51 posts tagged Promotional Products

Finding the perfect holiday gift for your senior parents who seem to have everything, the aunt that you only see on holidays or the brother-in-law whose only wish is for things that come in 12 ounce brown bottles can challenge even those with the best of intentions.  The only thing more challenging can be finding the perfect holiday gift for your company’s important customers, those sought after prospects and your valued employees.   Here we share some tips for selecting the ideal business gifts.  Also, be sure to check out the 101 Holiday Business Gift Ideas from the menu on the left for some specific holiday gift ideas for businesses. 

Most businesses want to give a gift that will not only appeal to the broadest scope of their targeted recipients but which will stand-out as a positive reflection on the company giving the gift.  Few companies have the time, resources or budget to choose gifts selected for each of the dozens, hundreds or even thousands of recipients that they want to show their appreciation to.  As a result, they must choose a few gifts that will have the greatest potential of meeting these objectives with the broad spectrum of individuals on the gift list.

Companies should consider the following guidelines which choosing holiday gifts for their customers and employees:

• Reflect Your Values.  Gifts are a reflection on the company and should be consistent with the values of the company.   Companies encouraging a health conscious workforce might consider non-food gifts or healthy gift basket options for example.
• Foster Your Image. Gifts can help shape the image of a company.  Company’s seeking to be perceived as state-of-the-art can help foster that image with innovative gifts.   
• Remember the Individual.  While gifts may be given to customers or employees, ultimately they are given to individuals – don’t lose sight of the personal nature of a gift.  For example, while your largest customer may be a women’s cosmetic company, they will most likely employee many men in key positions.
• Be Inclusive.  Every executive at your customer’s company has a support staff that enables them to be successful.  Focusing on the executive alone and ignoring the staff may mean that you’re ignoring the gatekeeper who grants access to the executive throughout the year.  Consider gifts to administrative assistants or even a gift tin of goodies for the office staff.
• Give What They Want.  The gifts that are most appreciated by recipients are those that they will use and enjoy.  An attractive or functional gift will always be viewed more favorably and have a longer life.  
• Avoid the Vacuum Cleaner.  Use caution when giving employees work-related gift for the holidays… it’s like your father giving your mother a vacuum cleaner, it may go over with a loud thud.  If giving a work-related gift to employees, make sure it is something that they wouldn’t have ordered themselves through the company’s Office Depot contract.
• Leverage Branding Tastefully.  As a business, it’s important to include your logo on gifts as a reminder to recipients so you realize the full value for your brand.   Even a ham or turkey can be branded to include a cutting board featuring your company’s logo and, potentially, a holiday message.  Be sure to include logos tastefully on products focusing more on branding than billboard marketing.
• Don’t Forget the Package.  Consider utilizing customized boxes, gift wrap, tissue and ribbon tastefully presenting your logo or holiday message to further reinforce your brand on holiday gifts.  Custom packaging is a great way to brand items that aren’t customizable.
• Go Ahead Show Off.  Give gifts that the recipients will be proud to show off to further leverage the benefit of your branding.  While this is especially valuable for customers, it is equally important for employees.  Consider the message that a proud employee delivers when showing off their gift to friends and family… who may just be prospective employees or customers themselves!

A few tips for corporate holiday gift givers: 

• This year it is more important than in recent years to consider ordering branded gifts early.  Due to the recession, many suppliers have cut back on inventories.  As the economy improves, suppliers are increasingly experiencing shortages on some of the most popular products.  Ordering early will help to ensure the best selection of products and color options. 
• While many products have faster production times than ever before, lead-times over the holidays can increase even for these rush and quick ship products.  In general, it’s a good idea to finalize orders by Thanksgiving to ensure delivery for the holidays.
• Orders can be placed in advance and scheduled for later deliveries.  Companies can place orders at any time and schedule delivery just before their holiday event or when they are ready to begin delivering the gifts to recipients. 
• When ordering chocolates and other perishables, keep in mind that these products are typically shipped to avoid storage over weekends.  This means that these orders will generally not be available for Monday deliveries.  In warmer weather, expedited shipping may be required depending on delivery location.
• Some suppliers, especially suppliers of Gift baskets, Hams, Turkeys and perishable items, can ship direct to a list of individual recipients with pricing based on quantity and delivery locations.

