Posted on July 15, 2020 2:55 PM Resources
Success for all businesses, regardless of size or industry, depends upon having a steady stream of customers and engaged employees. These critical pipelines are accomplished continually by retaining the customers and employees you have and securing new ones.
To achieve this constant state of revenue flow and quality employee performance in your business requires evergreen efforts to market your company and brand where customers, employees, and potential customers are likely to engage positively with it again and again. One way to accomplish this goal is to launch promotional product-based marketing and HR campaigns. These involve promoting your brand and its products and services via a variety of media but adds an important reward for the audiences exposed to your media content – they receive a valued promotional gift from your company when they engage with your brand via your campaign.
The following answers both the “why” and “how-to” questions when it comes to creating your own promotional product campaign to boost sales, create brand awareness, and attract and retain quality and engaged employees.
Set Your Campaign Goal
First, decide what you would like the campaign to accomplish. Some of the most successful promotional product campaigns have been launched to:
· Introduce a new product
· Increase sales of an existing product
· Launch a product in a new geographic area
· Build brand image
· Rehabilitate brand image
· Create brand awareness
· Attract new employees
· Retain quality employees
Define Your Target Audiences
Who are you trying to reach? Are they current customers or employees? Potential customers or employees? People who have never heard of your brand? All of the above?
Once you define your target audiences, you are ready to create the message your campaign wants to send to them.
Create Your Message
Your message to these audiences is the heart and soul of your campaign. Your campaign’s mission is to make certain that your audiences receive this message and act positively toward your brand because they have received it. It should be clear, simple, unique, positive, empathetic, impactful, and memorable.
The best campaign messages:
· Explain the essence of your brand and core product.
· Resonate with your audience so they know your brand understands what is important to them.
· Clearly illustrate the problems your brand solves and what differentiates it from the competition.
· Inspire trust in your target audience that your brand will deliver on its products and promises.
· Build a relationship with your audience so they will not just purchase your product, but also refer your brand to others.
· Have a call to action that encourages your audiences to engage with your brand.
Decide How to Send Your Message
Your decision regarding the best way to send your campaign’s message is largely based on your target audience’s media preferences. Are they social media users? Do they view a lot of television? Do they read certain publications? Do they drive by certain billboards? Are they radio listeners? Would they appreciate receiving an interesting message via email or even snail mail? Do you have a company intranet that employees use?
Once you determine who you are trying to reach, what to say to them, and the best way to reach them, it’s time to choose the item that will trigger the action that your campaign is trying to elicit from your audiences: a branded promotional item.
How Promotional Products Support Your Campaign Messages and Goals
Marketing research conducted over decades has proven that promotional products are ranked the most effective form of advertising across all generations. There is always a high demand for these products because they leave a great first impression of your brand and make it easy for those who receive them to remember your business.
Virtually everyone likes meaningful free items, they are the icing on the cake of your marketing campaign and will keep your brand message fresh in the minds of those who receive them. Research from the Ad Specialty Institute (ASI) found that 81% of consumers keep promotional products for about one to five years. The longer a product is kept, the more impressions (views of your branding) it will make – both from those who keep the product and others around them who see it.
Research from the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) found that, in general, 90% of consumers say they remember a brand because of a promotional item they received. About 70% of brands consider promotional products mostly or always effective in achieving marketing goals, according to PPAI.
In other industry research:
· 89% of consumers can recall the brand on a promotional product they have received in the last 2 years.
· 80% of consumers can recall the messaging of a brand after receiving a promotional product.
· 82% of consumers have a more favorable impression of a brand after receiving a promotional product.
· 53% of the time, a promotional product creates a more favorable impression of the advertiser.
Results of the PPAI 2019 Consumer Study, conducted among 3,000 consumers ages 18-78 in the US and Canada also found:
· 10 of 10 consumers say they are willing to go out of their way to receive promotional products.
· 7 of 10 consumers wished they received promotional products more often.
· 8 in 10 consumers like receiving promotional products.
· 79% of consumers pass along promotional products that are no longer valuable.
· 72% of consumers believe that the quality of the item equals the reputation of the company.
· 80% of consumers have an immediate reaction when they receive a promo from companies they’ve never heard of.
