When you think of marketing with promotional products, what do you think of? Products with logos on them? Giveaway products? Throwaway products? Free Stuff? What if I told you there is more to promotional products than you might know? In fact, some might not know that promotional products are effective advertising tools, that when used properly, can really make an impact on your company’s brand image as well as your company’s overall well being. How is this possible, you ask? With proper marketing and promotion techniques, you will be able to make a great impact on those you are targeting. The success you have marketing with promotional items all has to do with the method in which you choose to distribute them.
Let’s take a closer look and break down a promotion for a produce market using the “4 P’s of Marketing”.
Product
The point of advertising with promotional products is to give your target audience something they can use at least once in a while, if not frequently. This way, the more they use it, the more likely they will remember your company. It will be in the back of their minds who gave them such a useful item – hence promoting your brand.
Which product to choose? Let’s say you own a produce market and you saw a carrot shaped stress reliever one time and you thought might be perfect because it is relevant to your company. Yes, the shape of the product is relevant to your company, but would your customer use the carrot shaped stress reliever? Or, would they give it away to their child? Since you want to choose products your target audience can use, why not try a grocery tote, instead?
Place
Place is all about where you will distribute your product. Will you distribute it at a grand opening? A tradeshow? Will you give it as a free gift for purchasing “X” amount of goods at your store? You need to figure out where to distribute it so you don’t end up with a bunch of products sitting around wasting your marketing dollars!
Promotion
The next thing to decide is the method in which you will use the promotional item – this is more important than the method itself. Let’s stay with the produce market grocery tote example. How can you use them, or tie them into a promotion, to effectively pass them along to your audience?
What method could he use to distribute the totes? If it is a grand opening of the store, you can pass one out to everyone with his sales paper inside and a coupon for their next visit. Or, they could sell them for $1.00 at the cash register full of “exclusive” coupons customers can use when they come back with the bag. Or, they could give a certain percentage off every time their customers bring the bag. Giving a discount might be cheaper then having to buy plastic bags every so often.
Price
Every company has – and if they don’t they should – have a marketing budget. Find out how much of your budget you would allocate to the use of promotional products. This is best to have a number in mind when given options of products you could use. For example, you could order 1000 inexpensive and cheap pens but these might not work as effectively as 250 higher quality products.
Next time you think of marketing with promotional items, it is always best to think of a promotional plan that will help you choose the best method to plan, promote, and distribute your products.
Creating Memorable Impressions For Your Brand 