Ask yourself the following three questions:
- 1) Have you started your own business?
- 2) Are you wondering how to reach more people?
- 3) Have you heard of promotional products?
If you can answer yes to the first two, then the third one can help you reach out to more people. Even if you answered yes to the third question, then knowing more about promotional items can help you expand your business outreach.
What Are Promotional Products?
In short, promotional items are things that someone produces via promotional printing to put your promotional logo or business logo on. They're also commonly called promo goods, branded products, merchandise, or just swag.
These items are used for promoting your business. You can sell them to your most loyal customers. You can also just give them away to boost your brand awareness. Promo goods can be had at little cost and provide you a very cost-efficient marketing strategy.
Branded products featuring your business logo can be had via promotional printing or screen printing, depending on the item. Useful and tangible items that have your advertising, name, logo, and message let you physically engage the senses of consumers. This is one of the few advertising mediums where consumers can actually interact with your promotional logo physically, resulting in a memorable brand experience that makes a positive impact.
A Short History Behind Branded Products
In the USA, the first promotional goods might have been thanks to George Washington. His election in 1789 featured commemorative buttons signifying the event.
Promotional items didn't organize as an industry until the later 1800s, but the 19th century saw the advent of rulers, calendars, and various wooden specialties being used as what modern consumers know as swag.
Many industry experts point to Jasper Meek as the man who birthed the industry. This Coshocton, Ohio printer convinced a community shoe store to give area schools branded book bags featuring their logo. Henry Beach was a competitor of his in the area, and the two started selling branded merchandise including fans and marble bags.
Do Promotional Items Work?
The short answer is yes. In fact, they work enthusiastically well. One in four consumers actually reported to researchers that they bought promotional items in the previous year. Instead of just investing money into promotional items to boost the branding of your business, you might even make money off of such products!
Email marketing and PPC ads are very common advertising channels for businesses looking for cost-efficient branding opportunities, but they're seen once and then done. On the other hand, the Advertising Specialty Institute reports that most consumers keep their swag and promotional merchandise for eight months on average. Every time they touch, see or use these items, they physically interact with your brand and remember it.
Consider the following statistics, and you'll no longer wonder if promotional items actually work:
- Four in 10 consumers that own promotional goods keep them for more than a decade.
- Over half of all consumers use promotional items on a weekly basis.
- More than eight in 10 consumers who get a promotional product from a business wind up doing at least one transaction with them.
- Almost everyone is willing to put in some token effort to get promotional swag.
- Over 90 percent of consumers look for promotional items in advance on social media.
- Two-thirds of consumers like to get more promotional items than they currently have.
- Promotional merchandise is the top marketing medium in every age and generation.
Kinds of Promotional Items You Can Use
The potentials are almost endless. Still, if you need a few ideas to get started, consider these as pointers:
- Custom Face Masks Featuring Your Logo: Face masks are likely to be necessary for a while, so why not give them away since everyone needs them? Remember, every time they put one on, they see your logo. Then again, every time someone looks at that face mask and sees your logo, your promotional item makes another 'impression'. The more of these you get, the better.
- Writing Utensils: These can be pencils, but pens are far more common. Everyone uses them, at home and work, and they need them all the time. Add your logo and contact information to someone's pen jar. Even better, brand a pen jar too.
- Writing Materials: Whether it's journals or sticky notes, people need something to write on with their pens. Double down on your branding and hope the notes get passed around.
- Drinkware: Every kitchen needs more cups and mugs. Aim for something that can be used outdoors so they get handed out at picnics and parties for even more impressions.
- Tote Bags: Commonly known to younger consumers as swag bags, these are great for big logos on full display, plus they have internal storage room for even more branded items.
- T-Shirts: The stand-by classic works as well as ever. These can be produced very cost-effectively with a sizeable print run, and if you actually design something people wear often, you're going to get a lot of impressions whenever they head out to do things.
- Anything Environmentally Sensitive: Concern for the environment, the air everyone breathes, climate change, and natural resource depletion is at an all-time high among most consumers. Whatever you produce as promotional goods, be sure you do two things. First, do it in ways that are as environmentally responsible as possible. Second, make sure your consumers know it! Building awareness for your business is great with extended outreach, but actually demonstrating that you share someone's values is what really wins in today's marketing madness.
How Can You Use Promotional Goods?
Swag and merchandise are used around the world as great giveaway tools. Building up brand awareness is certainly the most common application, but you can also use them to reward employees or even as a sales tool. Even nonprofits use them in promoting their cause.
Used globally, promotional goods are the perfect giveaway tool. While brand awareness is the most common use for promo goods, they can also be used as a sales tool, for rewarding employees, or by non-profits to promote a cause. There are many ways in which merchandise can be used effectively.
Promotional goods can build team spirit and morale internally within your organization. Use them as annual corporate gifts for your team or just to help onboard your newer employees.
Come up with event-specific promo items for industry conferences, special occasions, or one-time events. Drive booth traffic or reward visitors at trade shows.
The biggest benefit is just generally being able to customize any product you want for a target audience. Promotional merchandise comes in many colors, sizes, shapes, and applications. If it's something you can see and touch, then it's something you can use as a promotional item. Make something memorable to stay connected to modern consumers. They want brands to actually reach them at a personal level, and swag is how you can do just that.
How Do You Choose Promotional Items for Your Business?
Not every situation is the same. What products, ideas, and styles are on-trend in one industry might not be the same as another. Things can even get more specific with each business or ideal consumer persona.
Still, some ideas hold up consistently across many sectors. Try to delight your consumers and activate your brand by choosing promotional goods that are useful to them and have high staying power. This ensures a higher number of actual impressions per promotional item, giving you even more bang for your buck in your marketing and advertising dollars.
Come up with a wishlist of ideas about potential products before you contact a promotional product printer or manufacturer. They can help you identify the possibilities with each item on your list.
Stick your brand colors, and always include the bare minimum information consumers would need to find and use your business quickly and easily.
In Conclusion
Who doesn't love cool stuff like t-shirts and water bottles? You use these items anyway, so they may as well be decked out with a cool design or logo from your favorite organizations. For this reason, and many more, promotional goods and swag will always be one of the best marketing strategies out there!
No matter what kind of promo goods, merchandise, swag, or branded products you want or need, trust the experts of Good Promotional Products to come up with the promotional items you need to expand your business outreach! Their combination of promotional and screen printing can make promotional goods you need at costs you can afford.