When choosing to buy promotional products for your business or organization, it is important to know that all distributors are NOT created equal. The majority of promotional product distributors are simply “order takers” who will take your money and offer you no real guidance to help make your project or marketing campaign more successful. I have a few pointers to help guide you in the right direction of choosing a reputable and knowledgeable promotional products consultant.
1) Check out the distributor’s website. Is it a well-designed website? If not, that may be a good indication of their quality. A site with lots of misspellings, poor grammar, and poor content should raise a red flag. If the distributor does not even have a website, that too could be a red flag. This is the 21st century, and if the distributor is not online, chances are he/she doesn’t know the current trends of the industry. Without knowing these trends, they won’t be able to offer much guidance to help your campaign be successful for the current times.
2) How long has the distributor been in business? There are many fly by night distributors that are here today and gone tomorrow. Make sure you choose one that will be in business the next time you are ready to order. Also, a distributor with many years of experience has withstood the tests of time and most likely has a lot of knowledge that could be useful for you.
3) Is the distributor part-time or full-time? Many of the promotional products distributors are part-time distributors which means they earn their bread and butter doing an unrelated job and the job as a distributor comes second to their primary career. This means you would also come second. This also means that they don’t have as much time to keep up with the current trends of the industry. They are not able to offer you the freshest advice on how to improve your campaign.
4) Check with the Better Business Bureau. You can search the BBB online database and check for complaints. Specifically, check for the resolutions. If a company consistently doesn’t respond to their complaints in a positive manner, I would steer clear of that business. If a company is not listed with the BBB, that should also be a red flag. They are probably not listed because they are afraid or they were not approved due to too many complaints.
5) Trust your gut! When you speak with the distributor, do you get a good vibe or a bad one? If it is a bad one, trust your intuition and call the next distributor that seems reputable to you. Keep searching until you feel comfortable with your choice. Promotional products distributors are a dime a dozen, but knowledgeable consultants are harder to find.
Using a reputable and knowledgeable distributor will help ensure that your next promotional products marketing campaign is more successful.
Perfect Imprints. Copyright 2009.
Make Your Tradeshow Display More Successful
Have you had mediocre results with your tradeshow booths in the past? Have you spent hundreds or thousands of dollars on your tradeshow display with little to no return on your investment? Research has shown that promotional products increase your tradeshow traffic to your display and that promotional products of great value generate more sales leads than products of lower value. In plain English please…If you give someone a $0.41 cheap pen, they probably won’t remember you. If you give them something of value such a personalized USB flash drive, then not only would that tradeshow attendee remember you, but they would be more likely to do business with you. In addition, the flash drive would be used over and over again yielding repeated advertising for your company. Here are a few statistics:
• 72% of tradeshow attendees who received a promotional product emembered the name of the
company that gave them the product.
• 76% of attendees had a favorable attitude toward the company that gave them the product.
• Including a promotional product with a pre-show mailing increases the likelihood of an attendee
stopping by the booth.
• As a rule, promotional products of greater value generate more sales leads han products of lower
value.
If you are able to get the names and addresses of the show attendees, be sure and send them a promotional product and tempt them to visit your booth to receive a FREE gift. When they get to your booth, you can give them a promotional item of value so they will remember you increasing your chances of closing a sale.
Source: 2004 study titled The Effectiveness Of Promotional Products In Tradeshow Settings conducted
by Georgia Southern University
Promotional Products—The Key Ingredient to Integrated Marketing
How Promotional Products, Print and Television Advertising Impact Consumer Perception
Many traditional forms of advertising and promotion are losing ground to newer media. This trend presents opportunities for the promotional products medium. However, very little research exists documenting the effectiveness of promotional products when compared to and combined with other traditional forms of advertising such as television and print.
To further research this, a study utilizing the most critical demographic group ages 18-34 years was conducted for PPAI by researchers at Louisiana State University and University of Texas at San Antonio. The study which was conducted in a controlled environment, measured the:
- effectiveness of promotional products and compared them to two other media, television and print advertising
- synergistic effects of promotional products when used along with these other media
- consumer’s preferred medium for information about a product or brand
Those in the 18-34 age group are among the hardest for marketers to reach, one that nicely coincides with the population available in a university setting. From an advertising perspective, this audience is usually highly desirable.
If promotional products have an impact on this critical demographic group then the utility of the medium is likely to be expandable to other age segments.
The Method:
Participants in the study were exposed to three forms of advertising—television, print and promotional products. They were then asked to complete a 60-item questionnaire measuring their perceptions of the advertising.
