Impressions Advertising Specialties is a promotional product business that specializes in promoting your company's products, ideas, services and corporate image. Our products can be used individually or combined with other advertising mediums such as magazine and newspaper ads as well as radio and television commericals. On average a potiential client has to be exposed to a corporation's products,
ideas and services at least twenty seven times before this prospect subconsciously qualifies the seller as a professional. How can you expose your clients to your products and services? The answer, reinforce your sales calls and other advertising programs with specialty advertising. Promotional products can also be used in-house as sales incentives or for safety awards. Is there a person in your company that deserves a reward for outstanding sales or maybe had an idea that makes for a safer work environment? At IAS we have built a reputation of quality products, excellent service with on-time delivery and competitive prices. Our success depends on your success! If you need ideas for promotional programs, just contact us, we will be happy to serve you. When To Use Promo Items
I was with a client recently and he asked me when he should use promotional products to promote his business and where should he use these promotional items? My response was, "When do you want new business?" Of course, his response was "Now!". Then you need to start using promotional items with your logo now. That answered the easy part of his question. When, where and what to use calls for some planning. I continued this conversation with this customer by asking him about our relationship and how he first heard about me and my company. He quickly stated we had meet at a Chamber of Commerce event and had received a can koozie printed with my logo and company name, Impressions Advertising Specialties. He also mentioned, he was a fisherman and he had used my koozie for several months on his many fishing trips before losing it. This inexpensive item had help build my brand with this customer. I challenge all my customers to really think about when and where is a good opportunity to advertise their business. Where will you be in the morning? Where will your sales people be tomorrow afternoon? Most people will quickly realize that we have hundreds of opportunities to advertise our business every day. By using promotional products, we can take advantage of these opportunities and place an ad in front of potential customers quickly and in a positive manner. One of the really wonderful aspects of a promotional product is that you can target specific individuals in specific markets like no other form of advertising can do. What type of logo items should you use? Well lets talk about it for a moment. This will be different from business to business. What type of customers do you have? Where will they be when you want then to think of you? Will they be in the office, at the Airport, in a golf tournament or in their truck. Once you answer these questions, finding the right product to put your logo on will be easy. In the office I would recommend a nice promotional pen or paper weight. At the airport, I would recommend a large duffel bag or nice luggage tag with your logo. This would make his luggage easy to find on the carousel. In a golf tournament, I would recommend a promotional cap to keep the sun out of his eyes or a golf towel. If your client spends a lot of time in his truck, we could do a promotional mug that with reduced base to fit the cup holder. Promotional Caps and Building Brand Awareness
Every wonder if you should be using promotional caps to help promote your business. Depends on your business marketing goals. Promotional caps cannot be beat when it comes to building "Brand Awareness". When you compare the advertising cost of radio or television to caps you will quickly realize that caps are a lot less expensive and have an even greater reach. I have a client that is the director of promotions for the local NBC affiliate. We were having a discussion on our two different advertising mediums. I asked the client if we could do a comparison of our two advertising products. His biggest point was that he could reach about 50,000 people in one thirty second commercial, immediately. When I asked what it cost to produce and air this commercial his response was about $4,000.00 for the first commercial and each additional airing of the commercial would be less. So $4000.00 will expose 50,000 people to your brand. I had just recently read a survey from the promotional Products Association International, PPAI, concerning caps. A study was done to determine the daily views of a promotional cap. The numbers were really astonishing. The promotional value of a cap is 250 to 350 views per day. If you buy 100 caps, and the person only wears the logo caps 10 times, you will generate 250,000 to 350,000 views. If the person wears the cap 50 times,WOW. The cost of 144 caps is about $750.00 depending on the style and quality of the cap you purchase. Another point I made that he really found interesting, was every time you give someone a promotional cap, they say thank you. This means they thanked you for advertising to them. Doctor Watson asked his friend how many calls they received a week from people thanking the television station for that car commercial that came on during their favorite episode of "Law and order". Of course he laughed and had to say none. Promotional Caps are not as immediate as radio and television, but given a little time, a cap with your logo has the ability to build your brand cheaper than any other form of advertising..... Period
Custom Cups With Your Logo
The promotional products industry is made up of many different categories with drinkware being one of the largest categories. Custom Cups with a printed logo amounts to just over 10% of the promotional products, 19 billion dollar industry. Why? Because we all have to have something to drink every day, at every meal, coffee in the morning, water, and an occasional glass of wine in the evenings.This is highly recommend by Doctor Watson. So if you want to give a customer a nice corporate gift, it may as well have your corporate logo, phone number and be useful. Custom cups with your logo will give you a location on your customers desk to advertise your products and services. Ok, so your customer stays in his truck all day. Use a stainless steel auto mug to keep your logo and phone number at his finger tips. Creating A Successful Promotional Campaign
Creating a successful promotional campaign can be difficult. However, if you break the campaign into 7 steps you will find it a lot less difficult and most times fun. It is extremely important to plan every step of your promotional campaign to insure the success of the promotion. Quite often I will receive a phone call and I get a statement like this. "I am going to a trade show or on a sales call and I need some stuff to hand out." My typical response is "Why". Why would you want to "Hand out some stuff." This statement usually gets the client thinking. "Ok, I have this great new service I want to promote. Or I want more people in my trade show booth, so I can get more business. Or I have this new line of products we we want to sell." These are the answers that I need as a "Promotional Products Consultant" to help a client plan their next Promotional Campaign. In the next few paragraphs, I will explain the 7 steps to planning a successful promotional campaign. Step 1
Develop a goal for the promotion. What do you want to achieve? Do you want to introduce a new product or service? Do you want to bring more traffic to a trade show? What is your motive to spend the money, pick the product and get it in the hands of a perspective client? Promotional Products cost money. It takes time to pick the perfect promotional product and time is money. It cost money to distribute the promo item as well. Part of your goal should be to get a return on this investment of time, money and effort! Step 2
Determine a distribution method. What form of distribution will you use to get your promotional product in the hands of your clients or potential clients. The distribution, or presentation can be as important as the item itself. Let's consider driving more traffic to your booth at a trade show. A pre-show mailing to a small group of select customers has been proven to drive more traffic to your booth over just passing out a giveaway in the booth. Step 3
Develop a theme
Let's use the trade show idea again. Most trade shows have a theme. Try tyeing your promotion to the theme of the trade show. Also look at where the trade show is hosted? What is unique to that trade show location that you can use to develop your theme? This theme can be printed on the promotional item, brochures and pre-show mail outs. Step 4
Develop a Message for the theme
Let the recipients of your promotional item know that you have a new product or service that will save them time and money. When will this new product or service be available? Step 5
Find the Right Promotional Item
This may sometimes seem overwhelming, but a good promotional products consultant can often make this easy and pain free. A good way to narrow the field is to ask yourself this question. "Where will my customer be when they need my goods or services"? Lets say you are selling insurance. Most business people will be at their desk when making this decision. For this application, I would recommend a desk item. Step 6
Never force a promotional product to fit
My biggest challenge is sometimes convincing a customer to buy their needs over their wants. So often a customer will see something that parallels their hobbies or their likes and assumes that everyone of their customers will like an item as much as they do. Find an item that you know your customer will like and more important, find an item you know they need and will use. Do this by talking to a good promotional products consultant. Step 7
Find a good Promotional Product Consultant. A good consultant can help you with "The Seven Steps" to creating a good promotion. Find a promotional products consultant that you can trust, that gives good advice and is interested in helping you meet your marketing goals.
