Starting a businesses can be a rigorous task. Many of today's most successful businesses, like HP and Apple, were once just startups founded in a garage. Meaning that an aspiring business owner's hard work and dedication to their dream can ensure success, however, a business needs to be able to show itself to the world. In today's business world, brand recognition is vital to the overall success of a brand. Numerous studies have concluded that a majority of consumers prefer doing business with a brand that they know and trust, even if their prices are higher than a less popular competitor. While most consumers are becoming more like-minded, many businesses are missing enormous opportunities to create a trusted brand for themselves in today's enterprise world.
There are endless opportunities for a business to set themselves apart from the competition, and within these tactics lies the use of promotional products. Offering free, branded items to consumers at events or within your storefront is an incredible marketing tactic that will cause your brand to pop into an individual's mind anytime they are using this product; keep in mind that it is crucial to get into the minds of your customers to discover what kind of products they actually want. For example, if your business's target customers are American, you will want to understand that 91% of the population owns a cellphone, therefore the best promotional product opportunity for you could be to provide a branded portable cell phone charger to these individuals.
With this in mind, I wanted to share three of the key benefits of implementing promotional products into your marketing mix.
They Create Diversity
Many businesses fall victim to monotony when it comes to showcasing their brand to their customers. Things like business cards definitely do serve a purpose, but think of the last time you got a business card. Chances are, it is now resting in a metaphorical graveyard of similar business cards within your wallet. Point being, they don't stand out to a customer. However, handing out a tangible and, most importantly, useful product to a customer can show a customer that your business really cares about trying to help them throughout their day-to-day life while still reminding them of your business's existence.
They Are Cheap
When it comes an overall view of a business's budget, marketing endeavors can generally be ranked fairly low on the list of priorities. Although, marketing both on and off line are becoming increasingly necessary as the business world continues to grow. Offering a useful, branded product to a customer, like a coffee mug or a custom USB drive, can prove to be fairly cheap for a business to invest in, yet drives enormous effects towards brand recognition and reputation. Therefore, these products will always be a worthwhile investment throughout the lifespan of a business.
They Boost Morale
Of course, there are a number of opportunities where businesses can provide benefits to employees in order to keep order within the workplace, however promotional products can be severely underutilized in this aspect. Not only do promotional products land your business in the positive light within your customers' eyes, but they also create positivity within the workplace as well. For example, if an employee were to win an award or accomplish a daunting task, rewarding them with a high-quality and branded prize can share all of the benefits on winning a prize, while also promoting the business's name as a whole. Now, it is important to ensure these products will be something your employees find useful, because much like customers, an employee may see a useless item as poor judgement on the business's end causing a reverse effect of the entire plan.
Overall, promotional products will always be incredibly valuable throughout the eyes of all parties involved, and it is important for your business to keep constant tabs on the industry's changes. Predicting a shift in an industry's trends and designing promotional product campaigns around this can skyrocket the success of a business. If your business is needing a bit of change in the upcoming quarter, this can be your chance.
Thank you for reading! Let's keep this going. Do you have any successes with your business's promotional product endeavors? Let's hear them!