In particular, the questions measured the following:
- advertisement credibility
- attitudes toward product, advertisement or promotional product
- product purchase intention
- referral value
- impressions of the advertisement
- perceptions about the product
East of Chicago Pizza graciously provided the advertisements for the study for a new pizza product. The company had previously run both the television and print ads. The promotional product created for the experiment was a 6 1/2” x 3 3/4” refrigerator magnet reproducing the front page of the print ad along with a calendar for the coming year. The sample consisted of 310 college students of whom 57% were female and 43% male in the 18-34 age group. Seven different groups of students were recruited for the study and each group was exposed to a different condition. These were:
| Medium | Number | % of Sample | |
| Group 1 (control) | TV Only | 46 | 14.8% |
| Group 2 (control) | Print Only | 51 | 16.5% |
| Group 3 (control) | TV-Print | 35 | 11.3% |
| Group 4 (experimental) | Promotional Product | 42 | 13.5% |
| Group 5 (experimental) | TV-Promotional Product | 44 | 14.2% |
| Group 6 (experimental) | Print-Promotional Product | 50 | 16.1% |
| Group 7 (experimental) | TV-Print-Promotional Product | 42 | 13.5% |
Additionally, the research instrument also involved questions about media use, including an item requesting respondents to rank their preferred information sources.
Key Findings: Chart 1
Advertising Effectiveness Of The Three Mediums
- While the print ad came in first overall, the promotional product outperformed television across the board.
- Respondents preferred advertising through a promotional product to the television ad in terms of their positive attitudes toward the ad (41% to 18%), positive attitude toward the product (20% to 16%), message credibility (54% to 33%), purchase intent (25% to 17%) and referral value (26% to 16%).
- Adding a promotional product to the media mix generated favorable attitudes toward the ad in all cases (up to 44%) (See Chart 2).
Chart 2
Advertising Effectiveness Of Promotional Products In Comparison With TV And Print
* No statistically significant differences were found for purchase intent and hence is not presented in chart above
- Integrating a promotional product with the television commercial outpaced the two other media alone in message credibility and referral value.
- Integrating a promotional product with television and print increased referral value as well as credibility of the message.
Synergy
Promotional products when used in synergy with other mediums led participants to develop a more positive outlook toward the ad and the brand.
- In this study, groups who were exposed to promotional products tended to rate the message more positively than those groups not exposed to a promotional product (See Chart 3).
Chart 3
Respondents’ Evaluation Of Advertising Messages
(Exposure to TV and Print together vs. TV and Print with Promotional Product vs. Promotional Product alone)
- In some instances, the use of a promotional product as the ad medium alone achieved maximum impact, up to 69% in increasing brand interest and 84% in creating a good impression of the brand.
Brand Evaluation and Product
- In most conditions, the receipt of a promotional product as an ad medium is more effective in developing positive attitudes toward the product or brand than exposure to a TV commercial in conjunction with a print advertisement (See Chart 4).
- In all cases integrating the promotional product with a TV commercial and print advertisement proved more effective than the use of promotional products alone, or TV commercials and print advertisements in combination.
Chart 4
Respondents’ Evaluation Of Brand Or Product
(TV and Print vs. TV and Print with Promotional Product vs. Promotional Product alone)
Media Information Preferences
In addition to the actual experimental testing, respondents were also asked to indicate their top three generally preferred sources of information on food. The findings revealed:
- Promotional products were the second most preferred source of information following television advertising (see table below).
| Respondents preferred sources of information in rank order | % |
| Television | 27.3% |
| Promotional Products | 16.3% |
| Billboards | 10.3% |
| Magazines | 9.4% |
| Internet | 8.4% |
| Radio | 7.8% |
| Posters | 7.0% |
| Newspapers | 6.6% |
| Word-of-Mouth | 5.1% |
| Yellow Pages | 1.8% |
- Interestingly, while respondents advised that they prefer television commercials as a source of food product information, the experimental study revealed otherwise; statistically showing a more positive product and brand response with print advertising and promotional products over television commercials.
In a nutshell, promotional products
- may be effectively employed as a stand-alone advertising medium (second to television in terms of reported information value)
- add to the media mix, creating impact by supplementing other advertising media such as television and print
- are a useful information and reminder medium
- enhance impressions about both the brand and product
- Contribute to consumer intent to buy
The Authors
This study, using scientific methodology and statistical techniques, serves as baseline research to further document the value of promotional products in today’s competitive marketplace. The experiment was conducted in November 2006 for PPAI by Dr. Richard Alan Nelson, Ph.D. (Professor, Louisiana State University), Dr. Ali M. Kanso, Ph.D. (Professor, University of Texas at San Antonio) and Dr. H. Paul LeBlanc III, Ph.D. (Assistant Professor, University of Texas at San Antonio).
