What is the value of your advertising?
Do you know the return that you are getting on your advertising? Maybe you are currently advertising by radio ads, newspaper ads, or television ads. Maybe you are advertising through direct mail. Maybe you are advertising through billboards. But do you know which forms of advertising are working and which forms are draining your bank account? This is an important question that should concern you. You should be able to track all of your advertising so that you know the value of each form. Think about this for a minute: When you advertise on the radio, your ad is played for 15 to 30 seconds and then it is gone, forever. When you market using promotional products, those products hang around for months or years, depending on the value of the items. In order to track the effectiveness of each form of advertising, you should advertise a unique promotion for each, such as a special price, a promotional code, or a free gift offer and track the responses you receive. After a month or two of tracking your results, you can easily calculate your return on investment (ROI). If you’re not covering your expenses for that form of advertising, then you should consider a different approach. Almost all successful promotional product campaigns have results that can be tracked. Studies have proven that promotional products can be the most effective form of advertising if done properly, better than radio or tv ads and better than print ads. However, you must be smart with your promotional product campaign and consider all aspects of your campaign in order to increase your chances of success.
300,000 Unique Promotional Products Added
Well, we just added 300,000 additional promotional products to our website: www.perfectimprints.com. You can search for and find nearly any item you can imagine. It is crazy to see just how many products we have now. If you are looking for a talking toilet paper spindle, we have it. If you are looking for custom imprinted condoms, we have those too. The point is, if there is something unique and different that you want with your logo imprint, we can probably do it for you. Try searching for yourself. Make your next promotional products marketing campaign unique and stand out from your competitors. Be bold; Be unique; Be different.
Are Your Employees Motivated?
In this so called recession, it is more important than ever to have motivated employees. With unemployment rates as high as they are, most people are thankful to still have a job. However, many employees simply show up, do the bare minimum, and get their paycheck. Just think about the revenues your company could generate if your employees were really motivated and gave their best day after day. Do you have an employee incentives program? Do you reward your employees with corporate gifts or corporate awards? If not, maybe you should consider a corporate awards program. When employees are recognized and awarded for outstanding performance, they will strive to do even better, which means a better bottom line. Attitude within a company is contagious, especially a bad attitude. Therefore, it is imperative that you promote a positive work environment by awarding those exceptional employees. Well performing employees that don’t feel appreciated will eventually leave to work for a company who does appreciate them (which often means your competitor). Corporate awards such as Crystal Desktop Awards are great for recognizing top executives or sales people in your company. These awards will proudly be displayed on their desk and continually remind that employee to strive for excellence. Other rewards in the form of promotional gifts are also a great way to motive your employees. You can set goals for earning these rewards, and you will be amazed at how many strive to meet or exceed those goals. If you set the bar low, you should expect low results. If you set the bar high, you will see the majority of your workforce strive to reach that goal. When you choose a corporate reward gift for your employees, it is important that you choose something of value. Don’t say “Thank you for all of your hard work over the past year; here is a 50 cent pen.” Instead, reward your employees with a valuable item that they can use on a daily basis and be constantly reminded that their hard work is appreciated. There is nothing wrong with giving a corporate gift that they can use at the office. Don’t let another day go by without a corporate awards program in place for your business. If you need help, be sure to consult an experienced promotional products distributor.
Promotional Products Marketing
Have you ever tried a promotional products marketing campaign for your business? Maybe you bought some promotional giveaways from a distributor and saw no real benefit from your purchase. If you saw no success, you probably forgot some important steps. There are some critical components of the equation that you must satisfy before making your decision about which promotional products to buy for your marketing campaign. You must know exactly what you want to accomplish with your marketing campaign. You must know who you are targeting. You must choose an effective promotional product that compliments the product or service that you are marketing. You must know how you will get these promotional products to your prospective clients. You must have a way to track your campaign. If you have a solid answer for all of these key components, you will increase the likelihood of a successful promotional products marketing campaign. Be sure and enlist the help of a promotional products consultant who has the knowledge and experience to help you with this important decision-making process.
Standing Out From the Crowd
What makes your business stand out from your competitors? Most businesses have many different competitors within their geographic area, so it is crucial to be distinctive from your competitors. What is it that makes you different from your competitors? This is an important question that if answered with a well-defined and useful answer can make your business not only survive the lagging economy, but thrive! Not only should you know the answer to this question, but you should embrace it and let everyone know. Your clients and potential clients MUST know why you are different so they will think of you when they need your products or services. Using promotional products is a great way to spread the word about what makes you different. However, just any old promotional product won’t do the trick. It is extremely important to get creative and clever for your promotional campaign. You need to talk with a promotional products consultant who is experienced so that you can fully maximize your marketing dollars. Sometimes it only takes a simple, but unique approach to spread the word. Sometimes, it may be an off the wall answer that seems corny. Many of the hottest promotional marketing campaigns were silly phrases or slogans along with an odd promotional item that drove the point home with the prospective clients. The first step to a successful promotional product campaign is to know who your company is and what your company stands for. Once this important question has been answered, you can move to the next step of finding the right promotional products for your marketing campaign.
