Promotional Umbrellas

Unless you’ve been living in a cave for the past few months then you’re probably aware that the weather hasn’t been particularly good lately. It’s brightening up now, but it’s inevitable that we’ll experience similarly bad weather again early next year.

Presumably you might be a bit perplexed as to why I’m writing about the weather; however it’s really quite relevant. For the smart advertiser who knows what he’s doing then promotional gifts are really useful way to promote your business. So, taking into consideration the fact that practically any everyday item can be turned in to a business gift with a bit of branding you should seize this opportunity to effectively promote your business at any available opportunity. So, why not have some promotional umbrellas printed up with your company’s logo and branding next time you order some promotional gifts? People have to get on with their day to day lives even when the weather is terrible, and they’re certainly not going to say no to a free umbrella. So, if you hand out umbrellas as corporate gifts just think how many people will see your name about town next time the heavens open!

That’s the beauty of promotional gifts though. If you print your logo onto a useful item that people are likely to want to keep then they’ll be remind of you every time they use it, or introduce your business to somebody else if they pass the item on.

Business Gifts

It has been reported that this year the amount of money being spent on online advertising will overtake the amount being spent on printed advertising for the first time ever. This is a clear sign for marketers that times are changing and businesses need to adapt the way they advertise in order to keep up with these changes.

Naturally your own business will have an advertising budget and the chances are a good portion of this will be spent on online advertising. However, simply because online marketing is becoming an increasingly dominant advertising format that doesn’t mean that you should neglect other methods of promotion.

If anything, online advertising becomes much more effective when used in conjunction with other methods such as the distribution of promotional gifts. It’s also important to question the effectiveness of online advertising. It’s certainly true that it allows you greater coverage, but as an internet user yourself you’ll also be aware that online adverts and considered a nuisance by many people who simply choose to ignore them. This simply isn’t the case with promotional gifts! They are hardly ever considered to be irritating; in fact most people would be thankfully to receive free business gifts such as promotional pens!

The fact that our lives our becoming increasingly dominated by the internet doesn’t mean that marketers should forget about advertising outside of cyber space. Next time you spend some cash on online marketing perhaps you should consider spending some of that budget on some promotional pens and compare the results!

Promotional Gifts

One of the beauties of using promotional gifts to advertise your business is their potential for subtly, which makes them suitable for advertising practically every kind of business. Take the example of a funeral parlour. Obviously, advertising for such a service must be discrete and a taking out an advertisement on a side of a bus would not be appropriate at all. By the same token neither would advertising on radio or television.

However, promotional gifts would be entirely suitable. For example, a plain simple, black pen could easily and tastefully be printed with the name and contact for a funeral director. These promotional pens could then be handed out to clients and would serve as an excellent, but subtle form of advertisement that wouldn’t cause offence to anyone.

This is one of the great advantages of using promotional gifts to advertise, they’re subtle! But this doesn’t mean they should be used in situations where there isn’t a necessity to be subtle. Even if you wanted to advertise something as brash as a theme park, then promotional gifts such as printed t-shirts or promotional pens could be used in conjunction with other forms of advertising too. It is this subtlety that makes promotional gifts such as effective form of advertising. A person who picked up a promotional pen from your business may put it away in a draw for months, but when they come to use it again they will be reminded of your services, possibly prompting them to make use of them again.

Eco FriendlyPromotional Gifts

Consumer fads come and go, but one noble cause which continues to grow is the concept of Fairtrade shopping. Fairtrade is an organisation that gives their logo to products and brands who are able to offer certain guarantees on the sourcing of ingredients and labour, and the environmental impact of their manufacturing processes. These guarantees normally revolve around things you would hope western companies would be committed to anyway, such as not using slave labour or the exploitation of children, but they also involve the somewhat controversial fixing of commodity prices to ensure small producers are not priced out of the market by larger competitors.

