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In this digital age, it is easy to forget that direct and face-to-face marketing channels are important for your promotional strategy. But they are. This explains why promotional products are still such big business.
As an example, just consider how much effort you can put into a digital post, only for the content to disappear with a handful of likes and little real engagement.
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Compare this to the immediacy of a face-to-face events where you have promotional products to give away. The customer is present in the moment, physically interacting with the brand. Moreover, they are building a mental perception of the brand. And they are deciding there and then whether to buy from the brand in future.
If your business is a B2C (business-to-consumer) brand, where you make sales directly to individuals, the customer might actually purchase there and then. This can be especially true if the customer is sufficiently swayed by the experience and the quality of the promotional product. And this is even more the case if it’s as a trial product. This helps to cement the purchase intent.
How Promotional Products Can Boost Your Brand
How can you use promotional products to boost your brand, whether your business sells to other businesses or directly to individual customers? In this post, we take a look.
Fostering Brand Awareness
Promotional products build brand awareness. Consider how often your clients will see your brand every time they open up their golf umbrella, see your branded mouse pad, or drink from their branded mug.
This brand awareness is ongoing and repeated. What’s more, it costs you nothing to keep reminding your target about your brand and its offer. Compare that to the costs of needing to re-run digital or print advertising campaigns on a continual basis.
Reactivating Dormant Clients
When a client has forgotten about your brand, it is easy to reactivate them. Just place your promotional product in front of them. This grabs their attention once again.
Think about your target sitting at their desk, considering a purchase. And then they see your branded calendar in front of them. It’s an easy call for them to make. Moreover, this is a far better way of gaining purchase intent than many other modern methods of engagement.
Building Loyalty
When you give away promotional products with the essential attributes of quality and utility, you place your brand favourably in your target’s mind. This helps them to see your brand in a positive way. They learn to associate it with those same essential universal attributes.
In other words, they learn to think of your brand as one that offers something useful and of genuinely high quality. Especially in higher-value markets and B2B (shorthand for business-to-business) markets, this is essential to success.
Furthering Lead Generation
Point your promotional products to a digital landing page and you can boost your lead generation easily and rapidly. What’s more, you’ll end up with clear data on your leads so you can follow up. Again, this can be highly cost-effective, especially when compared to other forms of marketing.
Building Client Relationships
When existing customers see your brand in their daily lives—perhaps from their desk, as they commute, or as they enjoy leisure activities—they gain a sense of relationship and trust with it. This helps to build your brand. What’s more, it firmly positions it as a brand the customer relates to and feels comfortable with.
The key here is to pick promotional products that will be useful and relevant in their daily lives. Think about digital charging devices, eco-friendly bamboo coffee cups, umbrellas, quality pens, jute bags, and other on-trend items. Your customers will happily use such items regularly, with your brand visible every time.
A Promotional Product Is Your Company’s Calling Card
Whether you invest in branded pens or promotional umbrellas, the right promotional products are effectively your business’s calling cards. Invest in these promotional goods and you will see a genuine return on your marketing efforts. Moreover, this will be the case at every stage of your marketing cycle, from lead generation through brand loyalty and ongoing customer retention and repurchase.
There are a lot of options when it comes to finding the right promotional products to go with. Therefore, it’s important to get a strong understanding of your target market in order to make the right decision.
Make Your Promotional Products Count
Remember not to put too much information on a promotional product, beyond contact details and your brand logo. In this way, your branding is clearly visible and as effective as possible, both for your targets and for passing traffic. Promotional products thereby serve as a powerful alternative to more expensive forms of advertising.
To get the best prices, buy in bulk after planning your promotional fulfillment activities for the year. For example, take into account trade shows, direct marketing campaigns, and sales visits. If you need financial backing to cover an investment, check to see if car title loans will foot the bill.
After all, these handy little items will give you a solid return when used intelligently and creatively among your targets.
