Buying and Distributing Promotional Pencils

Promotional pencils can be a useful and relatively inexpensive tool for marketing your business, regardless of whether the business is online, "bricks and mortar", or both. A promotional pencil helps remind customers of your business, is relatively long-lasting, and costs less than other promotional products like pens, coffee mugs, and cameras. Here are some tips on ordering, designing, and distributing pencils of this type...

DESIGN: The type of business you own should influence the words you choose to have printed on the promotional pencils. If your business has a website, having the website address printed on the pencil may be the best choice; this both reminds customers of your business, and tells them how to find more information on it. Consider having your telephone number printed on the pencil if your business takes orders by telephone (pizza delivery, for example). For other businesses, such as a hardware store or car dealership, the name of the business should be sufficient. If the business name does not explain its product or service, you might want to add a word or two for this purpose. In addition to the words on the pencil, some promotional product dealers will let you decide the color of the pencil and/or lettering. You may want to have the pencil's color reflect your business logo, if it has one, or be otherwise related to your product or service. Additional choices (such as the eraser style and metal eraser-holder color) are offered by some dealers, such as thediscountprinter.com.

BUYING: Many promotional item services and some eBay.com sellers (try searching for "personalized" and "engraved" pencils) offer promotional pencils. Some dealers (such as leaderpromos.com) also offer promotional mechanical pencils; these are usually more expensive, but have a higher sales value and are reusable. Depending upon the seller, a large minimum order may be required, or you might be able to order as few as ten (one eBay seller offers sets of twelve, with color customization). Some dealers will offer you a sample pencil for little or no cost. The number of letters which can be printed on the pencil also varies; this often ranges from 20-60 depending upon the dealer. If you expect customers to use the pencils within the business itself, consider ordering "pre-sharpened" pencils from a dealer which offers them (or buy an electric sharpener). Also, some promotional item services sell half-length "golf pencils", which are shorter and don't always include erasers. They may not last as long and are more likely to be lost, but their small size makes them preferable for some purposes. Other sources of promotional pencils include pencilexpressions.com, branders.com, and omegahtc.com.

DISTRIBUTING: There are a number of methods you can use for distributing promotional pencils to customers, depending upon the type of business you have. If you sell items on a website or have a website and sell products through another website (such as an internet auction service), consider including a promotional pencil in the envelope or box the product is shipped in. If you have purchased a limited number of pencils, you may want to keep track of which customers you have sent them to so that you do not send more than one to the same customer. For "bricks and mortar" businesses, you might consider including one of the pencils with each purchase (possibly excluding very inexpensive purchases) or putting them in a container marked "free." If your business sends representatives to job/career fairs or other events, consider giving them out to people attending the event. Selling them at a discounted price (especially if they are mechanical pencils) may be appropriate in some retail stores, especially stores which sell office supplies.

Keeping these tips in mind should help you purchase, distribute, and choose the design of promotional pencils to better promote your business.