How Cost-Effective Are Promotional Products?

Promotional products are used every day, often several times a day. They are looked at, written with, put on and involved in a whole list of other basic activities that allow for multiple direct or subliminal impressions of the imprinted ad messages.

By taking the general cost of a product (exact cost can vary because of quantity, intricacy of imprint and number of colors in imprint, and possibly other specifications) and dividing it by the number of exposures the imprint receives, you can get a general idea of your cost per impression (CPI). Here’s some examples:

Notepads

The recipient of a 50-sheet notepad will have a minimum of 50 exposures to the message, which is imprinted on each sheet. If any of the notes are passed on, or kept, the number of exposures can double and triple. The CPI for a $1 notepad works out to be .02 cents per sheet for 50 impressions. Read more

How Well Promotional Products Work

Commonly known as the number-one vehicle for carrying an advertising message, promotional products actually offer more of a response mechanism than other standard media. Not all companies track their results, but some do.

How Promotional Products Can Be Used

Motivation/Incentives

Imprinted products are often used to motivate sales teams toward more sales, production workers toward greater efficiency, credit departments toward more collections, etc. But they can also be used as incentives to get store managers to give you better shelf space for your products, dealers to load up on your product so they actually have to push it, consumers to purchase more of your product, delinquent library-card holders to return books and so on.
Recognition/Service Awards

Employees, customers and vendors are recognized for years of service, performance, volume or frequency of business, etc.

Traffic Building

Be it retail, business-to-business, associations … everyone has a need to draw customers. This may be to your store in general, for a specific promotion, to your tradeshow booth or to your special event. Read more

6 Steps To a Successful Promotional Campaign

Successful marketing and other communications campaigns that use promotional products don’t happen by chance. To realize goals, promotional products programs must be carefully planned, taking into consideration the audience, budget and, of course, the ultimate result to be gained.

Promotional Products Association International recommends the following guidelines for creating effective campaigns:

1. Define a specific objective.
Whether the goal is to increase traffic at a trade show exhibit or to boost sales with current clients, the first step in any campaign is to clarify the purpose of the program.

2. Determine a workable distribution plan to a targeted audience.
Distribution of a promotional product is as important as the item itself. Research shows that a carefully executed distribution plan significantly increases the effectiveness of promotional products. For example, a pre-show mailing to a select audience delivers more trade show traffic and qualified leads than simply distributing items to passerby at the show. Read more