What are the benefits of giving away a promotional product at your trade show booth, marketing event or branding campaign? It’s getting your name out there to potential customers in a way that they will appreciate; by giving them something at no cost to them. With that said though, as a company that uses promotional items as giveaways, you shouldn’t be looking to just get a momentary connection between a potential customer and your business, instead your goal should be to make a connection with them that last’s long after that.

When you give out a promotional product, you want them to use it time and time again so your logo and information gets ingrained into their minds. To achieve name brand recognition and top of mind awareness is not done over night, it’s the kind of thing that takes a lot of thought in this kind of market.

Know Your Customer

So how do you make sure that your promotional items and giveaways will be used time and time again? There’s no real trick to it, really, you just have to make sure that you give them something that they will want to use. You know your customer base better than anyone, you talk to them and interact with them on a daily basis, so what kind of gift would they want to use? Sure everyone would love a top of the line sports car or a bar of gold but obviously some products won’t get you a return on your investment. It’s okay to think simple and practical but do it wisely.

For example, if you give out simple inexpensive promo pens, it’s something that a lot of people will use long term, especially students and business professionals. In fact, while it may seem like the most obvious idea, giving away a promo pen is still one of the best when it comes to repeat use. In addition, thinking outside of the box with such items as laptop skin and an iPod case is also a good way to come up with something that will be used over and over again and not break the budget.

Knowing your customer and niche target market is the most important part of running a successful brand or business. The second is marketing your products and services in a way that is cost effective. That’s where Source Promos comes in. We have thousands of products and an efficient distribution system that allows us to offer quality products at a competitive price. Use our promotional products database to find out for yourself and contact us if you have any questions.

Why Promotional Products Work

Promoting your brand is an important piece to your company’s marketing mix. Promotion is actually one of just four parts that make up a marketing mix; the others being: product, price and place. Together these four elements of marketing, if planned and executed well, can help increase your business’ bottom line and build brand equity.

Building Your Reputation

When you build brand equity, you increase the value of your brand’s, products, services, causes or messages. It’s been said that having good brand equity is possibly the most important and valuable asset a company could have. It’s not easy to do but with the right promotional mix, a brand can become a name brand with top of mind recognition. Some of the best examples include Coca Cola’s Coke, Kleenex facial tissues and Q-Tips cotton swabs. How often do you hear people ask for a Kleenex  and receive a facial tissue made by another manufacturer. It’s because the two go hand in hand and people simply just associate them as one in the same.

These companies didn’t gain this success over night with out any hard work. No, they had to promote their brand with marketing and advertising. Promotional products with your brand or slogan on them is just one type of promotion that has a proven track record. Many of the top companies continue to promote their brands by offering promotional merchandise, direct mailers or marketing giveaways.

See the Return on Investment

Promotional products are called Below the Line promotion. Others types of promotions in this category include, direct mailers, sponsorships and trade show events. These are subtle and not as in your face as the Above the Line types which include mass media advertising: TV commercials, print ads, radio ads and mobile advertisements. In addition, these Below the Line types of promotions are much easier to quantify and thus easier to calculate your return on investment, ROI. This can be done by seeing open rates of email blasts, return and response rates of direct mailing campaigns or redemption of promotional codes and coupons. Promotional products can have a sales message attached to them in which a consumer response  can be calculated.

Remember that the basics of a any promotion should include: informing consumers about your business’ products and services; Building a demand for your company’s brand name; differentiating your products and services from the competition. You can check some of these off this list when  you order promotional products from Source Promos.