The Greenest Promotional Item of Them All
Maybe, just maybe, the greenest promotional item of them all is an item is not made of 100% recycled material, but yet an item that has the power to save hundreds or thousands of trees. The promotional items that I am referring to are custom USB flash drives. It is estimated that a 1GB USB flash drive can hold enough documents that would be equivalent to 50 trees. Each time that memory is reused, the number of trees saved multiplies. You can purchase the USB drives pre-loaded with your custom data and save thousands of dollars in printing and binding costs. Gone are the days of giving out a 100 page printed and bound policy and procedure manual. Here are some great ideas for corporate use of custom USB drives:
- Give out USB Flash Drives to your employees with all required company policy and procedure manuals and any necessary forms your employees may need such as incident report forms, accident report forms, change of address forms,and any other forms that may be needed in the future.
- Give out USB Flash Drives to your clients with your digital version of your product catalog.
- Give out USB Flash Drives to your clients with your PowerPoint presentation to help pitch a product or service.
- Give out USB Flash Drives to your clients with a link to your website that automatically opens when the USB flash drive is inserted into their USB drive.
- Give out USB Flash Drives to your clients or employees with a program that will auto-run when the drive is connected to their computer.
- Give out USB Flash Drives with any other custom data pre-loaded on the drives such as music, pictures, programs, or documents.
Your custom data can be pre-loaded on the USB Flash Drives at a minimal cost. The prices on custom flash drives are much lower than they were just a few years ago. Why spend thousands of dollars printing a catalog when you can Go Green and hand out your catalog on a USB drive. Because a USB flash drive has a high perceived value and is useful, your catalog will be kept by the recipients long after your competitors catalogs will be thrown away.
20 School Sports Fundraising Ideas
Below is a list of 20 inexpensive fundraising ideas for your school sports team or booster club. These spirit items: are fun, inexpensive, generate school spirit, and have profit margins of 100% or more.
1. Pom Poms - These can be imprinted with your school or team name and can be obtained for well under $1.00 each. Custom imprinted pom poms are crowd favorites and look great in the stands. Fans feel more comfortable cheering on their team when they have some kind of spirit item such as pom poms.
2. Mini Basketballs - Obviously, these work great for basketball teams. You can choose to get either the vinyl mini basketballs or all the way up to tournament quality balls. The vinyl mini basketballs are about the size of a grapefruit and cost around $1.40 or less depending on quantity and are meant as more of a novelty toy for kids. If you feel your fan base will buy full sized basketballs, you can get customized basketballs with your choice of basketball panel colors and multi-colored logos imprinted on the balls.
3. Mini Volleyballs- Volleyball teams can choose from either vinyl mini volleyballs or tournament quality volleyballs. It is important to know your crowd and have an idea of how much money they are willing to spend. There is always the option to take pre-orders for higher ticket items such as tournament quality volleyballs.
4. Mini Footballs - Promotional mini footballs are commonly thrown at football games by the cheerleaders. These mini footballs can be used in 2 different ways for fundraising: a) You can have a business sponsor and put their name on logo on one side of the ball and your school and team name on the other sides of the footballs. With this option, the business actually pays for the footballs and lets the cheerleaders throw the footballs at the games. This helps the team by generating revenue and team spirit from the crowd as well as helping the business who sponsored with cheap advertising. b) You can simply print your school and team name on the footballs and sell them through your booster club to fans. Typically, the business sponsor is much easier and takes less effort. For a typical football game, you want to plan on throwing a minimum of 100 mini footballs, and more for big games such as playoffs and championship games to help keep the crowd going.
5. Mini Soccer Balls- These mini soccer balls can be sold as novelty items to home crowds. The vinyl mini soccer balls are less profitable than selling the tournament quality soccer balls. With full size soccer balls, you can print on every panel for a really dramatic effect. Take pre-orders to avoid being stuck with a large quantity of soccer balls.
6. Thundersticks- Crowds never get tired of thundersticks (or sometimes called thunderstix or bam bams). These thunder sticks can be personalized with a large imprint area. They are easy to sell for $3-$4 per pair, and you can get them for around $1.40 or less per pair. You can print on the both sides of the thunder sticks, so you can get a business sponsor to pay for the thundersticks and sell them to make 100% profit.
7. Discount Cards- Discount cards are credit card sized plastic cards that have multiple discount offers from local restaurants and retailers. The buyer can usually recoup his/her money after using the discount card only twice. The discount cards are typically printed with about 15 business are 1 side and the school and team name on the other side. Some schools choose to print discount offers on both sides of the cards allowing for more business sponsors. You can charge each business a nominal fee of $50-$100 to advertise their offer. Then you sell the cards for $10 each and make a huge profit. These discount cards are easy sell; they virtually sell themselves if you get some great offers from local businesses. The hardest part is lining up your 10-15 businesses to advertise. This is not difficult though, because most business know that offering discounts brings in business.