Support Your Campaign Goal by Using the Right Promotional Products
Choosing the right promotional product for your marketing campaign is crucial to its success. To do it right, you must align your choice of product with what your target audience values and the message you want them to remember about your brand. Also, consider several other important factors in your promotional product selection:
· What is your budget for the item?
· Is it something that your target audience would use/has likely ever used?
· How would you like it to be used?
· How long is it likely to be used?
· Is it climate/season sensitive?
· Is it a popular item where it is being distributed?
Although consumer promotional item favorites change from time to time as new products become available, the following have been ranked by PPAI as the top five favorite categories of promotional products over the past several years:
· 29% wearables
· 17% health & beauty
· 14% technology
· 9% food & beverage
· 7% travel products
As you make your product selection, keep these success tactics in mind:
· Make sure that all of your promotional products are thoroughly branded. Each one should have your logo, contact details, and social media information.
· Keep quality foremost. You want customers and prospects to associate your brand with the product, so select durable products.
· Set your brand apart from the competition. Whatever promotional giveaways you choose, differentiate them with your brand’s special touch – i.e., a unique color combination, special features, or exceptional quality.
· Products should communicate messages that are important to your brand. Consider what concepts you want people to associate your brand with. If the message is health, for example, choose products that evoke a healthy lifestyle. If the message is creativity, choose products that illustrate this concept.
· Think about where and how you are providing the giveaways. If they are giveaways at an event, try to pair your choice of item(s) with the theme of the event.
· Design your campaign with creative graphics that integrate your promotional product. Once you have selected the right promotional product for your marketing campaign, think holistically as you create attention-grabbing graphics for it that take all of its aspects into consideration (i.e., goal, audiences, media, messages, call to action, promotional item, etc.).
Create Metrics to Understand Your Promotional Products-Based Marketing Campaign’s Success
The marketing industry standard for determining an initiative’s success is using the benchmark revenue to a ratio of 5:1 or better. This means that for every marketing dollar spent you yielded $5 in revenue.
The key to understanding the success of your promotional products-based campaign is calculating return on investment (ROI). Several tests can be used to determine the ROI of branded promotional products. To apply tests that show ROI in terms of sales directly related to consumers having received promotional products, you must first plan how to track the products you intend to give away so they can be traced throughout the testing process. It’s important to note that each item used in the campaign must have a trackability component if you are using the items to deliver sales.
· Trackability – Decide how best to do this (i.e., URL, QR Code, Call Tracking Number, or Discount Code). Then, choose a promotional product that works with your choice of tracking method, purchase it, give it away, and track the number of people who contacted your business as a result of receiving the item. Next, measure whether the people who received the item and contacted your business actually bought your products or services and calculate the ROI from the sales they generated.
· Basic Metrics Test – The most simplistic way to calculate ROI is based on two metrics: the cost of the campaign and the outcome it generated (typically, this is the revenue it has generated, not sales but the profit margin you earned). Subtract the amount spent on the campaign from the profit it generated. Next, divide this total by the total amount spent, multiplied by 100.
· Return on Impressions – This method is important to use when the marketing goal is focused on brand awareness and engagement. In advertising, an impression is an estimate of the number of people a specific advertisement is reaching. Each time a person sees the advertisement or brand on a promotional product is considered one impression.
Promotional products have one of the lowest cost per impression ratio – about .6 cents per impression, according to the ASI, the promotional product industry’s largest membership organization. Compare this to the cost per impression of television and magazine ads, which is about 1.8 cents per impression.
To calculate an approximate return on impressions, marketers use cost per thousand as a benchmark. Divide the total cost of the item by the number of estimated impressions, and then divide by 1,000.
Partnering with the Right Promotional Products Professional is Key
To achieve the goal of a successful promotional product-based campaign, work with a creative and reliable promotional products partner that can demonstrate their expertise and experience in delivering materials for effective marketing campaigns. At your local Fully Promoted, you will find the best promotional products for your promotional product-based campaigns. We have more than one million different products for you to choose from as you plan any type of promotional product-based campaign. Our experts take the time to speak with you about your campaign in detail to thoroughly understand your audience, messaging, goals, etc. to help you determine the items that will provide the most impact.
Our promotional product experts are standing by to assist businesses looking to improve their reach and create a lasting impression. Whether your business is just getting started or you’ve been around for 60 years, we are here to help you reach your next goals. Contact your local Fully Promoted today to begin planning your successful promotional products-based marketing campaign.