What was the last promotional item you received? Better yet, what was the last one you kept and used? With promotional products, we may first think of low-cost throw-away items like pens and pencils, keychains, beer cozies, and shopping bags. Most likely it’s because they are given out in bulk seemingly without much thought behind the gift. Thankfully, marketing with promotional products has come a long way in the last few years. The cheap, bulk items have been giving way to well-thought-out and planned promotional products that do much more than just remind people of your company name. They are being used to connect with the customer on a deeper level by telling your brand’s story. A 2019 study found that 80% of those surveyed liked receiving promotional products.^[1] They also found that 72% judge the reputation of the brand based on the quality of the promotional product.

Without a doubt, how consumers view your brand is directly tied to the promotional products you choose.

A good story is behind the best brands

You have put a lot of thought into the design of your logo, name, online and social media presence, as well as any brick and mortar locations you have. However, your brand is more than that. The most important part of your brand is your story. Brands that tell a story stand out from the pack.

A good story is more than just artful marketing fast-talk. It’s also more than your biographies, history, and your milestones. Your story will include those things but it will focus on the reasons why your brand exists and the values behind your products, services, and business decisions. Effectively telling your story humanizes your company, moving the focus from profit and sales to life, people, and more important things. It will give something real for people to connect with and care about.

What’s your story?

To pinpoint the best of your story, think through your brand’s history and focus on the critical moments. You know, those crucial turning points where key decisions were made about what your company stands for. Those times where principles, values, quality, employees, and customers were chosen over profit and expediency. Boil all that down and pinpoint the values chosen to drive your brand. At this point, you have found the core of your story.

Telling your story with promotional products

A story will be told by the promotional products you give out. Your choices here will either help or hurt your brand.

Choose promotional products that highlight your values. Identify what you want the customer to feel about you. Do you want them to feel relief? Then solve a problem with the item. Use the same kind of logic to come up with items that will bring joy, happiness, satisfaction, intrigue, or sentimentality. Reaching those feelings with the promotional product will associate the feelings with your brand. Using your story, let the promotional item answer the questions: why should the customer do business with you? and what makes your company stand out from all your competitors?

Choose the right products

The consumer study we mentioned earlier also found that nearly 100% of people surveyed have will make extra effort to receive a promotional product they connect with. The study also found the five most favored promotional product categories are (1) wearable items, (2) beauty and health, (3) technology, (4) food and beverage related, and (5) travel products. Start with items within those categories and that match up with telling your story. Use the following tips to help you select the specific products that will work best for your story.

Three steps to picking the best promotional products

Identify the ideal recipient for a personalized approach. If possible, avoid the mass giveaway of promotional products to large crowds that may or may not be potential customers. Instead, use your market research and identify who you are trying to reach? You need to consider what demographics may come into play. The gender, age, hobbies, industry, career, education, and geography of the recipients could all help you personalize the product choice to be something useful for them. It’s possible the whole crowd at a football game is your target market or maybe it’s just the males between the ages of 25 and 35. Narrowing down the target audience helps you truly identify what is important to them and how that matches up with your story as told through the promotional product.

Choose quality over quantity. This can be a hard one to grapple with at first for promotional items. From a quick look at it by comparing expenses and exposure, the cheaper 75 cents per piece pen sounds a lot better than the $11.25 per piece comfort t-shirt with a custom graphic design. For the same price, you would get 15 times as many pens as you would t-shirts, so it would seem the marketing effort would be more effective. The missing component with this reasoning is comparing the projected return on investment for both. The higher quality, personalized item distributed to a highly targeted audience will achieve a much higher return on investment. You will never regret pairing a higher-quality, personalized approach with a narrower target market.

Right on time. For the personalization and quality of a promotional item to matter, the timing of the delivery to your ideal customer is paramount. You want to reach them when your services or products would soon be needed. If you are marketing to NFL football fans, April is probably not the right time for your promotional product but August or September could be perfect. Plan for them to have the item in use so your brand is top of mind when it’s the best time for closing the deal.

Leverage our promotional product experience

Here at Alliance Graphics and Printing, we have been helping businesses just like yours for over 20 years to design and incorporate promotional products successfully into their marketing strategy. Leverage our experience to your benefit and let us help you find the right promotional products for your audience. Contact us today to set up your customized consultation.

^[1] https://www.ppai.org/media/5482/ppai2019consumerstudysummary.pdf