Picking Promotional Products

In the past week, I've signed up 5 or 6 new clients to participate in a Bridal Show that we are hosting with one of our radio stations.

Some of the folks have done trade shows and know exactly how to smile, engage, have handouts and be positively memorable. The others needed some assistance and they needed promotional items too, so I hooked them up with a couple of vendors.

Which brings up the question, How Do You Pick the Right Promotional Products for Your Business?

In my email today was the answer from the BusinessTurnAround blog:

Making Your Name Stick

Give it away, give it away, give it way, now!
– Anthony Kiedis

In the break room, I’d often find leftover peppermints with the Sonic drive-in logo imprinted on them. Even though no one wanted to eat the mints, no one could throw them away because they were perfectly good mints. (Same with the catsup. We had a drawer filled to the top with nothing but packets of Sonic catsup.)

After seeing the peppermints with the little logo on the wrapper, I would want to jump in my car and head to the drive-in and pick up a # 1 double meat with cheese and an order of tater tots, (or as my nurse-daughter Emily calls it, “a heart attack-to-go”). Back at the break room, I’d finish the meal and then I’d leave the mints on the table.

So what can you give a customer - that won't get thrown away - to serve as a reminder of you when you’re not around?

A friend of mine owns a produce company. He often found his expensive full-color product brochures in his customers’ trash until he started placing exclusive recipes on the back. Now he finds the brochures pinned on the bulletin boards in the offices of his clientele.

Of course, not just any promotional gadget or "gimme" is going to work. For it to have any chance of triggering a positive memory of your company, it has to meet at least one of the following three criteria for the customer.

* Relevancy – it has to be related to your business and the customer.
* Personal – it has to be something that specifically fits the individual client.
* Functional – it has to serve a purpose for it be used and not forgotten.

Offering premiums to your customers is one way you can fight the big boys and win. The tactic of giving stuff away is certainly not new. William Wrigley Jr. started his successful career by selling soap and baking powder. He’d include a free stick of Wrigley’s gum with each can of baking soda. It seemed to work out pretty well for him.

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