The event is free for all to attend, simply fill in a form here and apply for your tickets.

Bic Media Clic Ballpens are available from EMC Ad Gifts and you can have the chance to win 500 at The Great British Business Show

The show has grown greatly over the past 26 events to become a great source for all businesses to get ideas and help expand. The show caters for all sizes of business and has seminars and events for specific industries and areas for every business such as business planning, marketing, social media etc.

EMC Advertising Gifts will be in attendance for both days and we will also be hosting 2 workshop sessions with Gordon Glenister – Director General of the British Promotional Merchandise Association (BPMA).

These will be held over the two days:
Thurs 17th
12.30 – 13.00 in Seminar Hall 13
Friday 18th
11.00 – 11.30 in Seminar Hall 13

Gordon has been the Director General for the BPMA for the last five years, having previously run his own Incentive rewards agency, working for big brands such as Heinz and Avis Europe. Gordon is well known in the promotion industry and an advocate of promotional gifts.

The stall for the Great British Business Show in progress

EMC Ad Gifts stall (stand number 1029 at the show) will be designed around an old sweet shop, with the theme “Olde pen shoppe”. Visitors to the show will have the opportunity to make their own “pick and mix” Bic Media Clic Ballpen. There will also be a prize draw with 500 of the pens up for grabs, including a free one colour design, setup and delivery. The lucky winner can add an extra colour for £40 + VAT and get help with design if needed.

There will be numerous samples on offer to view or keep, and lots of ideas for advertising your company. Ideas to stay in people’s minds from everyday items such as mugs, pens, rulers, bags and anything else in the EMC Ad Gifts catalogue. We are also able to source other items for customisation at great prices, so why not come down, see for yourself and talk to some of our friendly employees!

Perfect for keeping your drink cool in summer, featuring a universal fitting that can be used on almost any table. It has a large, visible surface area to spread your message clearly.

Save yourself from keeping drinks under the table in hot weather, take advantage of the British summer time and get recognised!

Waboba Ball

This ball won the Promotional Award in 2008 and is a great little ball, being the world’s first ball that can bounce on water. It provides loads of fun in pools, lakes and the sea.

Bouncing up to 6 metres, the waboba ball is a great gift for the summer and can create fun, whatever the weather.

Micro Spot

This screen cleaner consists of a cloth with a sticky back, enabling you to attach it to any device with a screen, including PDAs, Mobile phones, iPods and other devices.

The microfibers scoop up dirt and grease, leaving your device smudge free, whilst the cloth stays clean enabling you to use it over and over again.

Once cleaned, you simply attach it back to the reverse of your device, keeping it in place without leaving marks or residue. More information and pricing here.

Eyeball Mobile Phone Stand

Perfect for smart phones and available in larger sizes for other tablet devices, this lets you view your phone easily on any surface.

Attaching to the phone or other device by a suction cup, the silicon phone stand can attach to a smooth surface, easily and mark free.

Featuring your logo in full colour in the domed insert, these are perfect gifts for many people with increased usage of smart phones and tablet devices. More information and pricing here.

These are just a few of the products available from EMC Ad Gifts. With our range increasing, there are more opportunities to find the right product for the right person, increasing the success of any marketing campaign.

Internet Advertising

Advertising on the internet is a great way to get your product or business recognised globally, but sometimes it is difficult to get to grips with SEO and rank tracking if you have no previous experience in the field and unless your product is unique and there is no competition within your industry, it will take a lot of work to get your website into the top listings. Outsourcing your SEO work is more likely to get you better results, and once your page is ranking, the advantages are unsurpassed.

You should acknowledge that in-text links tend to work better than banner ads because they resemble content, and display ads perform better with video and animation.

There are a number of companies out there who will be happy to guide you through this process, as it can be something of a mine-field, and there are a variety of services at different prices depending on your business and your strategy
 

Direct Mail

If you have a large inventory or catalogue, direct mail can be advantageous as it will allow people to see all the products you have to offer without needing to look for it. Stationary and tool companies are often find direct mail effective, as once they have sent a catalogue, the homeowner can then keep hold of it, meaning that even if the customer had no need for a product at that particular time, they know where they can find a product once they do need it. Direct Mail can also be personalised, helping to illicit a positive response.

