What It Is

Promotional products are everyday products that you have personalized with your business name, logo, slogan, website address, or some other personalized greeting. You may even have some promotional items lying around your house from other businesses, such as coffee mugs, calendars, magnets, pens, and key chains.

Using promotional products in your marketing methods is a very smart move. People love to receive free items and will generally hold onto your item for a long time. Every time they see your item, they are getting a reminder about your business. The following are a list of places to give away your product, and the reason behind it.

* Your website: To generate some buzz, opt to hold a monthly giveaway on your website for one of your promotional products. To be effective, think about your target market and what they may like. If you have a website with information on cooking, you can give away an apron, a measuring cup, or a recipe holder.

* Other people’s websites: In addition to holding a monthly giveaway on your own site, find other non-competing websites and offer one of your products as a giveaway for their site. To be effective, the site should have a similar target market. It doesn’t make much sense to contact a bass fishing website and offer them an apron as a giveaway.

* Upgrade orders: You can encourage your customers to upgrade their orders by offering promotional products in exchange for their upgraded purchase. Following the example mentioned above of an informational website about cooking, you could offer a customer who buys two recipe ebooks a free apron in thanks for their purchase.

* Best customer: You can review your sales records and find all your customers that have spent over $100 on your products and services. Then surprise them with a free promotional product; they are sure to be thrilled. Not only will they see you as an appreciative business owner, they will no doubt feel flattered and be moved to buy more from you.

* Best affiliate: You can reward your best affiliates with a promotional product. It will serve as big thank you, encouraging affiliates to work even harder in promoting your company’s goods and services.

* Businesses you are not in competition in with: You can advertise by word of mouth and get valuable business referrals from non-competing businesses. This refers to companies that have a similar target customer base but does not offer the same products and services that yours does. Make-up artists and hair stylists and graphic designers and virtual assistants are two good examples of non-competing businesses that can be used for advertising to the mutual benefit of both companies.