How to Use Promotional Products Effectively

Gaining brand exposure and increasing customer engagement is the core of any successful business marketing strategy. Even though today’s digital age has shifted our attention to online advertising, it’s important to remember the advantages of real-life branding, most commonly done through promotional products. By explaining their use and how they affect the overall brand exposure, we’ll unravel how to use promotional products effectively and touch upon the benefits that come with these products.

What are Promotional Products

As the name implies, promotional products are physical items used to promote your company. Since they’re distributed with the sole purpose of gaining awareness for your brand, services, products, or event, they’re designed in a way to showcase your company’s logo, slogan, or unique message. While corporate merchandise allows you to experiment with different types of products and designs, it can also be customized with elements from your branding guidelines, such as colors and fonts.

Even though these items hold great value for business, many still wonder about their use. So, how do promotional products work? Since corporate merchandise has both practical use and custom branding, it’s used to increase brand visibility while also building customer engagement and loyalty. They can also be used for lead generation purposes by attracting potential customers at events or by promoting the products through online campaigns.

Moreover, promotional products act as physical reminders for your brand due to their practicality. If you strategically plan their distribution, they can help you create memorable experiences for your target audience, resulting in long-lasting connections.

How to Use Promotional Products Effectively

The key practices you should be mindful of when indulging in such a business marketing strategy are the following:

• Define your target audience
• Focus on brand identity
• Quality over quantity
• Choose the right timing
• Strategic distribution
• Measure effectiveness

Define your target audience

Defining your target audience will help you create personalized items that resonate with their interests, further increasing the overall effectiveness of the marketing strategy. For example, if your target audience consists of tech-savvy individuals, you can consider going with custom merch. This way you’ll make sure the apparel you print will meet the audience’s quality standards.

To successfully uncover your audience’s preferences, it’s important to be mindful of their demographics, needs, and interests. You can also try defining their key pain points and how your promotional items can help solve them.

Focus on brand identity

Once you’ve defined your target audience, you must ensure the promotional products align with your brand identity. This includes any unique values and aesthetics that make your company stand out from the competition and help the audience easily recognize it. Since consistency in branding is key, you must ensure all the products match the design, including the color, messaging, and logo. 

Quality over quantity

When creating promotional products, you should always prioritize quality over quantity. Even though you may have a limited stock of items, high-quality products will leave a lasting impression on your audience. While some businesses may be tempted to cut their costs and focus on distributing as many products as possible, remember that cheap and low-quality items can only backfire, damaging your reputation and the audience’s trust. Always choose a professional screen-printing service, such as Thrive Screen Printing, that specializes in corporate promotional items to achieve the best results.

Choose the right timing

While many often overlook the importance of choosing the right timing to distribute their promotional products, it can drastically affect the effectiveness of the marketing strategy. To maximize their impact, it’s best to use corporate merchandise during special occasions such as the following:

• Company milestones – anniversaries, product launches, or achieving specific company goals
• Seasonal trends – matching the promotional items with seasons, such as branded water bottles for summer or umbrellas for autumn.
• During official campaigns – you can include promotional items during existing marketing campaigns, such as online advertising, to increase the overall reach and effectiveness.
• Events – if you’re planning or attending a trade show, product launch, or conference, promotional products can be used as a lead-generation tactic while also attracting new customers.

Strategic distribution

One of the most commonly used strategies is targeted gifting, where you deliver the products directly to high-value clients, prospects, or influencers to strengthen their relationships and maximize your reach. If you already collaborate with other brands or organizations, you can co-brand the products to access a wider audience.

If your focus is on online distribution, include these items as free gifts for each purchase to encourage repeat business. Moreover, you can increase customer engagement by introducing promotional products in contests, referral programs, and promotions.

Measure effectiveness

The best way to measure effectiveness is by calculating your Return On Investment (ROI). To successfully do so, you’ll need insights into the cost of the promotional products and the revenue generated from them. Once you’ve calculated these numbers, you can find the ROI by subtracting the cost from the generated revenue and then dividing it by the cost.

Most Effective Promotional Products

Now that we’ve explained how to use promotional products effectively, we also want to highlight some of the best options you can experiment with. That being said, here are the most effective promotional products for your business marketing strategy:

• T-shirts
• Hoodies
• Pens
• Mugs
• Tote-bags
• Water bottles
• Umbrellas
• Tech gadgets
• Key-chains

Conclusion

After taking the time to discover how to use promotional products effectively, remember that careful planning can be highly beneficial for this type of marketing strategy. First, you need to define your target audience and align the corporate merchandise with their needs and your brand identity. You should also plan the right timing and strategic distribution of the items. Once the promotional campaign has finished, always measure its effectiveness by calculating your ROI to plan and improve future strategies.

Lastly, if you’re looking for a professional and reliable screen printing service that specializes in promotional products, check out what we at Thrive Screen Printing have to offer. Our premium-quality materials and fast delivery can be tailored to your specific needs for the best possible results!