Ways to develop an effective promotional products strategy

Promotional products can deliver a wealth of advantages to your business, but only if you do it right. There is a wrong and right way to promotional product marketing. You don’t just slap your logo or messaging on a product and call it a day. If you want to leverage your business using promotional products, here is the comprehensive beginner’s guide to promotional products:

First off, what are promotional products?

Promotional products are branded items imprinted with a logo or messaging that are used to achieve an organisation’s marketing and communication objectives. They are given away to customers, leads, clients, employees and other targets to promote the company, brand, corporate image, or event.

What is in it for my brand if I give away promotional products?

Your brand stands to reap a lot of benefits if you incorporate promotional products into your marketing strategy. Here are the areas that get a boost with the help of promotional products:

Brand recognition

Promotional products reach more people than traditional forms of advertisements. According to a BPMA study, branded merchandise is used at least once a week by 90% of recipients. Meanwhile, 87% keep the promotional products for a minimum of one year after receipt. On the other hand, 64% of Australians who do not fancy the promotional products they received will pass them on to their friends and family.

Brand recall

Brands that give away promotional products also have a lasting effect on people. Seven out 10 people still recall the brand on the promotional product a year after receiving it, based on a BPMA research.

Brand image

Promotional products can enhance the public perception of your brand like no other. Eighty-two percent gain a more favorable impression of the brand after receiving a promotional product, according to a PPAI study in 2017.

Consumer reach

Since promotional products tend to be kept and used by consumers for more than a year, they generate impressions wherever the recipients are seen wearing or using them. Branded bags alone can generate up to 5,881 impressions per recipient in Sydney.

Consumer retention

Promotional products help brands develop relationships with their consumers. It has been said that 83% are more likely to do business with the brand after receiving a promotional product.

Marketing budget

Promotional products are cheaper on the pocket compared to other forms of advertising. PPAI has reported that promotional products are more effective than other forms of advertising. People also prefer them than other advertising mediums.

Lead and sales generation

The most important gauge of a marketing strategy is how it improves conversions and sales. It has been found that promotional products can convince 20.9% of recipients to buy products or avail services from the brand as opposed to 6% for online ads, 4% for print ads and 1% for TV ads.

What are things I should consider before creating a promotional products strategy?

You can’t just go ahead and start giving away promotional products. You have to know the why in your buy, the reason why you want to use promotional products in your business. Here are things to guide you:

• Budget : Going for flimsy products can cost you more than you think as consumers these days prefer quality promotional products that they can use for a considerable time.

• Usefulness : You have to know if the promotional products that you choose will be used by your target market. You would need to research your marketing demographics in order to get a snapshot of their personal and work preferences so that you could choose promotional products that will complement their lives.

• Shelf life : The more that a promotional product is used, the more impressions your brand can generate so you have to find an item that will serve to be useful for a long period of time. However, one-time use products can still benefit your brand provided that they deliver the required exposure and impact for your brand despite the short period of use.

• Purpose : Promotional products can either be used in public like wearables or in private like desk items. Whichever you choose, ensure that it matches the lifestyles of your demographics and the promotional products will be used as intended.

• Customer appreciation : If you are using promotional products to reward your customers or clients, make sure that they would appreciate these items rather than say, discount coupons or rebates.

• Distribution : How you plan to give away the promotional products also influence the costs. If you don’t have a physical store, it can be a hassle to give away products since you have to ship it, which incurs costs.

How do I get started?

It is ideal to create a strategy for promotional products at the end of the calendar or fiscal year so that it can be launched by the start of the new year. This will allow you to gauge if your strategy was effective enough to achieve the results that you desire by the end of the year of implementation. You can then adjust your strategy the following year, depending on the outcome of your initial strategy.

The best occasions to schedule your promotional product use are during target distribution opportunities, including:

• Sales calls
• Contests
• Holidays
• Conferences and trade shows
• Product or service launches
• Customer appreciation programs
• Fundraisers
• Business golf meetings

For each occasion, determine the following factors:

• Total budget
• Promotional products
• Quantity of items
• Distribution method
• Qualifiers for the recipients
• ROI measurement method

How do I measure return on investment (ROI)?

Although promotional products can deliver significant improvements to a brand, it can be pretty hard to assess ROI unlike with other marketing initiatives. That said, your brand needs to be clear on its ROI expectations, including:

• Sales
• Website/store shoppers
• Website/store/trade show traffic
• Positive feedback

These are the indicators used to gauge the effectiveness of a marketing strategy, promotional products notwithstanding. If the distribution of promotional products is the only thing that has been added to your marketing strategy, it would then be easy to analyse its impact on your brand.

If your marketing and advertising plan have had several changes throughout the year, then utilizing direct response mediums will be the best way to determine ROI. Such mediums include:

• Different phone number dedicated to leads from promotional products
• Specific websites, domain addresses, or landing pages related to the promotional products so that traffic and conversions can be easily tracked through various internet traffic analytics tools
• QR codes that connect to the specific websites or phone number

Promotional products serve as instruments to boost an advertising or branding effort. If you’re not quite sure what promotional products are appropriate for your brand, our sales representatives will be happy to help you. You can contact them by phone at 02 8072 3350 (8:30am – 5:00pm Monday through Friday) or by email sales@brandconnect.com.au.