The Power of Marketing Products (Part 1)
Founder + Partner + CEO
Published Friday, May 4, 2020
In this three-part series, I’ll share ScreenBroidery’s approach to promotional products and the power eCommerce and fulfillment can add to them. I’ll discuss where value can be added so you get the most out of your marketing dollars and how you can make a basic campaign a lot cooler.
I hate the term “promotional product.” To me it reminds me of a cheap, give-away product... you know the “trash and trinkets” that are wasteful and boring – which are the exact opposite of what people intend to use for marketing items. I prefer the terms “branded merchandise,” “marketing gifts,” or “marketing merchandise.” Why? Because ultimately what you are wanting to do with these products is to create a customer experience and positive, lasting memory.
Branded merchandise is used in a number of different ways. Your use depends on the overall objective of a campaign. For example, some campaigns are designed to grab the customer’s attention with the goal of landing a follow-up meeting. Others are used as a customer thank you gift for a previous order. Some are used for merchandise to resell, as giveaways at events, brand or culture building, employee uniforms/gifts, and simply to give out cool stuff.
Regardless of the use and the end objective – branded products are a representation of you and your company – they set the stage for a customer to positively react and think of your products and services. Marketing products are powerful as they serve both “customer getting” and “customer keeping.” In fact, in a recent promotional product study, “83% of consumers are likely to do business with brands from which they have received logoed products.” But I argue, 83% can turn into 95% if you are gifting products that have synergy with your brand, that add value to a consumer, and that is of high quality.
Let me break it down. Pen’s are the world’s most popular promotional products, so for this example, let’s use pens (and for the record, I hate pens as a branding product, message me and I’ll tell you why). There are hundreds of thousands of styles of pens, so your decision as a brand needs to be what do you want to communicate to your customer with this branded pen. Do you want to do something cheap and buy lots of them so you can give them to every human you come in contact with, or do you want to do something super high end and be very selective? If you don’t make the correct call on this decision, your customer’s (and potential customers) image of you and your company can be at stake.
Take Tesla, a brand known for its innovation and high-end electric cars. If a representative from Tesla gives you a cheap, ugly, plastic pen – you know the ones where the clip breaks off that barely writes – would that make you question the true quality of their brand and the quality of their cars? Also, he is giving them to everyone he sees; so you feel like you are nothing special. But if he gives you a sleek, metallic red pen (preferably the color of the car you want to buy), with a little bit of weight that writes perfectly – would this reinforce what you expect and have always hoped Tesla to be?
There is a lot of of places can sell you pens and promotional products. At Screenbroidery we want to offer you marketing merchandise that serves a purpose, creates an experience, and starts a conversation. It is our job to find you a Tesla experience for the price of a Hyundai. It is also our job to utilize our product development teams to offer product solutions, ideas, programs, and kits that not only accomplish the same result as the Tesla pen but maintains creativity that catches your customer’s attention.
Marketing merchandise has become a channel you can’t afford to miss out on utilizing. Some see it simply as an expense, others see it as a tangible complement to other marketing efforts. With our team’s help to create awesome products in a planned frequency, you can not only strengthen your brand, but you can give your customers a marketing product experience they will never forget.