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What’s a more effective stretch of your advertising budget, buying a week’s worth of radio advertising spots or buying 10,000 ballpoint pens with your business name imprinted on them? Ultimately, the pens might be more valuable advertising assets. Promotional merchandise is a form of "in your face advertising." If the promotional item is something that your potential client will use on a daily basis, such as a pen, a wall clock, or a calendar, your business name and contact information will be constantly viewed by your prospect.
A radio or television advertisement, on the other hand, may be forgotten within a few hours. Businesses that routinely give away promotional products create an easily-recognized identity in the local marketplace. As an example, I worked at a law firm that, for many years, received desk calendars every single Christmas season from a local title company. These calendars had the company’s contact information printed on them. It got to the point that the law firm did not even bother buying calendars any more because this title company gave them for over ten years. Because attorneys and staff alike were looking at these calendars each and every day, it was only a matter of time before all real estate and title work was sent to this particular title company. If you have a sporting goods store, you can saturate your neighborhood with inexpensive promotional items such as miniature football key chains, sticky-
pads, pens, baseball caps or other items bearing your company information. Pass these out at all of the local ball games and before you know it, your sporting goods business will explode because people will associate your business with all the local sports and sporting goods needs.
A solid promotional items campaign will show local consumers and prospective clients that your business cares enough about them to give them gifts. While many companies are perceived as depriving people of their hard-earned cash, yours might be viewed as a more benevolent organization because of the freebies that you give away. More important is the "in your face advertising" that giving promotional items creates. If it is something like a notepad or calendar that your prospect is using on a regular basis, that person will remember your company. It is far more likely that your company will be remembered because of a promotional item then because of an advertisement on the radio. By hunting around, you can find some good deals.
By way of example, you can get 1,500 customized ballpoint pens for around $550.00 -- far less costly than a media advertising campaign that people will eventually forget about. That same $550 can get you a thousand sticky pad sets that are printed with your business information. These relatively small advertising expenditures will constantly remind your prospects of your business ... and may very well produce profits down the road.
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