Marketing and Promotional Products

Promotional products are items of practical use, or of a decorative nature, imprinted and branded with a logo, message or organizational name for the purposes of expanding marketing campaigns, employee or customer incentives, increasing branding visibility, and most of all for fostering good will and appreciation between organizations and their employees, customers or supporters.

Promotional items have long been utilized by corporate marketing programs, but nowadays promotional items are widely used by organizations from all sectors of civilian life such as universities, nonprofit organizations, government sectors, sport teams and small business owners and artists.

Top Industries using Promotional Product Campaigns

Education

Financial

Healthcare

Not-For-Profit

Construction

Government

Trade & Professional Associations

Real Estate

Automotive

Professionals: Doctors, Lawyers, CPAs

Promotional Campaigns

Promotional campaigns may be used in order to promote and communicate to select audiences the services, programs, or products of the particular needs of a business, organization, or independent marketer. They are used to thank supporters, retain support, and bring back important clientele to name a few.

How to market these successfully is specific to individual organizational needs and to those you are communicating with. It requires a specific plan before proceeding. Before you begin, start with asking "what is our campaign goal?" Do your research. If necessary, consult a professional to assist you with your organizational goals.

To give you an idea how promotional items may be utilized, here is a sampling of conventional ways organizations campaign their organization's objectives:

Premiums

Premiums are free promotional items given as an incentive, or token of appreciation for actions taken. A prime example of premium campaigns is in the nonprofit sector. Often times an organization, such as wildlife conservations and so on will offer a free incentive as a token of appreciation for supporting a program in need. Although these items are free, they are not advertising specialties due to the non-corporate nature of nonprofit organizations.

Advertising Specialties

Promotional products and items that are distributed for free are known as advertising specialties. Advertising specialties build a proven positive connection with customers and employees. Many studies have proven that personalized gifts from organizational campaigns are positively received in comparison to just a thank you letter.

One of the traditional methods many businesses have used (as an example) is a simple campaign such as the plumbing company who gives personalized items such as pens or stationary to their customers. Customers tend to remember the companies who offer this small gesture.

Of course, companies can create various types of campaigns, coming up with unique advertising specialties which distinguish a company from the fold. After all, the object in advertising is to be remembered and hopefully retain your loyal fan base.

Gifts, Awards and Prizes

Another way to campaign for your company, nonprofit or other related organization is to offer promotional items as gifts, awards and prizes. One campaign which has become very popular is for an organization to offer employees incentives and prizes in order to boost sales performance.

Another method is simply to offer free gifts such as personalized travel mugs in university or business settings. Perhaps a faculty wishes to offer their graduate students engraved mugs as a memento. There are so many creative ways to organize this type of campaign so begin by assessing the unique and specific ways your organization can go about implementing one.

Promotional Products

Promotional product campaigns are simply any kind of campaign used for generating new interest and new customers or clients. Promotional items in this type of campaign do not necessarily need to be given away freely. Artists, sport teams and those in the entertainment industry as an example likely couldn't survive in their type of industry by offering too much for free.

The selling of promotional items in unison with an organization's overall vision can generate visibility, as well as satisfy an existing fan base. This is also a great way to brand one's logo in the public eye.

Top Promotional Product Industry (PPI) Campaign Uses

Business Gifts

Tradeshows

Brand Awareness

Employee Relations and Events

Public Relations

Dealer and Distributor Programs

New Customer and Account Generation

New Product and Service Introduction

Employee Service Awards & Not-For-Profit Programs