Interest, awareness, desire, action— these four words have seen businesses spending billions in advertising dollars to sway consumer decisions in their favor. The scale of balance is shifting even more in a post-modern world flooded with alternatives. Free giveaways, therefore, emerge as a reliable way to clench customer interest and influence their buying decisions.
Research shows that 83 per cent of all consumers like to receive promotional products. The science of freebies is never wrong, for after receiving the promotional items, 85% of the recipients will want to do business with the company that gifted them. Gifts, therefore, are a surefire way to generate increased brand awareness and boost brand love.
Be that as it may, promotional products need a proper dispensation formula to generate positive traction in your business. If this marketing approach is improperly used, it could hurt your business instead of building it. It’s no secret; giving away items for free is a headache for many companies, but how do you go about it to reap the maximum ROI?
Table of Contents
1. Think of the end user when designing/ ordering promotional products
Before you make up your mind to invest in any given promotional product, stop and ask yourself who the targeted user is. Even better; ask if the product is relevant to your business. For instance, an IT company was giving, or memory sticks will have better traction in the market than an IT company dishing out notebooks and pens.
2. Give a gift that keeps giving
Most companies fall into the trap of issuing generic promotional items. It’s usually a waste of resources when you buy many folders and stickers to gift people that will not find use for them. Let your gift be something that adds value to the user‘s life every day.
Experts recommend marketing with every day use items. Mugs, umbrellas and pens, for instance, are items that people use every day around the home and at work or school. Such products are highly effective at swaying user love to the brand that gifted them.
The usability, beauty and durability of your promotional product should be so good that users will be upset if they ever lose it. You want to outdo your competition with these products so go all the way in. It will pay off in the long run.
3. Fine tune the quality of the products
The fact that it’s a freebie doesn’t give you room to compromise on quality. Your brand reputation will still be on the line. Promotional products are a representation of your brand, carrying out a very indispensable PR role. High quality and valuable products will go a long way to improving your market penetration and acceptance.
Research shows that 81 per cent of all people keep promotional products for more than a year. The moral of the stats is that an inferior quality product will inspire long-lasting negative perception among the public, while a high quality promotional product will inspire more brand love for that long.
Cheap doesn’t make the cut. Consumers have specific standards and execution even with promotional products. See, you are turning them into your personal mobile billboards, so let the product be superior enough to turn heads wherever these recipients go. Exciting and inspiring should be among your objectives when it comes to quality.
4. A stylish design will earn you points
How is the branding on your promotional product? You cannot fit a full logo together with brand messages on a single pen for instance. However, with products like umbrellas, it is possible to place a subtle logo, slug line and address. Whatever you decide to use as a giveaway, ensure that it allows you to put your distinguishing brand mark on it.
Additionally, branding should be aesthetically pleasing and visible. Nonetheless, the logo placement and messages should in no way compromise the usability of the item. This is a case where subtlety and clarity should be synonymous and not paradoxical.
Successful brands go about it by employing a creative team to work on the design. They help with vector logos and clean clear fonts. That should be after hours of research into customer tastes and preferences.
5. Let the message get home
An eye-catching design is essential to introduce your brand to new markets. You can choose either a logo or a brand message with the business address.
The message will have to be short, clear and relatable. You can elect to work with a branding team that understands customer psychology, and how to craft impactful and memorable lines. The message has to be intriguing.
The best promotional message clearly states what your business is offering; what customers can expect and how they can contact you. It is personable and relatable.
6. Target the right recipients
A rigorous review of the market is essential before dispensing promotional products. Your first recipients should be your current customers. The gifts will hopefully help to retain them for repeat business. The second cohort is prospective customers; any non-customers that may switch to your product or service in the future.
Defining your recipients will help you to minimize losses and maximize the ROI potential of your promotional gifts. Remember that not everyone is interested in your brand. Non-targeted giveaways to uninterested recipients will not help with your bottom line in any way.
So how do you refine the list of the recipients to reach the right persons with the gifts? Technology has the answer. You can use website analytics software to find out who has been buying from you, and who is interested in buying from you in the future. You can also give the promotional items at the point of sale when a customer makes a similar or an unrelated purchase.
When it comes to events, it can be challenging to filter out the best recipients for your promotional products. The only way out is to target specific events in their entirety. A small tradeshow, for instance, is better than a big tradeshow. In the former, there will be fewer giveaways overall, and consumers will, therefore, remember your brand when they receive something from you. The idea is to maximize return per dollar of advertising expenditure.
It is the nature of business; you get one shot to make a lasting impression, or you spend a long time and enormous resources trying to make things right. Promotional products are personal, and with the right approach as explored earlier, they will get you closer to the customer’s pocket.
