How can you create a household awareness of your business and brand in Edmonton? The options for marketing can be overwhelming and it’s likely that your budget will be stretched to the limit long before you run out of ideas for marketing. So how can you get the most effective return for your marketing dollar? Promotional products may provide the cost effective and innovative edge that you have been looking for to create relationships with new customers and build upon the goodwill you have created with your existing clientele.
The Challenge with Traditional Media
When you think about creating visibility to the widest audience possible, you might consider television or radio advertising. Sure, each of these mediums boasts a wide reach and can produce the ratings to reflect such, but campaigns on TV and radio are often cost-prohibitive. The other challenge with these avenues is that with the emergence of on-demand subscription channels and satellite radio, you can’t be assured that your target audience is going to receive your message. Additionally, the repetition required for your message to connect with a customer becomes hard to generate with only a short term relationship.
What about print? Newspaper advertising also has a considerable reach both in print and in digital format, but with content being refreshed daily in print and even more frequently online, it becomes very easy to get lost in the shuffle. Especially as an advertiser, unless you’re paying premium prices, your ad may not even readily appear in the digital feed for the outlet where you have chosen to spend your money.
Maybe you’ve considered a flyer campaign, mail box slotting your advertising effort to homes within a selected radius of your business. How many of these are discarded en masse among the other flyers that are shipped in bulk to homes across the city? How many flyers to review and retain in your own home? This channel may see you simply pouring your advertising budget down the drain.
How are Promotional Products Different?
What makes promotional products an attractive alternative for business owners instead of channeling their marketing spend through traditional media is this:
1. The volume of purchase is scalable, allowing you to spend as much or as little as you choose.
2. People like to receive free stuff. Attaching your logo and your contact information to a product that is useful will ensure that your name gets into homes and is seen regularly by those residents.
3. Promotional products allow you to be innovative to identify the products that will specifically speak to your target market and will plant the seed for a further relationship.
Marry a Product to Your Message
When you are thinking about your customers in Edmonton, what promotional products will best resonate with your customers? Consider your business and who is buying from you and what is common about them. It could be that there are products on the market that directly relate to support the products and services that you provide. Maybe you operate a computer repair business – then anything tech related may be appropriate. Perhaps a complimentary external memory stick would be appropriate – reminding customers to back up their important documents and files.
What is unique and clever? Your choices are now much wider than simply offering a pen with your contact information on it. Yes, that is useful and everyone will need a pen at one time or another – but it’s unmemorable. How often do you look at a pen and read the message on it before using it? Promotional products allow you to be clever. What problem does your business solve for people? Maybe your promotional item is a stress ball or similar item that includes your logo, your contact information and a slogan that identifies your firm as a solution to their daily aggravation on a particular topic.
What is popular with your market demographic? If you work with a clientele that is particularly concerned with reducing their carbon footprint that the impact of disposable plastic shopping bags on the environment, maybe developing and distributing a durable multi-purpose shopping bag might help customers not only take home the merchandise from your store, but also become a regular inclusion in their daily routine as they visit other businesses where other customers are being exposed to your business and brand name.
Be Keenly Aware of Your Message
Not every idea is a winner. While there are a wide variety of products on the market, you may want to consider the values of your organization and your core message before committing to a product. Think about your message and the appropriate vehicle to deliver it to market. For example, if you are marketing a campaign for the cancer society or healthy living you probably don’t want to attach your logo to an ashtray. Similarly, if you are promoting a summer camp, you probably don’t drive the message home with your logo and slogan embroidered on a scarf and mittens.
Your choice of product to bear your brand can be as important to creating a memorable and lasting impression of your business as any individual transaction that you perform with customers. Consider that your promotional item may be the first introduction that potential new customers have to you, even before they have been on your premises or had the chance to meet you or your staff.
What Are Some Popular Trends in Promotional Products?
1. Think Quality over Quantity
In the past, business owners may have looked at sheer volume of items to get the word out about their business. These are no longer resonating with customers and often find themselves discarded soon after they have been picked up. Sure, you can buy thousands of writing pens for a low price, but they may not create the intended result. Instead, the industry is seeing that you can make the strongest first impression with audiences by offering a product that is useful, long-lasting and of high quality. After all, aren’t those three qualities that you would like the public to associate with yourself and your brand?
2. The environment is a growing priority for people
How often do we hear the words sustainability, carbon footprint and climate change in the media today? Even on a small, personal level many consumers are exploring ways that they can do their part to help the environment. Reducing waste, participating in recycling programs and also becoming more socially conscious about the products that they buy are all important concerns that as a marketer you can capitalize on. Notebooks that are made from recycled material, biodegradable packaging on consumables and other similar considerations may be increasingly appealing to the clientele that you hope to attract for your business.
3. Technology is a Safe Direction
The growth of mobile technology has changed the landscape of “must have” items and accessories for the modern student and working professional. Helpful devices such as portable charging kit featuring your logo could ensure that when your customers are on the go, they reach for you in need to stay connected to world around them. Similarly, a 4-port USB hub is the type of device that allows your clientele to manage multiple devices with your logo front and centre at the center of their ability to adapt to a versatile slate of needs. Other popular devices include pedometer wristwatches, tablet covers, earbuds for their mobile devices and other conveniences such as a portable power bank for charging cell phones and other devices may qualify for high quality, usefulness and long lasting attributes that carry your brand message month by month to your audience.
4. Not Every Contact Is The Same
Every relationship matters. The gift that you would give to an engaged prospective customer should have greater value than the scavengers on the trade show floor that are simply hunting for every free draw and giveaway product at each booth. Sure, you may have some refrigerator magnets or key chains available for those types of contacts, but create a second tier of product that is available to those leads that express a genuine interest in your product or service. Maybe the draw prize is a higher value, higher quality item which is promoted as somewhat exclusive. The winner of the draw can attend your business premises to collect their prize – thus creating a “home turf” advantage to continue the conversation and inspire a continued relationship.
Ready to Get Started?
In Edmonton, Laser Screen Printing and Embroidery has been helping business owners find a unique and authentic connection with their market in a way that creates a lasting impression on both existing and potential new clientele. Our experience and our connection to the emerging trends in the industry can help you to invest with confidence in a marketing strategy that will help you to increase your brand awareness across the city and beyond. Give us a call or drop in to see us in person to share your ideas for your company and the direction you want to go with your marketing strategy.