What’s Your Calling Card?
What type of calling card do you leave behind when you meet with a potential client? Is it just a business card or is it even better than that? A business card can be very powerful if designed properly, but let’s go beyond that. If you left a promotional item behind along with your business card, you can greatly increase the chances that the recipient will remember you. Chances are, you are not the only one in your industry trying to sell to that person. You need to stand out among your competition. Using promotional products can make you stand out in a big way. You don’t have to choose the typical promotional items anymore such as pens, mugs, or koozies, because there are over 1,000,000 different promotional products. Creativity is key for this process. For example, if you are a high energy marketing firm, you may want to leave behind a custom imprinted energy drink which can imply that you are definitely high energy. Leave behind an item that is useful and relevant to your products or services. Enlist the help of an experienced promotional products distributor to assist you and make recommendations.
The Power of the Simple Business Card
You probably handout hundreds or thousands of business cards each year, but do you generate a lot of sales from your business card? If not, you may want to reconsider the design and style of your business card. You should be able to generate leads from your business card without ever speaking to the recipients. Here are a few ideas for a revamped business card that can be a powerful sales tool.
- The business cards with the raised blue or black ink are old and outdated. The newer full color business cards that are vibrant in color have a much bigger impression on the recipients. With full color business cards, you can get much more creative with your design and even include full color images of your most popular sellers. However, you don’t want to have a design that is so busy that it takes away from the information on the cards.
- Stay away from the flimsy business cards. They can give the appearance your company is cheap and potential clients may associate that same cheap quality with your products or service. 10 pt and 12 pt cards are very thin and the thickness of most business cards. I recommend 16 pt thickness (or even 14 pt). The thicker business cards grab the attention of the recipient’s attention much more than the thin flimsy business cards.
- Don’t just include your contact information on the business cards. You want to captivate each person who receives your card so they will actually look at your card. The longer they look at your card, the more likely they will remember you when they need your service. Think about how many times someone hands you a card and you just barely glance at it and throw it in a pile of a hundred other business cards. You should think about having an ad on the back of your card promoting a product or service. For instance my business cards advertise 1000 16 pt (really thick) full color business cards printed on both sides for $89.Not only do you want to leave your business card with contact information with potential clients, but you should also leave behind an opportunity for the sale of a potential product or service. Don’t miss out on an easy and inexpensive opportunity to use your business cards more effectively. Using a promotional products distributor with an experienced graphic artist can help assist you in creating an effective and professional business card layout that can help generate more sales for you.
Are you still cold calling?
Here is an idea to prevent yourself from having to do cold calls. Try sending your prospects a promotional item a week or so before you call them. By doing this, you will introduce yourself to that person in a non-intrusive way and increase the chances of a warm call rather than a cold call. With the promotional item that you include in the mailing, you can also state in your letter that you will be calling them within a certain time frame. The call will be more well-received because they will be expecting your call. You will still get some “No Thank You” and “Not interested” responses, but you will most likely see a much higher conversion rate. Think of a creative and useful promotional item that is relevant to what you are selling or promoting and send those to your prospects. In your letter that you also mail, you can detail some of the facts so you can pre-educate the recipients which will make it much easier to reinforce what you are selling. Good luck with your selling and of course contact a promotional product distributor for assistance or for ideas.
Calling all Realtors
Home sales were up in February 2009! While they were only slightly up (2.1% from January 2009), they were up nonetheless. What this means is that you need to continue to market your real estate company and your name. In times of tough market conditions it is more important than ever to market your business. Studies from past decades have shown that companies that continue to market or increase their marketing during tough economic times not only outperform their competitors that fail to market, but they come out of the down times stronger than their competitors. There are many real estate promotional products to choose from, so get creative and start a promotional products marketing campaign today.
What Has Happended to Customer Service?
Like any good businessman, I frequently check out my competitors to make sure I am staying a few steps ahead of them. One thing I have noticed across the board is a general lack of quality customer service. Of course, I did find a few exceptions, but for the most part the customer service reps I have spoken too have been either rude, ignorant, unhelpful, or just plain annoying. Not only have I noticed this within the promotional products industry, but also within most retail stores over the past few years. It seems that customer service has been on the decline with most businesses. Great customer service can set your business far apart from your competitors. Try focusing on this aspect of your business and see if your sales increase, but don’t overdo it and be one of those annoying customer service reps. There’s nothing worse than a pushy salesman (or saleswoman) that follows you all around the store. Or the ones that bug me the most are close talkers. Don’t be a close talker and get in people’s personal space.
Do Your Customers Know Your Logo? Branding Issues
Whether your company is a fortune 500 company or a small business, you should have a well-designed logo and proudly display every chance you get. Every opportunity you get for branding counts toward growing your business. Whether it be on your website, business cards, flyers or brochures, or promotional products, you should prominently display your logo.
The more people that are exposed to your corporate logo, the higher the chance that person will remember your company when they need your services or products. Let’s face it…most of us are not lucky enough to have no competitors. We all have competitors, and I’m sure you would rather people think of your business rather than a competitor’s business. That’s why we should all heavily focus on branding our company. Branding all starts with a logo that people can associate with your business. The goal is for people to know your business name just from seeing your logo. Once you have accomplished that, you know you have had some success with branding your image. Promotional items are a great way to help boost your branding awareness campaign. After all, everyone loves free stuff, and they are much more likely to remember your business name and logo if you have given them a free gift. Good luck with your branding campaign!
Promotional Products Recall for State Farm
State Farm has recalled over 800,000 promotional teddy bears due to a choking hazard for children. Here is the article: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/29753940?GT1=43001. Guess where the promotional teddy bears were made? If you guessed China, you are correct. Many businesses want to save a few cents per item and opt for products that are produced in China, and by doing this, you can get burned. Imagine the cost and repercussions associated with this scenario.
There are plenty of promotional products (including teddy bears) that are produced in the U.S.A. They are likely to bit a bit more expensive than an overseas produced product; however, at least you can be assured that you are supporting U.S. families and businesses. I bet State Farm has spent much more now on this promotion than they would have from buying from a reputable U.S. source. In addition, most factories DO follow guidelines from the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission which help the products to be safer for the end-users. Also, prior to any large order, you should obtain a sample and thoroughly check it out for safety, especially if it is for kids.
With a little smart planning, you can help prevent occurences such as this one with State Farm. Use you own judgement, and solicit the advice of a professional promotional products distributor.
Lame Promotional Products?
What can make the coolest promotional product lame? A bad layout of your imprint can make or break your promotional products marketing campaign. If your text is too small, it won’t be legible. If your text is too large, it can overshadow your logo. An imprint with text only and no logo can be quite boring if not layed out correctly. These are just a few of the reasons why you need a promotional products distributor with a graphic artist on staff to professionally layout your art design to maximize your imprint area and compliment your promotional items. Many promotional products distributors are one man shows that have little to no experience with graphic art and can offer you no useful guidance for your art design. Make sure you are getting all the benefits of a professional promotional products consultant to help make your next marketing campaign successful.
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.