Currently, Fairtrade sales are up 12% on 2008, with Sainsbury’s the UK’s number one retailer of Fairtrade certified products, a market worth around £800m a year. This enduring trend of ethical shopping has admittedly come on the back of the longest run of economic prosperity in the post-war period, but it does point to a more considerate consumer conscience that you could do well to tap in to with your choice of promotional gifts.

Recycled Promotional Pens

For example, there are a wide range of eco-friendly promotional pens available, made from recycled plastics. There are also all kinds of promotional clothing items available made from 100% organically grown cotton, and even printed t-shirts made of bamboo that are fully bio-degradable. Even if you didn’t hear the last ten years of rallying calls for more ethical and sustainable business practises you can be sure that some of your customers did, and by utilising these kind of promotional items you will be showing that you are a company that is not only considerate to the planet, but is forward thinking in its approaches. Not a bad impression to make.

Promotional Gifts

Despite all the incredible special effects and witty writers large companies can employ to produce a multi-million pound Super Bowl advertisement, or how many glamorous they can retain to where/use/plug their product in public, marketing your product or service head to head with a competitor generally comes down to volume, meaning getting your brand in as many places, in as many ways as possible.

It can also be surprising in which industries you will find this applies, with even blockbuster Hollywood films, propelled by months of journalistic hype, interviews with cast and crew and fantastically expensive trailers, also purchasing warehouses full of promotional pens, hats and printed t-shirts to give away to fans and competition winners.

Promotional Pens

Hollywood also takes the concept of luxury promotional gifts to a… well, a completely Hollywood level. With little over two weeks to go until the 2010 Academy Awards, marketing and PR departments will already be gadding about preparing the infamous “Oscar baskets”. These are essentially hampers stuffed full of top of the range luxury watches, cosmetics, clothing and even electronic goods that are given to presenters, hosts and nominees in the hope that they will receive some positive publicity from the association. In fact is it not unheard of for top billing celebrities to make more through these marketing kickbacks than their actual appearance fee, most likely because the taxman never gets a sniff of these corporate gifts!

Promotional Pens

Although the MP expenses scandal, continued economic woes and now the Haiti earthquake have all done their best to distract us, 2010 is an election year. This normally means the ruling party stops running the country in favour of trying to save their own jobs, while all the opposition parties point out how badly the country is doing, scaring off much needed investment and depressing the rest of us.

It has been a few decades now since politicians in this country figured out that what you say is much less important than how you say it, and in a media-led world of 5 second attention spans it is just as much about leaving an impression as actually proposing anything useful or innovative. It is in this realm that promotional gifts come in to their own, where political parties go slogan man and race to brand as much of the urban sprawls and their inhabitants as possible. Politicians and campaigners go door to door handing out promotional pens and badges, with promotional car stickers available for people who like defacing their own property (“Honk for change”, suggest the Tories).

Promotional Bags

Promotional items are also a great fund raiser, with the Conservative Party offering all manner of branded merchandise for sale from the “Shop For Change” section of their website, including printed diaries and promotional bags. As yet none of the other major parties offer an equivalent selection of their own, but it would be interesting to see how a “Tea For Change” Tory mug and a Labour competitor would compare in a head to head brew-off. Most likely you would either find the brewing industry shut down from lack of government investment and the brew making communities abandoned, or two hundred laws being passed governing the tea brewing process, crippling any remaining brewing industry with red tape and health and safety legislation.

Whichever mug you choose, it always tastes the same in the end. Have a happy election!

Promotional T-Shirts

In previous blogs we have touched on the ability of cheap promotional gifts to underpin a lucrative fundraising campaign, but the scale of giving witnessed in the wake of the Haiti disaster has been almost unprecedented. One month on from the earthquake which killed over 200,000 people and destroyed the vast majority of the country’s fragile infrastructure, total donations to private organisations helping with the relief effort are standing at nearly $650 million. Much of this has been raised via celebrity telethons or other large scale celebrity endorsed activities, but a significant proportion has been raised through the work of individuals and community groups doing their bit here and there.

