by Michelle Glicksman Promotional Products
Look at your desk. How many pens emblazoned with company names other than yours are strewn across it? How about your memo pad? Did you pick it up at a trade show? Chances are, your life is filled with items youve been given as promotional gestures. Bags, T-shirts, backpacks and pens are all popular items, to name just a few. We all know the idea behind them give something to your attendees that that will keep your event alive long after it has ended. But which have the most impact? Whats popular now? Whats on the horizon? Some promotional products specialists weigh in.
Whats the most requested promotional item? Polo shirts and pens. What item, in your opinion, offers the best ROI for the money? Lanyards offer the best return on investment. They have great visibility, longevity and a low cost. What are the current trendiest items? Currently, dog tags. They are great promotional items and translate well into the retail market. The big plus is they are collectibles. We feel they will be the next Lance bracelet. Whats the most interesting item youve sold or had a request for? The most interesting item was a deerskin chamois cloth for drying cars. We had it custom-made by a leather company in upstate New York and then dye-sublimated the company logo on the face. A photo of the product was wrapped on the inside of a clear tub along with the chamois. The client still talks about it several years later. Russel Steinberg, Promos LLC
Whats the most requested promotional item? Pens and cups. What item, in your opinion, offers the best ROI for the money? It is not about the particular item that offers a great ROI, it is selecting the right promotional product to enhance your marketing message. Also, how the merchandise is used in a promotional campaign can make all the difference in ROIand tracking, as well. If you want to increase traffic to your website for an event, then create a quick survey that visitors can fill out in order to give you some valuable information. Then, design the marketing effort to offer a free gift with each completed survey. You then have tangible data of increased flow to your webpage based on a giveaway campaign. What are the current trendiest items? For many reasons, imprinted USB flashdrives have huge market appeal. Everyone has files that they need access to, and the flashdrives are attractive to just about all age groups. What do you see as upcoming trends? Are there any? Larger amounts of advertising dollars are being allocated to promotional products for many reasons, one of which is the results of independent surveys. The effectiveness of logo recall, message recall and the length of time a recipient keeps the giveaway are astoundingly in favor of branding via promotional merchandise. (Per a Counselor magazine survey, November 2004, found on www.asicentral.com.) Whats the most interesting item youve sold or had a request for? That is hard because we are always coming up with strange and unusual products. I always find it interesting when the item, say a bag, is custom-designed with an overall color-on-color, screened back imprint, with three large, colorful, embroidered logos and then a personalization. The decoration now costs twice as much as the bag, but if that is what the client wants, we can make it! Dale Kirby, Promopeddler.com
Whats the most requested promotional item? Anything to do with health and fitness. Several event planners and corporate event managers have expressed a strong interest in gift and promotional items that represent a fitness-away-from-home theme. One we use often incorporates customized logoed backpacks which, when used as a promotional giveaway, results in a company literally seeing people using these backpacks around the community. Thus our tag-name of Walking Billboards. This concept has proven to be a huge branding tool for our customers. What item, in your opinion, offers the best ROI for the money? All of our embroidery and finish-work is done in Asia by the original manufacturer, which results in a considerable savings on labor intensive costs. What are the current trendiest items? Pedometers. Can you imagine the satisfaction at the end of a seminar/trade show or corporate event when attendees can justify their aching feet by realizing the number of healthy steps theyve taken? Gail deLeede, Active XL
Whats the most requested promotional item? The most requested item is still a T-shirt. Inexpensive and wearable, function if not form. The wearable side of the industry has vastly expanded. Shirts now come in a myriad of styles and fabrics. What item, in your opinion, offers the best ROI for the money? The best ROI is any item that enhances the event experience and continues to deliver the event memory long after the event. There is no single item that delivers this. The promotional product industry boasts over 500,000 possibilities, and with good reason. The black-tie event calls for a different item than the beach event, and neither item will work for a trade show experience. The best advice is to find an experienced promotional products distributor who will work as a partner to create this corner of your meeting or event. What are the current trendiest items? This is a market that recreates itself every season. Trends match that in popular culture. Often, you might have to search outside of the traditional marketplace to find just that special item. The key is to always have clear communication about what you are trying to accomplish with your event and your promotional item. Is the item a gift or a premium reward? Is your goal to attract traffic, qualify leads or reward behavior? Start early, as most products have a three- to five-week production time. Then formulate a budget. How many people, how much money per person and what category does your group fall into? Baseball caps are fun for a NASCAR group and inappropriate for a podiatrists week in Hawaii. What do you see as upcoming trends? Are there any? One of the biggest upcoming trends is sun protection. There is a company called Physician Endorsed that makes stylish hats for sun protection. Each hat is shipped with a complimentary sample of sunscreen and is endorsed by a medical advisory board for the most complete sun protection. They have great gift boxes for upscale events on their website (www.physicianendorsed.com). They do not sell exclusively through ASI or promotional product distributors, but are an example of additional resources in the marketplace. Sunscreens and lip balms are available with custom logos from any promotional product supplier. Again, these items are only appropriate for certain areas and types of events. Whats the most interesting item youve sold or had a request for? To date, the most interesting collection of items I have helped with were for a planner with COMCOR Event & Meeting Production Inc. in Florida. They had a meeting and wanted everything to be oversized. We made all the products with the event theme printed on each. We started with giant pencils (9 inches in diameter and over a foot long). We supplied memo pads that looked like the small pink While you Were Out pads, but were 8.5 inches by 11 inches. The planner then decorated the meeting room to this oversized scale. Everything was huge, and the impact was complete. Events work best when everyone has a share in the finished product. Find a vendor to be part of your team, not just someone to sell you products. Price is important of course, but partnership has to come first. Rick Spier, Your Logo Here, Inc.
Promotional Products
Courtesy: Your Logo Here, Inc./Physician Endorsed "
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