Companies now spend around 12% of annual revenue on overall marketing efforts. Business expansion is a major focus of businesses with less interest in maintaining the status quo by using conservative strategies.
If you want to take your business to the next level by using promotional marketing, there are some common pitfalls to avoid. There are also some best practices for this strategy. Continue reading this article to find out how to be most effective with your strategies to build your business' sales revenue.
Promotional Marketing at Its Best
Whether your company is revenue or growth focused, you need to get the word out about your business. Using promo products, including our range of printed bags is a great way to get into people's homes to remind them about your business.
Whether you give marketing swag people can wear or use some of the other top promo products; people love getting free things. If you give people free goodies, you can spread your brands into corners of the world that you haven't even thought about.
The Dos
Following best practices will allow you to get the most bang for your buck. You don't want to spend money on promo tools that people are going to throw in the trash. Your goal is to give people swag that they are proud of and love to use and show off to other people.
1. Know Your Target Audience
To make sure you run a successful promo campaign, you need to know your target audience. If you know your target audience, you will be able to determine which promotional tools will be the right fit for them. You don't want to give coffee cups to people that don't drink coffee.
The more you know who your audience is, the more you can customize the promo swag to make them want it and want to keep it. If you know your audience loves pandas then, by all means, use Pandas in your marketing campaign.
2. Know How You Are Going to Distribute Your Promo Materials
Make a specific plan about how you will get your promo materials to your target market. If you don't know how to distribute your promo materials, you may have them for many years to come. You don't want to sit on your promo material that long.
Think about the events that are happening in the area you want to target. What kind of things does your target market want to do and where will they spend their time? You can partner with convention centres to match you with events that want swag bags for their participants and more.
The sky is the limit when you put together a plan to distribute your products, but you want to make sure you have a plan in place. Just knowing there are ways to get your promo materials out there isn't going to give you the results you want.
3. Call to Action (CTA)
Just getting your promo materials in the market isn't enough. When you give out the freebies, you should have a CTA included. You need to let the receiver know what you want them to do.
While the receiver isn't required to do anything that you ask them to do, if they want to do business with you, they should understand how to take that step. You might tell the receiver to use a certain code to get 10% off their next order or something similar.
The Don'ts
Just as important as using best practices in your campaign are the things that you shouldn't do. Avoid these common pitfalls for a more successful campaign.
1. Last Minute Ordering Decisions
Until you go through the quotation process, you don't know all of the options available to you. Each product can be customised in myriad ways, so it's much better to plan ahead and find out which products would fit your target audience than to leave it to the last minute and just order the standard range of pens and trolley coins.
With so many options available to you, you need to order early. If you try to order too close to the date of an event you want to distribute your swag, you may find some products are back ordered, or there is some other challenge.
2. Avoid Buzzwords
Ever looked at a company that loves 'synergy' and rolled your eyes? You want to use phrases that are catchy and fun so people will keep your products, but avoid needless buzzwords. They aren't memorable, so you aren't likely to catch much attention or stick in the memories of your audience. Your goal is to make them remember you, not to put them to sleep.
3. Making It Difficult
If your campaign is hard to implement, the likelihood that you are going to follow through is low. Even if you do follow through, you are going to be stressed out by the end of the day.
Making the task difficult for the participant will keep them from following through as well. Instead of having them fill out a long form to get your promo material, you can ask them to drop a business card or to fill out a short form on an iPad.
Implementing Your Promo Strategies
Building brand recognition and trust is a big part of your campaign. You have to be consistent if you want people to remember you and trust your brand. Doing random campaigns that are not well thought out will end up costing your business more money than it brings in from the campaign.
Use high-quality promo tools so they don't break or deform. Your brand is on the line when you put anything out into the market, and that includes your promotional swag.
Take Your Marketing Efforts to the Next Level
Now you know the best practices for promotional marketing and can start building your brand recognition with these great products. Check out some of our most popular products that people love on our site in our bestselling promo items section.
