How to Effectively Use Promotional Products.

Promotional Product Direct

How to Effectively Use Promotional Products.

In 2021, if you are looking to maintain your current market share or to expand your customer base then you need to get onto a promotional product business marketing campaign.

It sounds easy! Put your logo on some swag, give it away, grow your business!

It’s easy to say but not so easy to do! There are many challenges to achieving your business goals. The first challenge with being a small to mid-sized business in need of marketing is that you often don’t have enough of a marketing budget and a lot of the marketing tools are simply too expensive and often too broad-based to be cost effective for your specific needs.

Are you too broad-based in your marketing approach? Avoid this at all costs. Read the whole shebang!

You are likely a small to mid sized business if you’re reading this. Like most small to mid-sized businesses you rely heavily on a local customer base. This is great because you can easily identify the target group and their locale. The downside when targeting a smaller group is that when you use broad -based marketing tools such as TV, Radio, Newspaper and Google ads is that you can spend a lot of marketing money on reaching people that will never be interested in who you are or what you have to offer.

When you consider buying broad-based local marketing such as TV, Radio etc, the salesperson will promise you so much reach and so much penetration. These terms are their way to fool you into thinking that everyone who watches their channel or reads their magazine will be influenced by your advertisement. This is a very misleading marketing proposal and a very poor way for your business to buy marketing, don’t do it. You’ll likely go broke before you gain any significant new business using this form of marketing ROI..

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What does Marketing ROI mean?

Everyone seems to spout off about ROI this and ROI that, but, what does it really mean?

I love people, we all hear these terms like ROI and then we nod our heads in agreement as if we totally understand what it means. Let’s face it, most of us have idea what ROI means. Here, is what marketing ROI means for you.

There is actually a formula to show what your ROI (Return On Investment) is for your marketing campaign. A simple example below!

“if your sales grew by $1,000 and the marketing campaign cost $100, then the simple ROI is 900%”

The easier and more effective way to look at your Marketing ROI is to think like this. ” How much do I need to spend to get the increase in business or increase in awareness of my product or services?

This is the first part of the Marketing ROI equation. Think of it this way. Your business currently does $500,000 in sales each year and by this same time next year you want to be at $575,000 (an increase of 15%) . The question? How much do you need to spend on marketing to achieve this?

But wait! Before you answer that question you need to determine what kind of business are you? Are you a retailer dependent on specific sales such as Presidents Day Sale, Memorial Day Sales etc, think of auto dealerships and furniture stores or are you a business or service that is more concerned with a slow and steady growth both in revenue and brand reputation and identity?

Auto dealerships and furniture stores!

They love the limited time sale. But, what is a limited time sale?

If you’re a furniture store and you have a 3-day sale and you spend $5,000 on radio and print ads for that sale at the end of those 3 days you sold $40,000 you will know exactly what your ROI was. This is an example of a limited time sale and the ROI for your marketing.

Limited time sales are a very easy way to determine your ROI as the cost for marketing is directly attributed to the time length and dates of the limited time sale. Simple.

Most promotional product marketing is NOT of a “limited time sale” nature.

Unlike the one time sale marketing ROI example as describe above, B2b marketing has many more nuances.

Effective B2b promotional product marketing takes longer.

In B2b marketing, the horizon for realizing the return on your marketing investment is much longer (up to a year) and the results can often be a bit “fuzzy”. It is therefore most important to understand why any business does B2b marketing.

Getting New Long Term Customers and Retaining Existing Customers Is the Main Purpose Of Promotional Product Marketing.

If your goal is to get new customers and retain existing ones, B2b marketing is perfect for you. With that now understood, you need to think about how you are going to market your business, service or product and most importantly, how to understand your B2b Marketing ROI.

When, marketing to new prospects and existing clients there are a few key thing to consider.

  1. Do not give a marketing incentive to new customers and not acknowledge existing clients as well. That will piss off the existing customers. Example. Don’t run a marketing campaign that gives new customers 25% while the regular customers get nothing special. Telephone companies are notorious for doing this.
  2. Be realistic with your expectations. If you spend $250 marketing your small business to a local area don’t expect to double business in a month or even a year. Consider the value of growing your business or client base by 15 % over a year as a win. If your business does 200k in sales a year and it grew to 230k the next year and you spent $2500 to achieve the 30k increase you are doing great!
  3. Don’t spend too much and for gawd’s sake don’t spend too little. I know this sounds self-evident but we deal with clients all of the time who want to spend $300 and expect miracle returns on their “marketing investment”. At the same time, although less often, a client may spend too much. Spending either too little or too much is a bad idea.
  4. Forget the leaky crappy pens and the ever charming ceramic coffee mug. In 2020 no one wants them and by putting your logo on something that outdated and that out of style you will only show your brand to be “dated”. You don’t want that!
  5. Think Differently! If you want your brand and and your business to be remembered, then you better put your logo on something memorable!

How Much Should You Spend on Your Promotional Product Marketing?

You have 3 options. You can spend too much, spend too little or invest just the right amount. Here is how you can figure out exactly what you need to spend!

It’s easy to spend too much. If you’re marketing goals are realistic, let’s say you want to grow your business by 15% and your business currently does $300,000 in annual gross sales, if you think spending $30,000 on a single promotional product campaign then you are spending way too much!

Spending too little is a more common problem. The reason spending too little is a problem is simple. Most marketers who spend too little also have expectations of their marketing efforts that are too grandiose.

Let’s say you have the same $300,000 a year business and you want to grow it to $345,000 per annum (15%) and you decide that the best way to get to the $345K mark is to do a promotional product marketing campaign. You look carefully at all the marketing options and then come to the grand idea that to get a $45,000 increase in business you will “invest $500”! If this is your idea of a “marketing investment” don’t expect much other than to be sorely disappointed.

How to spend the right amount. Spending the correct amount of money on a promotional product marketing initiative to achieve your desired ROI is not as easy as it sounds.

If you’re business is doing $300,000 in a year in sales and you want to get it to the $345,000 per annum mark be prepared to spend about 10% of the increase amount.

In the case of a $45,000 a year increase in sales be prepared to spend about $4,500. This investment needs to thought out carefully, executed strategically and monitored accurately.

The best way to figure out what you need and what you need to spend to achieve your desired ROI is to speak to our experts (call 1-888-908-6932). We have worked with some of the top companies in North America and Europe on their marketing campaigns and we are very open about sharing our expertise with you.

Why you should use Promotional Products for small and mid sized business marketing.

Promotional products are an ideal way to get a good ROI on a marketing investment for small to mid sized business, as well as big business.

Firstly, let me clue you in. Promo swag is for all size of businesses. Over the years we have worked with some of the world’s best known brands, Adidas, Nike, Tiffany, LA Lakers, Sony and hundreds of other marquis clients. Do not think that promotional product marketing is just for the local yokel, all sizes of businesses use it.

Why Swag Works.

Promotional products (aka swag) is a unique way to market. Here are the top points to consider.

  1. Giving away swag is usually a personal experience. When you hand something with your logo and message on it there is a personal connection that does not exist in any other marketing methodology.
  2. You get to give it to the exact person or prospect you want. When you hand out swag at a trade show or do a mailing campaign with it you are almost always able to know who you gave it to and who to follow up with. You can’t say that about radio or newspaper.
  3. You can take control of your budget and monitor your ROI better than any other marketing medium.

If You Think We Sound Like We Know What We’re Talking About? You’re Right!

Call us at 1-888-908-6932 or Email us at this link!

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