For some specific Holiday Gift Ideas, check out our 101 Holiday Business Gift Ideas on the left menu to help your company BNoticed this holiday season! 

Happy Holidays from your friends at BNoticed.

Customized calendars continue to be a valuable marketing tool for businesses.  They provide 365 days of advertising impressions which is among the longest durations of any advertising options.  In addition, calendars continue to serve a useful function for work and home based recipients.    

To really capture the marketing potential of a custom calendar, organizations should leverage the innovative features offered by many customized calendars including using custom photos, personalization, and custom date grids.

Beyond their marketing potential for businesses, Calendars can be valuable for non-profit organizations and schools for fundraising and outreach efforts.   For example, a non-profit organization can customize a calendar with photos from past events, illustrations featuring their services, or images of their beneficiaries and sell it as part of a fundraiser or distribute it as part of an outreach effort.  Similarly, schools could also customize the date grid of a calendar to identify school holidays, annual events, PTA meetings and much more. 

 For 2011, there are a wide range of custom calendars available which can capture much more than just a logo.  BNoticed’s pick for the Top 10 Custom Calendars for 2011 are:

1.            Image Personalized Calendars

In addition to featuring the sender’s logo on each page of the calendar, these highly innovative calendars integrate the name of the recipient into each of the 12 different photos in the calendar.  There’s a large library of photos to choose from as well as fully custom photo options available.  Organizations can utilize their own name in place of the recipients when ordering extra calendars for unplanned requests.

2.            Custom Logo Wall Calendars

Custom Logo Wall Calendars feature customized images for each month.  These calendars enable organizations to tailor the calendar with photos from past events, images of their products or services or unique artwork targeted to their preferred demographics.  In addition to the organizations logo, the date grid section of the calendars can be customized with key organization or community events.  These calendars can create a one-of-a-kind product for gifting, fundraising, outreach or resale.

3.            Custom Desk Pad Calendars

With options similar to the Custom Wall Calendars, these desk blotter styled calendars continue to be popular in the workplace.  Consider smaller styled versions designed specifically for cubicles and workstations.

4.            Logo Coupon Calendars

These custom calendars are great for retailers and restaurants that benefit from coupon promotions.  In addition to featuring custom logos, photos and date grids, these calendars include perforated sections on each page below the calendar grid for custom coupons.   These calendars deliver a full year of monthly coupon promotions at once offering the potential to reduce monthly direct mail costs.

5.            Imprinted Themed Calendars

There are a variety of themed calendars featuring stock images and information such as Pet Calendars, Beach Calendars and Auto Calendars.  Some, like Recipe Calendars, even provide how-to instructions.  Organization logos are imprinted to appear beneath the date grid.

6.            Custom Mouse Pad Calendars

For business to business marketing, Mouse Pad Calendars can help keep an organizations logo in front of potential customers.   In addition to calendars applied to more traditional Mouse Pads, businesses should consider some of the more innovative alternatives like a Recycled Paper Notepad Mouse Pad Calendar that features monthly tear-away sheets that can be written on.

7.            Custom Calendar Magnets

Calendar magnets are popular items that are particularly well suited for consumer marketing and outreach programs since many people will retain these magnets on their home refrigerators for easy reference throughout the year.   Calendar magnets can be fully customized to include listings of key events (e.g. sports schedules, etc.), custom images and calendar grid customization.   Photo Frame Calendar Magnets are increasing in popularity with consumers who can display their personal photos within the calendar frame.

