5 Ways to Market Promotional Products to Customers

Promotional products are quickly becoming the go-to marketing scheme for brands all over the world. Everything from offering t-shirts in a busy intersection to giving people hats outside of a sports stadium, people are always attracted to free stuff. You can’t blame them.

But before you start spending money on branded promotional items, you need to be aware of several aspects to ensure you maximize this opportunity.

Remember, consumers will be acting as walking and talking billboards. Use it wisely!

Here are five ways to market promotional products to customers:

1. Offer Apparel at Specific Events

Apparel can go a long way for your brand marketing. Because the individual will wear a hat, a shirt, or hoodie, they are essentially a walking advertisement that doesn’t cost anything.

This is something that you should consider offering as a promotional product.

But rather than simply handing out random shirts and toques, it would be a better investment to provide apparel at specific events.

For instance, if you’re at a ballgame, a park, or at a concert, then these are opportune places to give people hats, bottled water, and hand fans. The more people sporting your brand, the more eyeballs will be looking at your logo or website address.

2. Ditch Business Cards – Use Promotional Items

When you’re at an industry function or at some business event, you will notice that most companies will extend business cards. This is too passé and archaic, lacking flavour.

So, what would be a successful alternative? Promotional items!

Although it would be better to avoid giving clothing, you can take advantage of a diverse array of other free goodies, gift cards, or discounts, and the list goes on USB flash disks, writing instruments, and leather-bound binders can all be preferable promotional products.

Remember, people don’t want to carry around heavy and bulky items. Anything that fits in their pockets or briefcases is better.

3. Ensure the Product Lasts Long

Longevity is crucial for a successful marketing scheme. If your promotional product falls apart within just a few hours, then not only is it a wasteful advertisement, but it gives your brand a bad look – why would they patronize your company if you can’t even have a t-shirt that lasts?

Prior to ordering your promotional goods, you must ensure that they are of the highest of quality. Otherwise, it could very well hurt your overall reputation.

4. Make it Useful

You can either proffer promotional goods that are useful or hand out promotional items that have very little use. Which would you prefer? We hope you say the former.

Let’s be honest: a lot of free stuff that’s given to consumers by brands as part of a marketing project is useless. You need to avoid falling in this trap: just because it’s free it doesn’t mean consumers will suddenly embrace your brand.

So, use pens, use keychains, use hats. Whatever it is, make sure people can use it.

5. Provide a Discount for Next Purchase

You can always sweeten your promotional products by adding a small monetary gift: buy one get one free, 15% off your next order, free shipping on orders over $50, or a chance to win $5,000 by signing up for the monthly newsletter.

It may not seem like much, but maintaining an endeavour of free goods as well as discounts is an incredible deal for the average person.

By doing this, you can garner even more attention than by giving out keychains.

As a consuming public, we always want a good deal. You see it all the time: a kiosk is handing out a 500mL bottle of water and there is a long line just to get your hands on the aqua.

Oftentimes, these types of promotional efforts are a lot superior to your typical billboard advertisement, flyers, or web ad. You make a small investment on t-shirts and coffee mugs, but people will be using these products and carrying them around for free. You can’t get any better than this.

Promotional products should be a part of your marketing initiatives.