Business Promotional Products

Giving away colorful and engaging promotional marketing products has proven extremely beneficial to companies throughout the United States and the rest of the world. Advertising and public relations are vital for the success of any enterprise in our economy full of media-driven consumers. Quality of merchandise and word of mouth alone are no longer able to compete in today's market. Business promotional products have unimaginable value in the health of companies in the midst of a media-saturated society. Simply put, marketing products are items used as advertising for the services or merchandise of a company. These items are usually imprinted with the logo or name of the business. Almost any product can be used for advertising purposes. The current trend of imprinting logos on items has reached to: travel mugs, pens, day planners, T-shirts and clocks. All of these items bear the brand name or insignia of the company using them as marketing tools and serve as advertisements for the company or merchandise.

Promotional marketing products are excellent ways to advertise at trade shows. This is especially true of an item that is related to the product it endorses. For example, a sun tan lotion company could give away advertisement stress balls in the shape of a sun. Thus, the logo will be visible each time the potential customer reaches for the stress ball. Its shape will forever link the product with the sun. Imprinted advertising items can also be used during new product launches. Canvassing an area with marketing items is a great way for a company to introduce new inventory to potential consumers. For instance, if a trusted popcorn company is about to introduce a cherry-glazed popcorn cake, it may give away Frisbees in the shape and color of the new corn cakes printed with: New Cherry-Glazed Corn Cakes; Catch the Wave of Flavor. Giving these Frisbees away with each purchase of an existing product can help consumers gain knowledge and trust of the new product.

Rewarding employees provides another opportunity to utilize business promotional products. If the sales team had a record quarter, why not reward them with a pen printed with the business's logo? The team feels good about their accomplishments and associates the logo with a reward, but they also become advertisement for the company each time they write a check or sign a contract. In this way, marketing products serve two purposes. They strengthen employee satisfaction and advertise the company, all for the same advertising dollar!

Promotional marketing products were utilized as far back as colonial America! Presidential candidates handed out commemorative buttons to be worn on the lapel of their supporters during the campaign. In this way, not only were the supporters rewarded with a sense of belonging, but the candidate's name was before the eyes of the undecided voter each time he came in contact with someone wearing a button. Did these buttons assure a win? That is impossible to know, but using campaign buttons allowed a politician to influence people far beyond his geographic location and the difficulty of travel before the invention of the automobile. He no longer had to be face to face in order to win a vote. This "remote influence" is at the core of business promotional product's popularity.

Manufacturing products specifically for advertising purposes didn't become an organized industry until the early 1900s. A newspaper owner in Ohio started to produce book bags with a local merchant's name on them. These bags were patterned after "dollar-shaped" coupons given away by stores for free sodas or ice cream cones. The newspaper man reasoned that book bags would be even greater advertisements. The store then gave the book bags to a local school as advertising! It didn't take long for competing printers to begin creating promotional marketing products, also. Business promotional products branched out to include printed bags for marbles, calendars and even hats for horses. Soon the competition grew to a dozen manufacturers of promotional marketing products. What began as random gifts given periodically by various stores grew to become a multi-billion dollar industry. Many businesses allot marketing funds to promotional products and enlist the aid of a promotional consultant. The business promotional products industry is growing faster than newspaper and radio advertisement sales, and it already eclipses cable television commercials and billboards as the chosen means of marketing.

Today, most of the branded advertising merchandise is wearable (T-shirts, socks, headbands etc.). Even blood donation organizations have discovered that rewarding blood donations with a T-shirt will draw larger crowds than simply the desire to give blood to better the community. Marketing dollars then can be spent on this branded merchandise, often with a farther reach than even print ads or other media outlets. When a customer is given a branded T-shirt in Idaho and wears it when he flies to North Carolina for a family vacation, the company's sphere of influence reaches across the country for less than 5 dollars. That is a return on investment that anyone would agree to.

For a fraction of the price of a television commercial, even a small company can promote their goods and services far past the local community. To have a company's logo or name inside a prospective client's home is invaluable. Even the Bible attests to the link between a person's treasure and their heart. "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." (Matthew 6:21) If a company's advertising item becomes a treasure in someone's home, it has won that person's heart. Hearts determine purchases, far more often than budgets do. Consumers are bombarded with propaganda. The business that infiltrates past the noise into the heart of its clients will win her trust and loyalty. Marketing merchandise is a fun and effective means of reaching through the competing voices and etching a company's ethic and legacy directly on the customer's thoughts.

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