8.            Planners

There are a wide range of Custom Planners available with features including weekly/monthly formats, cover options ranging from imprinted to custom full-color to embossed leather and sizes ranging from pocket to desk top sizes.   Consider an innovative dual format calendar that features ½ page daily pages against a weekly planner grid.

9.            Perpetual Calendars

Perpetual calendars are desk top products that can be reconfigured on a daily, weekly or monthly basis for continued use for years to come.  These calendars offer even longer marketing potential with an imprinted, etched or engraved logo.   These calendars are often the best options for a calendar themed gift.  To ensure the longest possible life, choose timeless styles that value desktop real-estate.

10.          Calendar Strips  (a.k.a. Monitor Calendar Strips)

Lower cost and inexpensively mailed calendar strips can include fully customized backgrounds featuring an organizations custom images.  These horizontal and vertical calendar strips attach easily to computer monitors with a removable adhesive making them widely popular in the workplace.  

With many companies and individuals placing greater emphasis on environmental responsibility, BNoticed recommends that businesses consider eco-friendly calendars including those that are made from recycled materials and which are recyclable.  For more information about BNoticed or about any of these promotional products, visit www.bnoticed.com.

While most businesses recognize the value of promotional products for marketing and building their brands, promotional products create an opportunity for retail businesses as well in the form of resale products.   In many cases, promotional products are essentially identical to their retail counterparts.  In fact, many manufacturers have both retail and promotional product lines of comparable products.

While large department, warehouse and discount stores purchase products in a large volume to enable them to buy direct from manufacturers, smaller and medium size retailers as well as those looking for customized products have more limited options.  Promotional products can provide these retailers with both a large array of product choices with relatively limited minimum order quantities as well as the opportunity to customize products to further distinguish them from competitors.

Here are some tips to help leverage promotional products for resale whether it’s in a gift shop, retail store or on-line retailer. 

Buying Products for Resale

Anyone can buy promotional products.  In most cases, products can be customized with logos or as blank goods.  Some products sold by promotional product distributors can only be sold as blank goods based on agreements with the manufacturer of the product.  This is primarily the case with certain high-end  products and brand name merchandise (e.g. Bose, etc.).  Similarly, there are a few suppliers who may only sell products that are imprinted.  Likewise, the level of customization (product color, etc.) can be limited based on supplier and license requirements. 

When products are purchased for resale, businesses can avoid paying sales tax at the time of purchase from a distributor if they have a resale certificate.  The resale certificate is available through your State Board of Equalization.  You’ll need to provide the distributor with a copy of the resale certificate to be exempt from paying sale tax on your orders.   For more information, be sure to contact your state tax board or accountant for specific requirements.

Pricing & Profit Margins

Because promotional products are sold in bulk, there can be ample opportunity for a reasonable profit margin when reselling these products especially at larger quantities.  Of course, the amount that you can mark a product up will vary based on several factors such the product itself, the quantity you’re buying, the level of customization and your competitors prices.  Nonetheless, for many products, there can be ample profit margins even when competing against larger retailers.  For example, at the time of this writing, a major discount retailer’s website is advertising a 25 ounce stainless steel water bottle for $19.99.  The same style stainless steel water bottle can be purchased through a promotional product distributor for $7.99 for as few as 50 bottles or $5.00 for  500 bottles.

Tip #1:  Because Promotional Products are priced based on quantity purchased, retailers should ask their distributors what the price points are for any product being considered.  If you’re planning to purchase 100 ceramic coffee mugs at $3 each but there’s a price break at a quantity of 144 for $2, it makes sense to buy more cups than you originally planned.

Tip #2:  Ensure you consider the cost of shipping.  Often, a promotional product distributor will have multiple suppliers for any given product.   The costs of shipping can off-set savings from a more distant supplier.   Don’t pay 50 cents extra per item in shipping to save 25 cents in product cost by using a distant supplier!

Order and Inventory Quantities

While promo products are sold in bulk quantities, there are often relatively low minimum order quantities.  Retailers can benefit from these lower minimums as the basis of testing out new product offerings, offering a larger variety of options (colors, etc.) for any given product, as well as offering an expanded selection of products.   