8. Stadium Seat Cushions - Stadium seat cushions are another great and traditional fundraising item for stadium sports such as football and basketball. Sponsors can offset the cost of the stadium cushions by ads on the back of the cushion. The booster club can then sell the cushions for $5-$10 to make 100% profit and generate thousands of dollars at a single game.
9. Hand Fans - Sports shaped hand fans are great for games in the South during the beginning of football season. Choose from Football helmet or football shaped hand fans. These fans can be printed with the team schedule, and even a business sponsor name to help offset the cost.
10. Schedule Magnets- All fans need a game schedule and a schedule on a magnet is even better because they won’t lose it. Most people will put a magnet on a refrigerator, and think how many times the average person goes to the refrigerator. Fans will buy a schedule magnet, and the profit margins are easily 400%-500%.
11. Car Magnets - Car magnets with your mascot and team name help to promote team spirit within your community. These are popular with fans because they are easy to remove and cause no damage to their cars.
12. Megaphones - Cheerleaders have used megaphones for years and the the mini plastic megaphones are great for fans to use for cheering for their team. Personalized megaphones are a great way to get loud.
13. Spirit Noodles - Spirit noodles are made of foam and are great to wave around while cheering. These are a great option when noise makers aren’t allowed in your stadium.
14. Foam Fingers - Foam fingers and foam hands come in many different varieties and shapes. There are foam paws, foam talons, foam mascots, and many different foam hand shapes that are great for cheering for your team. These are also great for stadiums that don’t allow noisemakers.
15. Sport Horns - Sports horns are unique noise makers that are really loud but come in a small package. These stadium horns take minimal effort to blow and will rock the house and a make a bold statement for your team.
16. Spirit Towels - Spirit towels are classic stadium items to show team spirit. They have a large imprint area and are great to wave around while cheering.
17. Sports Bottles - Personalized sports bottles are great items to fill with drinks at concession stands. The custom printed sport bottles give fans a souvenir to take home after buying a drink. This will encourage fans to buy a drink because they get an item they can keep that is useful after the game.
18. Stadium Blankets - During cold games, stadium blankets are much needed items that are often forgotten by fans. You’ll be surprised how many fans will buy a stadium blanket because they forgot to bring their own blanket.
19. Yard Signs - Don’t forget about spirit items to promote your team outside from games. The custom yard signs can be sold to fans to proudly display in their yard.
20. Hand Clappers - Hand clappers are one of those spirit items that never get old. They make a lot of noise and are fun to use when rooting for your team.
Whatever type of spirit items that you use, make sure they are allowed in your stadium. Most importantly, make sure you do have spirit items available for your fans. Spirit items are the easiest ways to generate team spirit, because fans feel more comfortable cheering when they have a spirit item to use. One important rule to remember is that you don’t want to overprice your spirit items. You have to consider the area you live in when determining a reasonable price that the fans will not think is too expensive. These school spirit items are easy to sell; therefore, generating lots of money for your school booster club or organization is very easy.
Read the full article: School Fundraising Ideas.
Are you getting a return on your investment?
As I have mentioned before, buying promotional items should be an investment, NOT an expense. This form of marketing can be very effective if done properly. There are many factors to consider when making your promotional item purchase to help increase the return on your investment. You MUST work with a Promotional Products Consultant that knows the ins and outs of the industry (using a consultant won’t cost you any more money either). There are so many variables to consider, and only a true professional knows those key factors that will help your promotion be more successful. So many distributors in this industry just want to take your order and money without any concern for the end result.
Here are a just a few of the important key questions to ask yourself?
1) Who is your target audience? The elderly, teens, mothers, fathers, college-aged, etc. Buying an appropriate item for the targeted audience is crucial to the success of your campaign. A true promotional products consultant can help with some ideas of the vast array of promotional items available.
2) What is the delivery medium? Do you plan on mailing these promotional items? Do you plan on throwing them into a crowd? Do you plan on personally handing them out? You need to know the answer to this question and buy the appropriate item.
3) What do you want to accomplish? Do you want to increase brand awareness? Do you want to market a specific product? Do you want to draw the customer to a particular event or sale? Each question leads to an answer that has a different solution in order to make your campaign more successful.
Although these questions, sound simple, they are more often than not overlooked. There are dozens of other questions to consider as well. Each individual campaign is unique and should be treated that way. A promotional products consultant is prepared to help provide answers for you to make your promotional items campaign as successful as possible.
How many germs are out there?
This past weekend I took a trip to Orlando, FL for a promotional products conference, which was great. On the trip home, I stopped by a rest area bathroom. During this episode, I watched about 70% of the men leave the restroom without washing their hands. That got me to wondering just how many germs are we being exposed to everywhere we go. Places like supermarkets, retail stores, theme parks, public transit, and any other public place. It would be very wise to carry around antibacterial hand santizer with you. With the amount of people in our country with poor hygiene, these antibacterial products might not be a bad idea. Even better, what a great idea for businesses to give away promotional hand sanitizer to customers. This would cut down on the spread of germs and possibly even cut down on the amount of employee illnesses if these were also available for the employees.
