A Checklist for Choosing Promotional Products

If you've taken on the task of choosing promotional products for your company's next marketing campaign or your organization's next public service awareness campaign, you may be at a loss. Sometimes browsing for promo products online can be more confusing than helpful, and oftentimes, consulting with an online company's professional assistant can leave you with more questions than answers. After all, you want to run a productive campaign, and you need solid, reliable information that will point you in the right direction. But if you take some time to stop and go through a checklist of objectives and needs, you'll be better able to get an idea of what your needs are and make the choices that will allow for a successful campaign. Here are some things to think about.

What Are Your Objectives?
The most important thing to know before you start shopping for promotional products is what your company's objective is for the campaign. What is the purpose of the campaign, and what role will the item you're choosing play in achieving that purpose? Here are some of the most common.
Sales Objectives
The most common reasons for using promotional products have to do with generating or increasing sales. The goals you choose, along with the method of delivering your promotional items, can help you define the type of item that will best accomplish that aim.
What Do You Want To Do?
* Increase sales of a specific product
* Increase overall sales
* Generate leads for sales people to follow up
* Promote a new product
* Build brand recognition
* Increase trade show traffic
* Increase name recognition
* Increase website traffic
Where Will You Be Doing It?
* Direct mail
* Trade show or convention
* Public awareness event
* Community event
* In your retail establishment
* Online
Promotional Objectives
Beyond blatant sales objectives, there are also more subtle ways to increase your business through the use of promotional gifts and giveaways. Often, businesses will use little gifts like imprinted calendars or desk toys like custom stress relievers to cement relationships with old customers and introduce themselves to new ones. Objectives of this type include:
* Thank you gifts for customers
* Event souvenirs, such as imprinted drink ware
* Gifts for new accounts
* Promotional items to improve customer relationships
* Promote goodwill for your company
* Celebrate a company milestone
* Community recognition or custom award
* Publicize your objective or initiative
Employee and Staff Motivation
Promotional products may also be used to motivate your employees with rewards or to recognize employee service to your company. For example, you may decide to reward a high-achieving salesperson with a logo-embroidered company backpack. You may also choose embroidered-pocket golf shirts to identify department members. Objectives of this type include:
* Recognize and award exceptional performance
* Incentivize performance
* Motivate sales people
* Foster company spirit
* Increase productivity

It's far easier to choose promotional products that will help advance your objectives once you've determined exactly what those objectives are and identified the means to achieve them. And having these facts identified will allow you to choose promo items that will bring you a high return on your investment.