletter subscribers for instance, or even have a promo on social media. The more items you give away, the more chances you have to make an impact.
Promotional items remain one of the most popular marketing methods today for a variety of reasons. Make sure that you have a solid strategy in mind from the get go and use the tips in this article to take your marketing efforts to the next level.