Printed T-Shirts

An example of this which proved to be a resounding success following its international media coverage is 7 year old Charlie Simpson, who has raised, to date, over £170,000 from a 5 mile sponsored bike ride around his local park. He was riding on behalf of the Unicef Haiti earthquake children’s appeal, and as pictures of this inspiring effort were circulated around the globe, the Unicef logo was front and centre due to Charlie and co. wearing their promotional clothing. Now not every campaign is going to be as successful as young Charlie’s, but it is easy to secure media coverage for any and all fundraising events on a local level, giving you an opportunity to work towards both making a meaningful contribution to society and increasing your brand exposure at the same time. Low-cost promotional gifts like promotional pens also make fantastic things to “sell” at collection points either on the street or inside cooperating shops.

Go on, hand out some promotional t-shirts and make a difference.

Promotional Gifts

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) finally grew some teeth this week and threatened to suspend banking licenses for any firm not falling in line with its stringent new rules on employee bonuses. Banks and other financial institutions have come in for a rough ear bashing from the public, government and regulators alike over the last 18 months as everyone tried their hardest to deflect blame for the current economic crisis away from themselves. However, this is the first time they have actually been challenged to adopt reforms that they weren’t keen on themselves, and for once it appears the FSA isn’t likely to back down.

This will be causing some monumental headaches for human resources right across the City as they attempt to satisfy contractually certified bonuses for their staff without breaking the FSA’s new guidelines. Times like these are always trying for employee morale, and can leave many with a sour taste in their mouth over their perceived treatment by the company. So what better time than to try and butter everybody up with some promotional gifts? Sure, even the nicest looking promotional pens in the world aren’t going to cushion the disappointment of receiving 100% of your bonus in locked shares and bonds rather than cash, but for the poor souls having to write the letters and break the news a few corporate gifts here and there can make a world of difference.

Let’s face it, if you’ve just been let off the hook on having to honour millions of pounds worth of contractually required bonuses then you’re going to have a rouble or two spare to spend on the rest of your staff.

Promotional Bags

Christmas and the New Year are now far enough behind us to make this time of year about business. By now, it will have become apparent which resolutions have failed, and which will stay the course. So with a clearer picture of the year ahead, now is a good time to get around to the various business and trade fairs that take place in the early months of the year,and get the word out about what exciting opportunities your company has to offer over 2010.

Promotional Mugs

Of course, your business won’t be alone in doing this, so encourage good feeling from people who visit your stands and make sure they remember your company when they leave the fair—promotional gifts such as promotional t-shirts, promotional pens or promotional mugs, especially if parcelled out in handy promotional bags, can ensure that when potential customers leave a long trade fair, your brand is one that they take with them.

With the economy still suffering most businesses would be understandably reluctant to shoulder the expense of such advertising, but there are offers on ordering business gifts in bulk that will pay for themselves through the advertising and potential business they can generate. And confidence builds confidence; if potential customers or investors can take away corporate gifts from a careers fair, the confidence you show in your business by paying for these business gifts will foster confidence in your company among people you want to encourage to spend money with you.

Over the weekend the award season was kicked off in earnest with the 67th annual Golden Globe awards. Host Ricky Gervais managed to offend and entertain in equal measure but it was the night’s award winners who got everyone talking, with many predicted to go on and hoist the equivalent award at the Oscar’s in a few weeks time.

Corporate Gifts

Although the glitz and glamour of Hollywood is a world away from most people’s daily lives, every industry holds its own awards ceremonies to recognise the excellence and achievement of those within it. Whether you see them as a key motivational tool, a complete waste of your valuable time or an excellent excuse to get hammered for free, you can’t doubt their value as a promotional opportunity. Any awards received by your team or company make great slogans for promotional pens and other promotional gifts, even if they are handed out by a completely Mickey Mouse organisation.

Some larger firms elect to hold their own awards ceremonies, taking the opportunity to hand out anything from fancy corporate gifts to printed t-shirts to hard working employees and any clients they can rope in to the occasion. Even if the awards themselves mean nothing in the grand scheme of things, customers always remember the phrase “award winning”, and a bit of a knees up won’t do your employees any harm in dreary January either.