Just How Bad Are Plastic Grocery Bags?
Plastic grocery bags have become mainstays in our society because they are easy and cheap to produce. The estimated consumption rate of these plastic bags is about 500 billion per year, which equates to around 1 million bags per minute. What is so bad is that these bags hang around for up to 1000 years and they cause many marine animal deaths each year when the animals mistake the bags for food. While you may not care about the sea turtles or other marine life, you must understand than any disruption in nature’s food chain will eventually reach us in some negative way. I believe the bags should be banned because of the devastating results they contribute to our Earth. Many other countries have already banned the use of these bags that are made of high-density polyethylene (HDPE) because of the negative and long-lasting effects on the environment. Reusable bags should be used whenever possible. These non-woven polypropylene bags are becoming more popular with grocery stores and even other retail stores. When buying these in bulk, retailers can actually sell these bags for around $1 and still make a profit. This is a small price to pay for something that can really help our environment. I believe even small retail shops should jump on board and get reusable shopping bags printed with their business name and logo on them. These bags will save your business hundreds or thousands of dollars a year because you will be able to drastically cut back on purchases of plastic shopping bags. Anytime you can save a buck, you should jump on it.
Get the Most out of your Promotional Products Advertising
Have you ever given any thought to the return on investment (ROI) of promotional products that you buy? If you do a little advance planning, you can reap some handsome rewards on your promotional products marketing campaign. Obviously, there are some promotional items that are going to be more well-received than others. For instance, a quality personalized bag will be used over and over again by most recipients giving your company a lot of advertising exposure. Not only will that recipient see your company day after day, but also so will the many people that they walk by during their daily routines. Bags by far offer the highest number of impressions per month over any other promotional item, followed by caps and shirts. An impression is simply being noticed by someone. The more impressions you get, the more brand awareness is created. The chart below displays the average number of impressions per month for several popular promotional products. This, of course, does not mean that you should always buy custom bags for your promotional marketing campaigns. You should always use relevant items for your intended marketing purposes. It does mean that you should consider the use of personalized bags as a part of your marketing. With that many impressions per month for custom bags, you would be hard pressed to find a better value for your advertising dollar.
Research provided by the Advertising Specialty Institute, Copyright ©2008, All Rights Reserved.
Where do your customers keep their promotional products?
Do your customers keep their promotional products at home, the office, their car, or in their pockets? In a recent study, here are what the results revealed:
So why is this important? This information is extremely useful to help determine the best way to spend your marketing dollar. If you know where most people keep specific promotional items, then you can make a better decision on what type of promotional product to giveaway to your customers or potential clients. You must know your target audience. Are the majority of your customers individuals or businesses or a mixture of both? If most of your clients are businesses, you may want to consider a desktop promotional product that they can use at their office. It may also help you determine if you want to give out multiple items to your customers. For instance, if you look at the calendars on the graph, you see that 55% of the people that received personalized calendars, kept them at home, while 42% kept them at work. If you have custom printed calendars, you may want to consider giving out 2 calendars to each client so that they can keep one at home and one at their office. This doubles their exposure to your business. For questions about refining your promotional products marketing campaign, contact an expert promotional products distributor to help you.
Research provided by the Advertising Specialty Institute, Copyright ©2008, All Rights Reserved.
Make Your Tradeshow Display More Successful
Have you had mediocre results with your tradeshow booths in the past? Have you spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on your tradeshow display with little to no return on your investment? Research has shown that promotional products increase your tradeshow traffic to your display and that promotional products of great value generate more sales leads than products of lower value. In plain English please…If you give someone a $0.41 cheap pen, they probably won’t remember you. If you give them something of value such a personalized USB flash drive, then not only would that tradeshow attendee remember you, but they would be more likely to do business with you. In addition, the flash drive would be used over and over again yielding repeated advertising for your company. Here are a few statistics:
• 72% of tradeshow attendees who received a promotional product emembered the name of the
company that gave them the product.
• 76% of attendees had a favorable attitude toward the company that gave them the product.
• Including a promotional product with a pre-show mailing increases the likelihood of an attendee
stopping by the booth.
• As a rule, promotional products of greater value generate more sales leads han products of lower
value.
If you are able to get the names and addresses of the show attendees, be sure and send them a promotional product and tempt them to visit your booth to receive a FREE gift. When they get to your booth, you can give them a promotional item of value so they will remember you increasing your chances of closing a sale.
Source: 2004 study titled The Effectiveness Of Promotional Products In Tradeshow Settings conducted
by Georgia Southern University
Research provided by the Advertising Specialty Institute, Copyright ©2008, All Rights Reserved.
Top 10 Buyers of Promotional Products in 2008
Here is a list of the top industries that bought promotional products in 2008.
- Education
- Financial
- Non-Profit Organizations
- Healthcare
- Construction
- Trade & Professional Associations
- Real Estate
- Government
- Professionals: Doctors, lawyers, CPAs, etc.
- Restaurants & Bars
Do you fall under these categories? If so, and you used promotional products marketing in 2008, then you are ahead of the game. If not, you are falling behind your competitors, because research has shown that recipients of promotional items have a warmer feeling for companies that give them a useful promotional product. Consult a promotional products distributor with experience that can help guide you on a successful marketing campaign.
What is the cost per impression for your advertising?
What type of advertising media do you think has the lowest cost per impression? It’s not television ads. It’s not radio ads. It’s not newspaper or magazine ads. From a recent study by The Nielson Company, promotional products marketing has the lowest cost per impression. The average cost of promotional products is $0.004 each. Don’t get that number confused with $0.04 each; it’s not even close to the same. That is less than a penny per person that is exposed to your logo.
You may be unsure of what cost per impression is so I will explain it. This is the cost broken down per person that views your ad. Think about a hat or a shirt: How many people would see your logo if you wore it one day to a mall or to an event with lots of people? Hundreds or thousands of people would be exposed to your custom advertising imprint. And that is just 1 day of wearing it. The idea is that if you give away a quality item that people will use over and over again, the cost per impression would actually go down from the numbers in the chart below.
Source: Counselor Magazine, December 2009, “Hard Evidence For A Soft Economy”
Compare the tiny numbers above with the numbers below and you will see the real value of promotional products.
Source: Counselor Magazine, December 2009, “Hard Evidence For A Soft Economy”
A fraction of a penny for each impression is an amazingly low cost to market your business during these times of economic hardship. Take advantage of the many businesses failing on a daily basis and grab more of the market share. Talk to a promotional products consultant to assist you with your marketing campaign.
State of the Promotional Products Industry
So, have you ever wondered if you should buy promotional products for your business? Have you ever wondered if you are one of the few business that doesn’t use promotional products marketing strategies? Well, you would be in the minority. The benefits of using personalized products has been proven year after year to be an effective form of advertising. In fact, just look at the total sales for the industry over the last few years:
Industry Sales Volume In Billions
Photosource: PPAI
The numbers for 2008 should be available before too long. Businesses spent 19.44 billion dollars on promotional items in 2007, and since 1991, the numbers just keep increasing. Do you think businesses would continue to increase their spending on this form of marketing if it didn’t work? Not a chance. The bottom line is that marketing with promotional products works. Don’t leave out this important form of advertising. Get on board and increase your sales starting today!