What is Promotional Merchandise?
Before we dive into the benefits that branded merchandise brings to a business, let us take you back to the basics of promotional merchandise and what it truly is. The art of promotional merchandising is as simple as a product branded with a logo, design or text that a company uses to promote its brand or marketing message. You will often find that the majority of promotional items contain a logo, important contact details such as a website URL and telephone number or a call to action (CTA) to drive engagement between the branded and audience.
Promotional merchandise serves the core purpose of promoting and marketing. Where the fun begins, is deciding what merchandise to use and how you would like to decorate your products. With the input of technology and accurate printing, logos and designs can come to life in bold colours and text that pops within minutes on a huge range of products of all shapes, sizes and textures.
The list is endless when it comes to planning how and when a business benefits from using branded products. From event launches to new product showcases, exhibitions and trade shows, to networking events or client meetings. Think back to occasions where you were handed a freebie. And how it made you feel? Is it a freebie you still have or use?
Why are Promotional Items Important?
So you’re intrigued as to why promotional merchandising is important? Variety and direct impact are just two examples, supported by the fact that branded items are intended to be visually pleasing and budget-friendly ways to shout about your brand.
Although the list of reasons could go on for quite a while, we thought we’d summarise our top 5 reasons why you should consider using this marketing technique.
Massively Increases Brand Recognition
Using everyday items as promotional gifts, branded with your company logo, elevates your company recognition and exposure. For example items such as pens, mugs, notebooks, power banks and other items used daily, are effective ways to increase how often your logo is seen, particularly when used across multiple locations such as the home, office and on business travels.
When using quality printers too, the overall printed design can last for years, keeping its vibrant colours.
A study from BPMA shows that 83% of people who receive promotional merchandise can remember the brand advertised for an average of 12 months.
Ability to Boost your Customer Loyalty
Let’s admit, everyone loves the concept of a freebie. A free gift has a multitude of benefits that impact the recipient, from creating appreciation and a sense of gratitude to forming deeper relationships and forging new connections with prospects. Receiving a gift creates a positive experience, with good sentiment and in turn connects this emotion with your brand.
In the aforementioned study, 4 out of 5 people said they felt appreciated when having received a promotional gift. Therefore, when looking at current customers, free promotional products can truly help client retention strategies and build upon the loyalty of the customer, making them ‘stick’ to the business. The perfection of giving a gift indicates how the business values and cares for its customers.
Most Cost-Effective Marketing
Marketing can be a daunting and expensive approach to business promotion, especially as there are so many tactics and channels to explore in an ever-changing industry. With this in mind, branded promotional products can offer a simple solution that is cost-effective with the potential to reach a wide range of people and exposure.
Merchandise is a common option for business promotion due to its flexibility in terms of product range, branding ability, cost and impact. Its wide selection of products and price range ensures that promotional products work well for any industry and marketing purpose. You can get a lot for your money with ample opportunity to fulfil any marketing budget.
Whether you’re looking for low-cost items for a giveaway, at the lower end of the scale you have the likes of pens, mugs, keyrings and so on, that can be purchased with a low minimum order quantity to corporate luxury items with bespoke branding such as watches, gift set, leather holdalls and more.
In particular, for bulk orders, promotional merchandise is very lucrative as often the pricing per piece is massively reduced when looking at larger order numbers.
Whether you’re looking at budget or premium products, the durability of merchandise alongside high-quality print, ensures a longer use life of products, making your promotional marketing investment go further.
A Wide Range of Variety
When it comes to marketing merchandise we already know there is a huge range of products available, and just about anything that can entice your target audience too and work as the perfect promotional gift for them.
Based on your intent, merchandise can come in all shapes and sizes from small conventional desk accessories such as stationery sets, printed mugs and coasters to more lifestyle products such as speakers, footballs or camping chairs. Narrowing down the items you may wish to work with too may depend on the textures and materials required, or you may even wish to only work with eco-friendly ranges.
And then for those seeking completely bespoke merchandise, designs can be drawn and manufactured, of course, all with branded decoration.
Complementing Existing Marketing Campaigns
Promotional merchandise can bring variety to your marketing campaign and complement current strategies you have in place. So take for example marketing activities such as trade shows, events, e-newsletters, flyers or social media communication, branded merchandise can support the marketing objectives by enhancing the experience with a physical product to hand out or giveaway. Hand in hand with effective marketing, branded products allows your brand to be visible in more places and seen by more people, a stronger emotional tie in through its positive reception with a long-lasting memory.
Picking the Right Branded Merchandise for your Business
So now that you’re all clued up on the key perks for using promotional merchandise, the fun begins picking products that best suits your marketing activity. With thousands of products to choose from, you also need to consider what merchandise suits your target audience and the impact on them.
When thinking of which promotional item to use, the BPMA has ranked the importance of qualities to bear in mind when picking branded items:
- Usefulness
- Relevant to personal needs
- Reusable and/or sustainable
- Free
- Produced ethically
- Can be disposed of ethically
Picking the right items for your marketing campaigns is important, as without a clear understanding of what you need, who for and its impact can make the gesture pointless. To help you decide on the best products for your promotion, our team of expert account managers are at hand to assist in product selection to ensure your promotion has the biggest impact on current, potential and new customers.
So, need a helping hand at perfecting your promotional merchandise? We’ve been helping tradesmen, SME’s and multinational business elevate their brand for more than 20 years, and we’re here for you. Get in touch today or browse our merchandise range for inspiration.
