Promotional products can be a highly cost-effective component of a wider marketing strategy, complementing other forms of advertising and raising brand awareness by keeping your company “front of mind”. Let’s look at some figures.
- 178 per cent increase in trade-show traffic for companies that give out promotional gifts (Source: Exhibit Surveys)
- 62 per cent of people who receive a gift will give it away rather than dispose of it (Source: Advertising Specialty Institute). Think pens! If you give out 100, and each is passed on just 10 times, that’s 1,000 impressions for the cost of 100 …
- Companies whose sales teams use promotional gifts do on average 22 percent more business than those that don’t (Source: Baylor University)
Why does promotional merchandise work?
We all like presents, don’t we? But there’s a lot more to it than that. We think it’s far deeper than the pleasure we all get from getting something for nothing. It’s got something to do with gratitude, something to do with image, something to do with being happy to be associated with that product or that company, and let’s not forget … it’s got an awful lot to do with the promotional merchandise being desirable and/or useful …
So what are the benefits of free merchandise?
1. Increased brand awareness – with 50% of people using such gifts daily, awareness of your company will remain high.
2. Return on investment – it’s a very effective way of getting something out to large numbers of people reasonably cheaply.
3. Be remembered – 94 per cent of people surveyed remember who gave them the gift, and nearly 50 per cent say that they kept it for over a year!
4. Relevance – think about what your clients use regularly and match that up with what you do so that they think about you often. Bike shop – water bottles. Computer company – USB stick. Car hire company – key ring. You get the gist!
5. Differentiate yourselves – in the hyper-competitive world we live in, every way you can promote yourselves more effectively than your competitors do will help you
British Promotional Merchandise Association
You might be interested to learn more about the British Promotional Merchandise Association (BPMA), who advocate best practice and inspire confidence in the industry. You can find out more about them here, including studying their code of conduct which will help you benefit from:
- Their professionalism – avoiding unnecessary risk
- Their knowledge and expertise
- Their commitment to quality
- Their credibility – no unpleasant surprises
- Their integrity
We’re here to help
To find out more about how we can help you reap the full benefits from promotional merchandise, please click here for Promotional printing service page, or call us any time on
020 8391 3001
and we’ll be absolutely delighted to help you to make the difference that you want to make.