However, you should be careful what you use Direct Mail for. Many people do not like to receive mail which they see as clutter, and often they won’t open what they perceive to be ‘junk mail’. Depending on the campaign, it can also be quite costly to produce materials, and has a fairly negative environmental impact.
 

Television

According to Ofcom, there are around 60 million televisions in the UK in 94% of British households and because of this, television advertising has the potential to reach a huge national audience. If you don’t need to target nationally, then there are a number of regional stations on which you can advertise at lower costs – giving you the opportunity to show off your product or business in motion. Implementing DRTV has also been shown to be effective, so if you have a product which is easily demonstrable, you can solicit people to buy straight away.

However, it can be very difficult to get slots for your adverts during prime time, and regional networks will tend to focus your ads around things like news bulletins. It is also fairly expensive in terms of production.
 
 

Newspapers

Local newspapers are still one of the most looked-too sources for information on local events and services. Ads are simple to pit together and you will have a number of choices in terms of size and you can adapt it quickly and easily to reflect market conditions.

They have a fairly short shelf-life however, and ads can be fairly expensive. You may also find that your ad ends up directly alongside a competitor, or that your competitors can react quickly to your prices. They also tend to have poor quality in terms of image reproduction, meaning that your product may not end up being well-represented.
 
 
 

Yellow Pages

Again, despite the vast wealth of information available on the internet, you will find that many people will go to their copy of the Yellow Pages before looking anywhere else. They are available in most houses and are non-invasive. Ads are usually relatively inexpensive and the audience is actually looking for what you can provide.

You should understand though, that your ad will be placed alongside all your competitors, so you should think very carefully about the information you will provide to ensure that you stand out amongst them.
 
 
 
 

Obviously, all these forms of advertising are useful, particularly if they are all utilised to some degree, reinforcing the impact of each other. At EMC Ad Gifts, we understand that it can be difficult to find the right medium, but believe that our promotional gifts can help to contribute to a successful advertising campaign.

Promotional merchandise can produce a higher or equal ROI than most forms of advertising

87 percent of recipients said they kept a promotional gift for longer than 12 months. The staying power of promotional products is significantly higher than any TV, print or outside advertising campaign. Printed mugs performed best in this category, with some respondents saying that they had kept their promotional item for between 3 and 4 years. These lasting promotional items are also very effective for branding because 66% of respondents said they could remember the brand of a promotional product that they had received in the past year.

56 percent of respondents said their opinion of the brand/company was more favourable after receiving the product. The positive effect of promotional products on recipients is recorded here. It is also worth noting that this is a response from those who are aware and admit that a promotion has changed their mind; it is very likely that promotional products affected the opinion of the recipient positively without them being conscious of it. Receiving a gift creates a good relationship whereby customers think of the company as good value and having something to offer them personally.

79 percent of respondents said they were likely to do business with the company in the future. The return on an investment of promotional products is potentially huge. If nearly 4 out of 5 recipients are likely to return to the brand for business, your company could grow exponentially with the assistance of a few promotional gifts to support your campaign.

This research serves to strengthen our firm belief in the incredible value of promotional products as an efficient and effective form of advertising. With so many products available to be customised to your brand, the products we have available can be adapted to suit your needs. As soon as you invest you can start to expect some of the incredible returns that this study has shown.

Facebook can be a very effective way to communicate with your customer base because it is a very personal way to start a two way conversation with future or past customers. By commenting on statuses and updating with your news you can generate interest and very quickly have your updates being seen by new customers as your network reaches the friends of your already loyal customers.

Youtube is an incredible resource when you consider the fact that it is free. Data storage and file hosting online can be very expensive and a company that will let you host infinite amounts of video online is invaluable to anyone looking to promote themselves. Additionally, users could stumble upon your promotional video very organically as they browse through the related videos to the one they are currently watching – meaning your potential viewers are already the perfect demographic.

