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Direct effects of promotional products on financial KPI’s

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Fishing for information

Promotional products can also be very effective in initiating customer contact and collecting data. This can either be done by rewarding the customer with a gift for responding or by providing them with a hook to pique their curiosity and prompt them to make contact.

Taking on the latter approach, The Lifting Company (TLC) built an air of intrigue among its customers through a series of three interactive puzzles. Brandconnect WA designed the puzzles to engage TLC’s customers but also convey a message that would prompt them to respond. The puzzles bore the tagline ‘There is always a solution’. The enclosed card thanked the recipient, promoted the business and invited them to contact TLC should they require the puzzle’s solution. A month later, the program had contributed to a sizeable increase in extra business and TLC continues to receive requests from clients for the other puzzles to complete the set. The campaign attracted a Silver Award in the Business to Business Programs category in this year’s APPA Awards.

In a similar vein, promotional products company Tangibility recently completed a targeted marketing campaign that drew consumers in by presenting them with an incomplete dartboard set. The dartboard was delivered minus the darts, and arrived with an attached card that simply stated ‘marketing solutions that hit the target’. The card encouraged the customer to call to arrange a meeting and receive the missing darts. An impressive 82 percent of recipients called to set up a meeting.

Driving tradeshow traffic

Promotional products are often given out at tradeshows, but an opportunity that is commonly overlooked is using them to actually bring people to the tradeshow stand. “Done well, promotional products can not only drive traffic to a tradeshow stand, but reinforce the marketing message long after the show is over,” says Jason Bradbury, managing director, Wompro.

They key is to develop an idea that is relevant to your audience and creates a point of difference. “A competition offering prize packs of merchandise is a great way to get people to visit your stand,” suggests Corporate Express’ Ross Stevenson. “Prior to the show, send an invitation out to your target audience with a coupon that has to be redeemed at the stand, which goes in the draw to win a prize.”

Infocus Mechandising put a novel spin on this approach for its client PMI, in a campaign that attracted the 2006 APPA Silver Award for Tradeshow and Conference Programs. Infocus created individual ‘parking meters’ with alarms that would go off when the next draw was about to happen, giving visitors a reason to revisit the stand. The parking meters came with metal discs that were used as individual prize draw tickets. The metal discs were able to be used for future events and tradeshows, to encourage clients to keep them indefinitely. The alarms went off every 30 minutes during the conference, generating a buzz among attendees and brand awareness for PMI. More than 80 percent of exhibition attendees visited the stand to enter the disks into the competition. 

Enticing event-goers

With so many events, conferences and corporate functions vying for a piece of people’s limited time, a creative invitation can make all the difference. “A promotional item can be used as a ‘teaser’ to ensure people attend an event or as an incentive to register early,” says Clive McCorkell, director of Arid Zone. “For instance, there could be a series of tropical items to entice people to attend a convention or conference at an exotic overseas destination.”

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