We had a staffing services company drop by our office yesterday. They were looking for us to hire them for our hiring and HR needs. She dropped of a regular manila folder labels Human Resources. It was filled with their contact information. She also dropped of a couple of candy bars with an address label for her company stuck on the front of the bar. Here is what they think of candy at the B2B Blog.
As I ate the candy bar on the way home last night I thought about her promotion. What was good about it and what wasn’t?
Well first her in-person approach was a hit. She walked into our small 6 person office and struck up conversation. This way we at least know she is not calling from an outsourced call center. While we don’t use outside HR, by stopping in she at least was able to make a good face to face impression.
The folder labeled Human Resources was GREAT. Easy for an office manager to file away and find again, possibly even by accident. If we rotated through secretaries, we don’t, a new hire might come across the file and think she was our source.
The candy bar was awful, not the taste, the idea. I ate the bar and threw away the labeled wrapper. No evidence she was ever there. If she had left a stapler or even a Post-it Caddy(Cheap and very effective promotional product.) She should have left an item that would actually stick around the office. One that would have her name and contact info in front of our office manager on a daily basis.
Looks Like I will be making a sales call at her office 
Promotional Products candy, post-It Caddy, promotional ideas
For the Sales person walking in to offices and trying to get past the gate keeper at the front desk, these promotional emery boards are the best. Everyone uses them and the just don’t get thrown away. They hag out in the top drawer of the receptionists desk for months, the perfect daily reminder of your company.
Pharmaceutical reps have been using these for years to make that lasting impression, now it is your turn.
Promotional Products Product Ideas
A large Materials Handling company is preparing for their annual safety luncheon. Every year they celebrate the employees that have made it though the year without an injury. This is a great example of how to use Promotional Products as an incentive for Safety.
Most of their jobs are road construction related. Here is their top tier gift a Safety Yellow/Lime Jacket that is ANSI 3 compliant:
For the second tier incentive we have a nice Ogio Backpack:
For everyone that participates, injury or not, we have a multi tool/box cutter combo:
Safety Incentives Add new tag, ANSI 3, brand awareness, Marketing, Product Ideas, Safety Incentives
Something as simple as a light-up keychain can be a simple, inexpensive, and practical promotional item because it is just- simply useful. Consumers may use it in many situations, from an emergency, to lighting up a darkened stairway. Plus, even when the keychain is not in use, it is on their key chain, in their sight everyday. The repeated use of a useful promotional item like this ensures brand awareness in positive way, thus associating your brand with a good experience, helping to keep or create the consumer warm towards your brand. The next time they need a product that, you sell, they will remember you and be happy to call and place their order.
Marketing, Promotional Products brand awareness, inexpensive, keychain, light-up keychain, practical promotion, Product Ideas, promotional keychain
The only problem is you don’t know which 50%! Or at least that is how the old saying goes. I often hear people rave about tracking systems and talk about how they can gather all of this statistical information about the marketing they use. That is great, I love statistics especially when they point in my direction. But why limit yourself to marketing campaigns that are trackable?
Place one phone number in the newspaper ads and another in the TV spots. Now that is an easy way to track which piece of marketing was that last to be seen before the call was made. If you are weighing the ROI of TV vs Print then this would be a great methodology for tracking the results. For the Internet you can compare click-through rates for different ad copies.
But what about Branding? This is a broader spectrum and more difficult to measure. How do you measure the effectiveness of the embroidered shirt on the Bank teller, your logo on a nice pen, or the goodwill generated by the holiday cards you send out every year? These have to be measured on a much more subjective level.
We work with one company who has shifted their entire marketing budget away from print and moved it to promotional products and flying their customers to nice resorts and holding golf tournaments. This way they have a captive audience and a happy client either way it shakes out. Sure, most businesses can’t operate in this fashion, but if you are selling large enough contract then this is the way to go. It is targeted and measurable. They either buy or they don’t 
Marketing, Promotional Products, ROI advertising, Marketing, promotion, statistics
The candy bar was awful, not the taste, the idea. I ate the bar and threw away the labeled wrapper. No evidence she was ever there. If she had left a stapler or even a Post-it Caddy(Cheap and very effective promotional product.) She should have left an item that would actually stick around the office. One that would have her name and contact info in front of our office manager on a daily basis.
