Your company has signed up for a booth at the trade show of your dreams, and you've planned everything: your displays, all the travel and shipping plans, and your marketing plans.
Now, you'd like to purchase the perfect promotional product - one that will keep your customers talking about you and keep them coming back year after year.
How do you go about doing this? Let's talk about choosing the right product.
In my opinion, there are 3 categories of promotional products, divided by price: The "prospecting" category - under $5.
00 per piece.
The "reward" category - $5.
00 to $25.
00 per piece.
The "loyalty" category - over $25.
00 per piece.
The "prospecting" products are the type products that you would give away to most everybody that walks up to your booth.
You don't want to spend a whole lot of money per piece here.
The main intention is to get your prospective customer's attention, and hold their attention long enough for them to receive your sales message.
The "reward" category would be products that are given away as an incentive for "doing" something, such as signing up for your mailing list, taking a survey, placing initial orders, etc.
The "loyalty" category would be business gifts, those types of products that you would give to good, loyal customers to "foster goodwill and retention.
" More money is spent each year in the "loyalty" category than all the rest, but it is the first two categories that we will deal with in this series.
"Prospecting Products" - $5.
00 or less What would you look for in a "prospecting" product? I like to recommend products that will have "staying power.
" Something that won't end up in the garbage can at the exit of the convention hall.
That means giving something that people appreciate, and something -and here's the key - something that they will find useful.
There are many products in the under $5.
00 price range that would meet this standard.
Since we're limited in space, we'll just deal with top selling categories.
According to the PPAI, the top 5 sales leaders in 2001 by product category were as follows: Wearables (t-shirts, golf shirts, uniforms, headwear, etc.
), 29.
3%, writing instruments (pens, pencils, highlighters, etc.
), 10.
6%, desk accessories (calculators, note pads, letter openers, etc.
), 7.
6%, calendars, 7.
0%, and bags, 5.
9%.
In the wearables category, you can get basic silk-screened t-shirts and caps for under $5.
00.
The new style low-profile unstructured caps are extremely popular, and they usually come with a brass buckle, kind of classy.
A one or two-color imprint will be well within our spending limit.
Being an avid golfer, I'm always tickled to get a cap.
Pens are always popular, very affordable, and can usually be printed rather quickly.
You can give out a lot of these and not break the bank.
Look for a quality, name-brand pen like Bic, Souvenir or PaperMate - you don't want to give away junk, and a quality pen won't cost you any more than the "look-alikes" out there.
If you look in the desk accessories category, you will find many interesting things that have that elusive "staying power", something that stays on your prospective customer's desk for a long time.
A calculator, ruler, mouse pad, letter opener, or phone index would be something that would be there for a while.
Look for something in this category that has a large enough imprint area to handle all your contact information, unless your brand is instantly recognizable from your logo.
If your tradeshow is close to the end of the year, a calendar type product might be just the thing.
Calendars will have a staying power of a least a year, they have a lot of space on them for imprint information, and they're very visible.
Plastic bags (shopping bags, litter bags, etc.
) are very inexpensive and they have a huge imprint area.
Plus, if you luck out and you're the only booth that's handing out bags to carry literature around in, then quite quickly you'll become the most popular booth in the whole place! You can also find some inexpensive cloth tote bags that have a little more heft to them than the plastic ones.
Look for a silkscreen imprint method rather than the hot stamp method on the bags with polyester content.
The hot stamp method can actually melt and deform the bag.
"Reward" Category - $5.
00 to $25.
00 Again, this is the price range in which you would "reward" somebody for doing something, such as signing up for your mailing list, taking a survey, or even placing their first order.
You can really pick up some nice things in this price range.
We'll start again in the wearables category.
Embroidery is the ticket here.
The up-front cost, the embroidery tape, is going to cost anywhere from $25.
00 to $150.
00 depending on the manufacturer, complexity of your art, number of colors, and total stitch count.
This tape can be used forever with no additional expense unless you make changes.
Always ask for a proof sewn on the same type of material that the product you're ordering is made of, because materials sew differently.
Stretchy materials (knit, pique, terry cloth) are harder to sew on and require different backing materials than "stiffer" cloth, like denim or wovens.
Many name brand pullover and button-down shirts, and even some basic jackets will stay within our pre-determined price range.
The best way to get exactly what you want is to ask for a "production proof," which is your art sewn on exactly the product you want to buy.
It costs a little bit more to do that, but you'll be avoiding those last minute surprises.
Pens in this price range should be made of brass or real wood, with silkscreen imprinting at the bottom of the range, and laser engraving at the top.
This is where pens become a "keeper," and people will look for refills rather than throw them away when they run out of ink.
Your message could be around for a very long time here.
Desk accessories in this price range would include briefcases, leather portfolios and pad holders, and will use the nicer imprint methods, like gold foil stamping or embossing.
These are products that will have a very long life, and they are perfect for companies that have that "instantly recognizable" name or logo we talked about earlier.
Most calendars, monthly planners, diaries, etc.
are going to be below this price range, but that's OK.
My father was the owner of a Western Auto store just outside of Birmingham for over 20 years.
Every year he would order about 100 of the 12 sheet calendars with his business information imprinted on them.
During the late summer and early fall of the year, his customers would start asking him when the next year's calendars would be in.
They looked forward to that small reward every year for being a loyal customer! As far as bags, a nice sport bag or carry-on would be well accepted by your customers.
You can get top of the line nylon or a basic leather bag in this price range, with either silkscreen imprint or embroidery.
Remember, there are over 700,000 different products out there, in all shapes, sizes and prices.
If you need additional help, most promotional product professionals will be more than happy to spend time with you helping you choose exactly the right product to make your booth the talk of the show!