Posted on March 03, 2022 11:50 AM
Promotional products have always been a quick and effective way to promote your brand. Whether you’re ramping up for a big event or selecting promotional products for an upcoming campaign to show your long-term customers some extra appreciation, promotional products create a lasting physical presence for your brand and its identity. But what good are these products without eyes to behold them? Social media has become an essential tool for increasing visibility in the digital space, and we find it pairs exceptionally well with physical branding. We have devised some strategies that combine promotional products with social media strategies for increasing brand awareness.
1. Get Online
When it comes to social media, there are many platforms to choose from. Consider what form of outreach works best for your industry and make your choices accordingly. An understanding of your audience will help you decide which platforms to focus on. Experiment with different kinds of engagement and, make sure your information and iconography are consistent across platforms. You want to be recognized at a glance, and your “handle” should be easy to remember so you can garner a following.
2. Which promotional products?
Your promotional items and your posts should be working together to present a focused brand image. Therefore, selecting the right products to brand is a crucial consideration for your posts. T-shirts and pens may be good go-to selections, but casting to a more defined niche is sure to grab the attention of enthusiasts. Drinkware and activewear appeal directly to gym-going outdoor types, while USB drives and headphones serve everyone from typical office workers to hardware hobbyists. Targeting your desired audience better ensures that the product – and the name on it – is used and appreciated for years after your promotion.
3. Gifts, Sponsorship, and the Power of Influence
Whether you are maintaining goodwill with a client or looking to expand your visibility, short-term generosity can yield long-term rewards. A curated branded gift package to a business partner can thank or remind them of the relationship you have cultivated. Such a gift could then be posted on social media by the sender or receiver with words of gratitude, creating a positive public image of your brand and the work you do. Gifts can also take the form of limited or special edition products. Posts from the recipient showing off these limited promotional products with unique designs allow your brand to play with different aesthetics while seizing the attention of those who seek out limited-time offers or products.
Creating special promotional products to send out to influencers you are partnered with or some you are interested in partnering with in the future is an effective way to penetrate new markets. Something as small as one post in an influencer’s feed or an ad shoutout in a video where your brand’s promotional product gift is mentioned on social media could put your products or services and services in front of an entirely new audience.
4. Engage with Your Audience
Cultivating an online presence requires some cultural literacy, and trends can often seem transient and disposable. The trade-off for all this accessibility to potential markets is understanding that what works for one moment may not work for the next. Try to observe what sorts of jokes and challenges are trending in the larger online culture, as they may yield ripe opportunities to show off your branded product. Whether it’s a dance challenge or a meme, tailoring your posts to the current cultural moment makes viewers more likely to engage with your post, your product, and your comments section. With enough creativity, your brand could enjoy its own moment of virality.
5. Check the Data, Try New Things
Social media brings with it a wealth of data metrics to evaluate. At any given moment, you can get real-time insight into how a post is performing through likes, comments, shares, and greater penetration of that particular sector of the Internet. From there you can make all manner of insights into what combination of post and product yield the greatest engagement and ROI. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different sponsorships/creators, types of posts, social media giveaways, and which products carry your brand name best when sharing for the world to see.
Using promotional products to advertise your business is a great way to build brand awareness and there's no denying social media is too so why not try combining the two? Incorporating promotional products in your overall social media strategy can help you maximize the return on investment (ROI) for your promotional products.
Your local promotional product experts at Fully Promoted are standing by to help you make the best choices for your brand’s needs and budget. Contact us today to start the discussion and start browsing our endless promotional product options online.