Here’s Your Guide to Using Promotional Products

Promotional products are the most popular method of advertising among consumers, which can make them an invaluable part of your marketing strategy. But it’s easy to go astray when integrating promotional products into your marketing campaigns.

You need to make sure you’re choosing the right products, getting high-quality materials, and appealing to your target marketing. Make sure you measure your performance so you can revise your strategy and enjoy even more success with strengthening your brand awareness and encouraging customer loyalty. Follow these steps to get the results you want from your promotional product messaging.

Cater to Your Target Market

Different types of promotional products will appeal to different segments of your customer base, but it’s important to offer your customers items they’ll want. Ideally, you’d like your customers to use the promotional item for a while, and then give it to someone else or donate it to charity, where it can continue to spread its messaging in a new household. Consider what your customers want — are they concerned about sustainability? Would they choose a product made in America over one made in China? Do they drink hot beverages on the go? Put together customer personas to guide your choices.

Invest in the Nicer Items

Nicer items are usually more attractive, sturdier, and more appealing than lower-quality ones. You’ll usually have to pay a little more for a slightly better engraved pen or branded tote, but it’s worth the extra money to buy higher quality promotional products. They’ll last longer, so customers will keep using them and keep seeing the brand message, and they’ll be more likely to give them away when they’re no longer using them. Nicer items will generate more goodwill, too, since customers will appreciate them more.

Trust the High Performers

The hardest thing about integrating promotional products into your marketing strategy is deciding which exact products to give out. Some of the most popular choices include tote bags, outerwear and clothing, USB thumb drives, pens and pencils, and drinkware. Umbrellas, desk accessories, power banks, and calendars are also usually successful.

While you should still be mindful of your customers’ needs and preferences, the popular categories are varied enough that you can usually find something for everyone among them. Everyone uses mugs, power banks, and pens, for example, and most people use tote bags and umbrellas. When in doubt, choose products that will get a lot of visibility during use — outerwear, caps, umbrellas, shirts, and totes can all be worn throughout the community, spreading your brand messaging as they go.

Measure Your Results

Your promotional items will definitely perform better over time if you measure your results, because you can use those measurements to make targeted changes that streamline your campaign. Keep track of conversion rates among customers who receive your promotional products. You’ll also want to know how many customers come back after receiving a promotional gift, how many new followers you’re getting on social media, how many leads you’re generating, and how much brand awareness is growing.

You should also calculate the anticipated return on your investment in promotional products and track your cost-per-impression so you can determine how well your items are performing in terms of cost. Increase your ROI by choosing items that perform longer or get more visibility. You might find that your promotional items are cheaper than you expected.

Tweak Your Strategy

Get feedback about the quality and usefulness of your promotional items from recipients — it can offer valuable guidance to help you experiment with ways to improve performance. Do recipients like the products? Why or why not? Are the products significantly increasing leads and conversions?

You might need to get creative and learn to take some risks in order to work the kinks out of your marketing strategy. Keep checking in with recipients and measuring your products’ performance. Small adjustments could have big ripple effects for your marketing campaigns.

There’s no better time to bring promotional products into your marketing strategy — these items still have a huge impact for many consumers. Take advantage of one of the cheapest and most effective marketing tools available — get your own line of promotional products and start building the customer loyalty your business needs to thrive.