Benefits of Using Promotional Products

Marketing doesn’t always have to involve lengthy and costly strategies. Sometimes even the smallest of things can make the biggest impact. That’s what promotional products are for – to grab the attention of an individual and allow the product to encourage them to bring their business to you! The more promotional items you are able to hand out, the more potential customers you will reach.

Before we begin, let’s quickly go over what exactly a promotional product is.

What Is a Promotional Product?

Promotional products are a form of traditional marketing. It is a way in which your company can get potential customers to remember your brand by printing your company’s logo on a product. They can come in the form of t-shirts, pens, thermoses, and much, much more. These products are then given out to individuals for them to take home. And really, who doesn’t love free stuff?!

Also, promotional merchandise is a fantastic way to keep your marketing campaign working for you in the homes, and even offices, of your potential and existing customers. Marketing campaigns are essential for growing businesses, and promotional products are one avenue in which that can take place because once a consumer receives a promotional product from your company, they are much more inclined to purchase from you in the future.

These promotional products are affordable items that are meant to help persuade prospective customers into bringing their business to you instead of your competitors. Their purpose is to appeal to the customer’s emotions, bring them value, and make them feel appreciated for the gift your business has so thoughtfully given to them. In doing so, you will have left them with a lasting impression of your brand.

The following are 12 key benefits of using promotional products and how they can reap great rewards for your marketing campaign.

The Benefits of Using Promotional Products

1. Invokes a Sense of Brand Loyalty

Brand loyalty is one of the most important aspects of growing a successful company. Without loyalty to your brand, customers will have no problem taking their business to your competitors. So how can we prevent that from happening? By showing them how important their business is to you!

Giving your current or potential customers a gift shows them that you appreciate them. It’s just the same as in our personal lives. When you receive a gift from a family member or a friend, it probably makes you feel loved and appreciated, right? Well, that same feeling can occur between businesses and consumers.

2. Creates a Solid, Long-Lasting Relationship With Your Customers

Consumers are pretty quick to realize if a business actually cares about and whether or not they want to build meaningful relationships with them. Building connections with your customers will produce long-term benefits for your company. When an individual has trust in a company, they are likely to recommend their services to their friends, family, and even co-workers, which is vital to the future success of your business.

One way in which you can build strong, long-lasting relationships with your customers is through the use of promotional products. For instance, offering frequent giveaways compel consumers to engage with your company. The frequency of the giveaways will ensure the customer stay plugged into your campaigns in order to increase their chance of winning a prize. Consider creating a giveaway on Facebook or Instagram in which the prize is a branded gift or tickets to an event that your company is promoting.

3. Makes Customers Passionate About Your Brand

One of the greatest examples of promotional products building passion in customers is Coca-Cola’s “Share a Coke” campaign. Throughout this campaign, Coke cans and bottles were personalized with several individual’s names. During this time, consumers flocked to stores to find their names on the cans and bottles.

But what about those with slightly less common names? Well, Coke created an avenue in which customers could request their name to be put on the label. This personalization caused a major boom in business and consumer contact and, in turn, created an increase of trust and passion between the two parties by becoming emotionally engaged with one another throughout their interactions.

As a business owner, take note of this strategy that Coke employed to increase customer interaction. Find your own clever and unique way to use your promotional products to encourage the building of relationships between yourself and the consumer.

4. Emotionally Rewards Consumers

As we’ve already discussed, promotional gifts can help to build relationships and create a passion for your brand. But what causes a consumer to feel passionate about a brand? The answer is pretty simple. When something triggers your emotions, it causes a reaction. So, a positive emotional trigger will, in turn, create a passion for whatever it is that caused it. In this case, your brand.

Hand out promotional gifts that instill a sense of joy within the consumer and a lasting, positive impression will be had. And, hopefully, when that person encounters your brand in the future, that same sense of joy and passion will be triggered once again.

5. Shows Commitment to Existing Customers

By gifting your existing customers personalized and valuable products, you are showing a sense of commitment to those customers. This commitment will provide profound results for your business, including leading to strong customer retention and an increase on your return on investment.

Studies have claimed that it costs five times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one. This goes to show brand commitment is definitely worth investing in. It also proves that customer retention is extremely important to the long-term success of your company.

6. A Cost-Effective Form of Marketing Strategy

Compared to other traditional forms of advertising, such as TV, newspaper, or radio advertising, promotional merchandise is incredibly cost-effective in terms of the number of impressions (or a single view of an ad) that it gets. Traditional advertising is often indirect and impersonal to the consumer. However, with branded products, there is typically much more active interaction with the consumer and the brand than with other forms of marketing.

Let’s think about it. If a consumer is watching an hour of TV and is actually paying attention to the commercials – which, let’s be honest, most of the time we completely shut our minds off during this time – they will most likely see that same commercial maybe once more during that hour. But, with promotional gifts like coffee mugs or pens, a consumer will look at or use those items more times than they’ve seen that commercial in the same allotted time frame. Promotional merchandise provides a steady presence in the consumers’ day-to-day lives and keeps your company’s name in the back of their minds.

A recent study showed that TV and magazine ads cost on average 1.8 cents per impression, while promotional products only cost an average of .6 cents per impression. This clearly shows how affordable promotional products can be! Research also has shown that on average 62% of people can recall details of a company who has provided them with a promotional item.

