Promotional items such as promotional shirts, lanyards, bags and caps are a great way for any business to promote themselves. Give a customer a free gift with your logo printed on it and not only will they be grateful for your gift (and thus likely to feel somewhat obligated to buy from you again) but they will also be giving you free exposure and free promotion every time they wear or use that item.
But this isn’t the only way you can use your promotional gifts to give your business a boost. You can also use them to run entirely different promotions, or to give your other campaigns a bit of help. Here we will look at three effective ways you can do this…
Contests
Using promotional items as prizes for contests is a great way to draw attention to your brand, to get people talking about you and to again get free exposure. At the same time, you can use this method to incentivize any other action.
For instance, you could tell people to like your Facebook page for a chance to win a free t-shirt. This way, you not only generate a lot of new followers on Facebook but you also draw attention to your Facebook page. You may even find that people recommend their friends to like you too, or even blog about your promotion! People love free stuff…
Then, when people win the contest, they’ll be much more likely to wear the t-shirt/use the mug and even to post pictures of themselves with them. This then means you’re getting exposure to all of their social media contacts and it will create a lot of positivity around your brand.
Incentives
You can also use a free gift as an incentive for all kinds of things. For example, you can give away free USB sticks or mouse mats in exchange for people joining your mailing list or filling out a survey. Both these things are highly valuable to you in the long run and will provide ROI for the cost of printing those items. What’s more, you’ll gain more free promotion when the recipient uses the free gifts and you’ll again demonstrate your company to be generous.
A lot of websites and online brands will offer free e-books and similar gifts to their customers when they join mailing lists. This works too but really nothing beats getting a physical, tangible product they can hold.
Freebies
A t-shirt, mug, cap or other product can also be a fantastic option as a ‘freebie’ that you can give away alongside your products. This can be used as an incentive or as a time sensitive promotion: ‘buy now and get a free hat!’. Alternatively, it can also be given away alongside the product as a surprise. This is a great way to win the good will of your customers and adheres to a business concept called ‘over delivering’. The idea is that if you provide even more than you promise to, the experience for your customers will be so positive that they’ll rave about your brand and be eager to buy from you again in the future. And it really works!
