Marketing Gifts that Promote Your Company

Businesses often give away free pens, t-shirts, hats, bags and just about anything else in order to promote their products. These promotional items might give a high return for their cost or they may just cost much more then they are worth. Determining why you want to give products away and which type of products to purchase can be difficult.

The Right Gift for the Right Customers:

People often judge a company by the free trinkets it gives away. Therefore giving away a t-shirt to a bunch of executives isn't likely to raise your image. In the same train of thought giving away a solid gold watch to people who drink your brand of beer is overkill. You might want to switch the two.

Most companies have a customer profile that includes income, demographics, occupation, etc. The general rule is that the higher the station in life the customer, the more purchasing power they have and the higher in value the gift. Therefore you would spend much more on higher end clients then you would on people who buy something like bubble gum.

Gifts that will be Used:

The whole point of giving out these gifts is to have your customers remember you. Therefore you should purchase gifts that will either sit in their office or they will use regularly. The more useful the item the better you are doing in reminding them. Clocks, watches, briefcases, duffle bags, pens, etc. are all nice gifts.

You will also want to cater these gifts to what your customers are likely to keep using. This is based in part on the psychological profile and the habits of your customers. For example a nice lighter would go with cigarettes, shot glasses should go with liquor, and items like nice pens should go with professionals. Being cheap with your products is likely to get them thrown away.

Send the Right Message when Giving Away Promotional Items:

You might think that passing out these promotional gifts to everyone walking down the street is a good idea. This philosophy is only good if you are selling items that everyone needs. It makes more sense to cater your message to the people you are trying to attract. The goal is to appear as though the messages are personal, meaningful and pleasant.

Let us say that you are dealing with purchasing managers for large companies. They purchase tens of thousands of items from you every year. Sending them a nice gift might include the message, "Dear Mr. X, We appreciate your business and loyalty. Please enjoy this nice briefcase as our special way of saying thank you. Sincerely, representative Jacob. P.S. We should get together for a round of golf soon."