In order to make promotional items a cost-effective and profitable marketing strategy for the long-term, you must make sure that the production costs are justified by higher levels of recollection.

7. Allows Your Brand to Be “Passed Along”

Promotional gifts are often categorized as “useful” products – or at least they should be. When an item is considered useful, it is typically passed along to others. Throughout your life you’ve probably either passed along or received something, like a pen or a cup, that was part of a company’s promotional campaign. And why did you do that? Because it was of use to both you and someone else. This passing on of items increases the number of impressions for your company’s brand which, at the same time, improves its cost-effectiveness.

To further prove this point, a study was conducted that showed that more than half of the surveyed consumers reported giving away a promotional gift they are finished with rather than throwing it away. The same study also showed that 67% of people will give an item to someone else, 18% will keep it somewhere among their other belongings, and only 15% will throw it away.

8. Generates Sales and Increases Leads

As we’ve already hinted at a few times, promotional products are a perfect option to generate sales and increase leads for your business. This type of marketing has been shown to make lasting impressions on existing and potential customers.

In order to further generate leads, provide a call to action on your promotional merchandise. This call to action can include something as simple as getting them to visit your website or call up a number. As an advertising medium, promotional products have had a 50.7% success rate for a call to action.

9. Allows For Involvement with Local Community and Charities

Becoming involved with your local community through the sponsoring of events not only helps out a good cause, but also increases your brand recognition, enhances positive perceptions of your business, and increases your market share.

Your company can use promotional items to sponsor events by providing the t-shirts for the participants or even donating goods like footballs or soccer balls to a local team and have your company logo printed on it. Through this, you’re not only gaining brand recognition but also making a difference in your community – which is pretty great!

10. Incentivizes Employees

Not only can promotional products be given to current and potential customers, but they can be used internally as well. These gifts can be a great way to incentivize and motivate your employees to continuously improve their performance. Incentives help to increase positivity and energy within the workplace and also demonstrate your gratefulness to your employees.

Create a rewards program within your company that will help to promote its goals and standards; with a branded item being the prize. Have the gift be something they can’t just get any other day at the office. Make sure it has a high-perceived value, but still cost-effective for the business.

11. Creates Ways to Discount and Promote Your Retail Products

It’s easy to say people love free stuff, right? Well, instead of selling your products or services at a discount, consider including a free gift with purchase instead. In order for this to work and your business still maintain a profit, make sure that the promotional gift is not worth more than what the monetary discount would be, as well as making sure the gift is of perceived value.

For example, instead of offering a $5 discount on coffee beans, give away a branded mug sweater that costs only a couple of dollars for you to produce for the customer to put on their coffee cups. This tactic will save your company money and help to maintain a higher gross sales margin, all while increasing brand recognition. Plus, your customers will feel as if they’ve received a special deal after they’ve made the purchase.

12. Provides a “Physical” Form of Advertising

With the increasing developments of the digital marketing world, personal relationships with customers can tend to get lost in the shuffle of virtual promotions like cookie cutter e-mails and discount codes. However, even though most communication and business nowadays is conducted through online portals, people still tend to appreciate something they can physically touch as opposed to something they cannot. With this same mentality in mind, receiving a free gift is usually perceived to be more exciting than any sort of digital promotion a company may offer.

We’ve recently seen this take place with the resurgence of vinyl records. Consumers have missed being able to physically hold the object in which their music is coming from. Digital streaming may be more convenient and affordable, but there’s something about being able to hold that record or disc that digital music just can’t match. This just goes to show that tangible products often leave a much more meaningful and longer lasting impression than non-tangible ones.

Add Promotional Products to Your Marketing Strategy

So, to recap, these are the benefits that can be reaped from the use of promotional products as a part of your company’s marketing strategy:

• Invokes a sense of brand loyalty
• Creates a Solid, Long-Lasting Relationship With Your Customers
• Makes Customers Passionate About Your Brand
• Emotionally Rewards Consumers
• Shows Commitment to Existing Customers
• A Cost-Effective Form of Marketing Strategy
• Allows Your Brand to Be “Passed Along”
• Generates Sales and Increases Leads
• Allows For Involvement With Local Community and Charities
• Incentivizes Employees
• Creates Ways to Discount and Promote Your Retail Products
• Provides a “Physical” Form of Advertising

Every business should consider adding promotional products to their marketing strategy. When tied in with an effective marketing strategy, it can add value to any campaign and create a memorable experience. With affordable costs, high impression rates, and increased brand loyalty, why wouldn’t you include promotional gifts as a part of your advertising campaigns?

Gifts that are thoughtful, valuable, and creative will leave a lasting impression with those who receive it. If you take the time to learn your customers’ needs, you have the opportunity to add value and meaning to your relationship with one another through the use of a clever promotional product.

Now that you know the many benefits of promotional products, it’s time to get started on incorporating them into your business plan. Sunglasses, t-shirts, golf balls, coffee mugs, gym bags – you name it, you can personalize it! Do some research and figure out what not only will be cost-effective for your company but what will also excite your customers and encourage them to continue a positive relationship with your company. Then, add that promotional item to your marketing strategy.

If you’re looking to add promotional products to your marketing strategy, give US Logo a call! We will help you to create the perfect product that will be sure to make a lasting impression on all who receive your promotional gift!

(316) 264-1321
Or visit us at:
520 N. West St.
Wichita, KS 67203
www.uslogo.net