Retailers, especially smaller businesses, should consider purchasing lower initial order quantities even at the slightly higher prices in order to assess customer interest and sales potential.   Follow up with larger order quantities for products based on demonstrated sales potential.   Take a similar approach when introducing new colors or expanded product offerings.  Note that when reordering the exact same imprint on the same products, there is typically no additional set up charge so the only incremental cost of this approach is the higher unit cost of the lower order quantities.  This approach, however, will limit risks associated with carrying a larger inventory of a slower moving product.   

Tip #3:  Ask your distributor if you can purchase an assortment of colors for your initial order to assess both the product and various colors.  While such assortments are not offered by all suppliers or on all products, some suppliers will even allow you to choose specific colors for the assortment.

Artwork & Customization

Customize the products with unique artwork to further distinguish the products from your competitors.  Consumers are increasingly purchasing products based on the imprinted designs or messages incorporated on the product.  Trendy, eye-catching graphics as well as inspirational, humorous or motivational messages can make an average product very unique and appealing.

Retailers have long embraced this concept when it comes to products like imprinted T-shirts and caps, but have often neglected to consider the potential for other apparel and non-apparel products.   More recently, many retailers are recognizing the potential with expanded offerings using screen printed designs on polo shirts and fleece.  Some are even introducing designs on outerwear like windshirts, rain jackets and coats.   

Don’t just focus on apparel; look at opportunities to incorporate custom designs on other products as well.   While most promotional products offer some level of customization, the extent varies from product to product.   Stainless Steel, Aluminum and BPA-Free Plastic Water Bottles are especially customizable with a near-360 degree imprint areas which can be screened with eye catching artwork and messages.  There are an increasing number of totes which can be customized with full-color artwork as well. 

Tip #4:  Consider using mixed media designs incorporating unique screen print techniques, appliqués, laser etching and/or embroidery.  

Tip #5:  Newer businesses should proceed cautiously with applying your own logo on products for resale.  While products featuring a business’s logo are great for promotions and branding, businesses will often need to develop a more loyal following from clientele in order to sell customers products with their logo.  There are some exceptions to this rule:  businesses with an especially eye catching logo as well as certain businesses such as bars and restaurants which more quickly develop such followings. 

Brand Your Products

Help build your brand with each sale.  There are a variety of ways to further build your brand even without prominently displaying your company’s logo on each shirt or product.  How often have we seen people look at other people’s tags to see who made a shirt?   Consider having custom apparel tags made and sewn into your resale garments.  In particular, those garments which you’ve customized with your own designs should include garment tags to remind the wearer where the garment came from.  

A major supplier of promotional sports bottles just introduced a great line of branding options for customers ranging from customized hang tags to business card and book mark inserts which can be designed to mirror the design on the bottles.  These tags can be particularly useful when products are given as gifts to ensure that the recipient has insight as to where the product was purchased. 

Finally, consider custom packaging.  Packages can make quite an impression… remember the cow pattern boxes of a major personal computer manufacturer?   While most brick and mortar retailers have their logo imprinted on shopping bags, many on-line retailers overlook the opportunity to further their brand with packaging.  If budgets are tight, consider something as simple as logo stickers to apply to packages.  Then pursue customized primary and secondary packaging as budgets improve.  For high end businesses, look at furthering your high end brand image with logo embossed stickers, logo imprinted tissue paper or logo imprinted ribbon.

Tip #6:  Make the package part of your product to further distinguish the product from your competitor’s and build your brand.  Many products have customized package options designed specifically for that product.  Just as the perceived value of jewelry is enhanced by a nice jewelry box, the same is true of other products.  For example, there’s some great triangular, flat, square and tube shaped pen boxes available.   In many cases, a high quality package will be retained and reused (e.g. as a keepsake box, etc.) for years to come.