Twitter can be very valuable for promotion because it is limited to a single short sentence that just momentarily captures the attention of the user. So if you were giving away promotional gifts as part of a campaign, you could tweet about it and attract customers down to your location. Also hashtags are a small # symbol that allows you to specifically target the audience that you desire. For example, if you were launching a promotional campaign in Norwich you could hashtag words like ‘Norwich’ ‘promotion’ ‘free’ and then anyone searching for any of those terms on twitter will find you

The perfect promotional campaign is an effective mix of traditional and digital promotional techniques encouraging communication and loyalty within your customer base

When the accessory launches for the public it will be compatible with both iphone and android devices along with downloadable apps that allow you to upload your photos or browse the photos of your friends. This new type of image capturing is sure to excite the minds of photographers and artists, and the public launch has a lot to look forward to as we get to see the results of what these creative minds will do with the new technology.

The Gadget Show Live is the UK’s leading consumer based technology event and it runs from the 11^th to 15^th April in Birmingham NEC, so far it has been a great opportunity to meet some truly remarkable people and their incredible products, we would really recommend coming down.

Make an impression with a promotional bag

However, with so many different businesses in one location, it can be extremely competitive just to get noticed and to stand out in the minds of customers or other businesses. Small promotional items like printed mugs can be extremely effective in this situation as they give businesses the opportunity to leave a permanent reminder of their brand with a customer or another business.

Using free giveaways such as promotional bags can also create a positive relationship with customers or other businesses because it gives them the impression that the brand has something to offer them. It can also leave the recipient with a feeling that the brand is good value. This great first impression will then translate into the professional relationship.

Trade fairs are usually a great mass of different stalls all trying to get attention with large signs, shouting and product testing. However, the stalls that will draw focus are the stalls that are offering something to their potential customers. In this way a business will not come across as forceful or intrusive, but simply reliant on honest value and quality.

Just one of the gifts available

Promotional gifts are a great means of doing this. Although they have been used many as a means to acquire customers in the first place, they can also be an effective means of showing the customer that their continued support is appreciated, particularly if they are an especially valued or frequent customer.

It cannot escape anyone’s attention just how saturated the goods market is at the moment, and unless your product is entirely unique, then there will be thousands of others vying against you. This vast amount of competition means that it has never been more crucial to keep your customers satisfied with the service they receive. This is particularly true of larger companies will constantly be searching for the most cost-effective and value-for-money means and corporate gifts can act as a incentive to those who would look to go elsewhere, helping to establish brand loyalty.

An effectual way of establishing this brand loyalty is to have an offer in place in which your customers are rewarded, for example, after a year of their custom or if they place an especially large order with you they would receive something to say thank you. Although this may sound contrived, it has been proven to work over and over again and with the vast range of promotional gifts available today you can always be assured that they will be impressed not only with the quality of the gift they receive but with your wonderful customer service.

Promote your business with some useful items

As consumers are becoming more familiar with advertising and how it works, they are already cautious to try to resist the influence of ‘top down’ advertising such as sponsorships, TV or media adverts and celebrity endorsements. But promotional gifts are items that are going to be useful to your customer and that means that they are a great way to start a trusting relationship between you and your customers.

Promotional gifts can be used to boost part of a promotional campaign or drive, or they can be given away at a particular occasion such as a sporting event or national holiday. You could even distribute high quality business gifts exclusively to your favourite clients and repeated customers to develop your relationship with them and make them feel particularly valued by your business.

By giving out promotional pens or clothing starts a positive association with your brand or business rather than an advert that tries to influence or direct a customer with what to buy. They will now see your brand or business as an opportunity for good value.

Not only will promotional gifts be personally useful to their owner, they will also be a form of advertising for anyone that sees them being used or worn. These are items that permeate directly into the demographic that you are targeting. Promotional gifts are a positive influence on the recipient and an endorsement to anyone who sees them being used.

A quality pen will pass through many hands

The best journey for a small promotion to take is to permeate into the lives of those that it is trying to reach, and this is accomplished most successfully with promotional pens. These pens appear in the homes and offices of their owners and the intended target are never even really sure how they acquired them in the first place. All of a sudden your promotional items have a larger audience because they pass through the hands of several people over their lifetime, one unit does not mean reaching only one consumer anymore and your promotion is more effective than you could have predicted.

It is once your pen is in their home that you start to make your mark because a quality pen will have a much longer life span than a cheap throwaway pen and a great pen could even become a treasure to the owner. Here at EMC we offer high quality pens that will be an excellent model for your business as they pass through many hands and spread awareness for your brand.