Advertising Merchandise – 4 Steps to Ensure A Successful Campaign!

Advertising Merchandise, also known as Promotional Products or Advertising Specialties, can elevate your business to the next level. Many companies add promotional marketing into their budgets separate from TV and Radio advertising simply because of its efficiency.  However, there are several factors that you need to keep in mind when planning your campaign:

1. Who is your Client? (Defining your Target Market)

It’s critical to choose a promotional product that suits the nature of your target market. We hope you’ve done some research on your potential clients and made some conclusions. If not, you shouldn’t take another step without clearly defining your target.  In order to do so, you will need to ask yourself a few questions to clearly focus on your target demographic:

Is my target a business or an individual?
Am I targeting men, women or both?
Will they be professionals?
What is the age range of my target audience?
Am I targeting singles or married couples?
Do they have other common interests?

2. How to Distribute?

Sometimes distribution will determine what product you choose.  Other times, the product will be the deciding factor on how you distribute them.  I’ve placed distribution first here simply because many businesses generate campaigns around events and distribution channels more often than around products themselves.

One of the most common outlets is for tradeshows or similar type events.  Any type of gathering of like-minded businesses or organizations that exhibit to potential consumers provides a great opportunity of distributing advertising merchandise.

Another popular distribution channel is direct mail.  You can send items such as traditional letters, postcards sealed with magnets, or custom promotional boxes with intriguing messages.

3. What’s your Budget?

Your budget can dramatically affect the complexity of your promotional campaign.  Hopefully you’ve been able to develop an idea for what your customers are worth to you.  Is your average client worth $150/year?  $500/year?  $1,500/year?  Use this information, along with what it typically costs to gain a new customer, and set your budget and goals for the campaign.  If a customer is worth $500 per year, and you think that you could land 5 new accounts with this campaign, how much are you willing to spend to earn that $2,500 in profit?  $500?  $1,000?

4. Choosing Your Advertising Merchandise

A lot of this depends on the information that has been gathered answering the questions above.  Look at the following criteria to help narrow down you selection.

Are you wanting a product that is useful (ice scraper, ink pen, etc) or that will be proudly displayed (lapel pin, plush toy, desk clock)?
Do you want a high dollar item, for example 100 – $5.00 items or 500 – $1.00 items?
Is this item going to need to be shipped individually or bulk to a tradeshow or event?
Does it need to fit in a tradeshow or gift bag or other packaging?

Keeping all of these elements in mind will ensure that your promotional marketing campaign is targeted and effective for your event.  Your distribution will be smoother, and your objects are kept top of mind.  You should keep all of these factors in mind with each new project, and remember.. document your successes and failures.  While not every project will be met with overwhelming success, if you’ve analyzed your position and your strategies, you’ll come out ahead.

Keep checking back on this site to get more tips for using your advertising merchandise as effectively as possible.

Want to get serious about using Promotional Products in a marketing campaign or to increase your branding and boost your sales?  Email or Call Us Today.

Email: info@surgepromotions.com
Phone: 859-624-0045