[ For your next trade show exhibit selecting the perfect promotional marketing product. ]

Promotional Marketing Products - Selecting the Perfect Item, Part 1

by: Cindy Carrera

People are known to shop on impulse- buying an item just because it is on sale, or purchasing something because it looks great in the store. When shopping for promotional items, you really can’t succumb to impulses. Instead, you must carefully decide on an item that will help meet your objectives.

A career school admissions representative who worked with the high school market once wanted to buy magnets to give to people. Although magnets were in the budget, they would not really do the job of spreading the word among other high school students, as the magnets would be at home on the fridge where maybe a handful of other students would see. A better idea was to give out day planners (only to enrolled students) that they could carry to school everyday where hundreds of classmates could see. “Oh- that’s where I’m going to school after graduation” they would say when asked about the school’s name on the planner. Rachel, the rep, was hurt that the magnets she liked did not get ordered. But, Rachel does not have a marketing background and she didn’t understand that these items served another purpose.

So, when ordering your items before you even browse the pages of catalogs or websites, you want to have some objectives in mind. You would not want to invest money in an item that doesn’t match the tactic. Think about these:

• Do you want to stimulate trade show traffic?
• Do you want to use these as sales aids?
• Are these going to be premiums?
• Are you introducing a new product/service?
• Do you want to thank current customers?
• Are these for an event giveaway?
• Are these to motivate employees?
• Are you trying to gain back lost business?
• Are you trying to improve customer service?
• Are these going to be used as gifts?
• Are you using them to supplement a direct mail campaign?

>> Promotional Marketing Products - Selecting the Perfect Item, part 2