Quite frequently, giveaway items are selected for a promotional campaign without careful consideration of a long-term return on investment and as a consequence are seen as loss leaders or zero-gain programs that don’t work.

Marketing professionals know that any brand can easily be translated to a personal product or utility item.  Selecting an appropriate promotional giveaway that adequately represents your product or service and is capable of being used at least once a week for a period of multiple months is the key to success.

The marketing industry has manufactured many thousands of promotional products, each designed to inspire a customer to “think of you” when they use the item.  Matching the right item with your customer and intended benefit can be a challenge if you don’t have the experience or resources to make the right decision.

At Henry York Advertising, we always suggest promotional items that capture the personality of our client and are complementary to the color palette of their brand.  We look for items that will be used frequently and that our client will be able to confidently inquire as to whether or not the item was useful in the course of ordinary contact with their customer.  Following up with your client to make sure the gift was useful and respected is a major element of successful gift promotions and important way to analyze the impact of the campaign.

Product quality is essential when planning a promotional giveaway, as nobody wants to receive a cheap gift.  A giveaway that breaks after the first or second use is a poor reflection on your brand and offers little incentive for the customer to thank you for the gift or have a positive emotion about your firm when they use a similar product of better quality in the future.

To receive a return on investment from the distribution of promotional items, always consider how use of the item will inspire your customer to think of your product or service, and invest in quality materials that will have a long life and reflect the lasting relationship that you wish to develop with every client.

Unfortunately, most brochures are big on design and short on content, leaving potential customers with an unfulfilled level of education about a product or service that they actually want to purchase (or they wouldn’t have asked for the brochure in the first place!).

To increase the effectiveness of your printed marketing collateral, always focus on content first and design second.

Content doesn’t always have to be in the form of long-winded paragraphs (often boring) or over-abbreviated bullet points (hard to read, incomplete sentences).  It can be in the form of education testimonials, relevant excerpts from industry studies and the media, instructions on how to use your product or appropriate history of how your product or service evolved.

Many brochures fail to illuminate the unique qualities of a product and distinguish it from the competition or fail to establish a value proposition that the customer can relate to and associate with your brand.

Most customers are looking for technical details.  If you don’t provide them they will be forced to initiate another request for information—or possibly drop off your radar screen.  A second request for more information means providing another brochure, so why not include all of the details in your initial presentation and kill two birds with one stone?

By creating content-rich brochures you will provide all of the details that your customers need to make an educated decision about your product or service from one piece of marketing collateral.  You’ll save time, money and establish a better relationship with your audience by creating informative and well written materials that serve as a catalyst for closing business quickly.

Of course graphic design is extremely important in any marketing piece, but if you don’t have the right message and the appropriate details, the best design in the world won’t sell your product.  Content is king!

If you’re planning a new brochure consult with Henry York about our expert copywriting and content development services, as well as our graphic design, printing and distribution capabilities.

Consistency means more than simply using the same logo on different promotional elements (signage, advertising, letterhead, etc.)—it means making sure that every single time your brand is published that it looks exactly the same to your audience and that it looks as good as possible.

Concepts of consistency include:

• Ensuring that the colors are perfectly matched in every application;
• Making sure that special design effects (shadows, highlights, etc.) are always identical;
• The ratio of logo size to tagline is always the same;
• Logos are consistently applied across multiple platforms (print, web site, digital, etc.);
• Never changing the typeface of a tagline that appears adjacent to a logo;
• Always placing logos in a similar location on communication elements (for example, always in the upper right hand corner of letterhead, business card and mailing labels as opposed to different corners on each piece);
• Avoiding translating a 3-color logo into a black and white treatment in pieces that will be presented simultaneously.

These techniques guarantee that your audience will see your brand in a manner that conveys integrity, professionalism and consistency.

Consider a brand such as American Airlines.  Since the early 1970’s the American logo has not changed or been inconsistently applied, regardless of its use on the tail of an airplane, a ticket jacket or an email promotion.  It’s always the same, always crisp and always in their signature red and blue with a stylized eagle in-between the two letters.  I’m sure you can imagine it in your mind right now.

A great brand begins with good design and a strategy for it to be adaptable to many different applications.   At Henry York, we specialize in helping our clients create brands, identities and taglines that are designed to provide the same legacy of consistency as American Airlines’.  Contact us to learn more about our graphics and brand development services and how we can help your company develop and maintain a brand of distinction.

We’ve all received a promotional pen, mouse pad or coffee cup at one point or another, and unfortunately, many of us have stuffed them in a drawer (or on someone else’s desk) and never used them.

The promotional giveaway that is sure to be used is the promo wet wipe, because everyone can and will find a time, place or circumstance to wipe up.

Wet wipes are a convenience item that we most frequently associate with food.  But creative marketers are discovering that they can integrate the wet wipe into all types of advertising programs because of the ability to apply full-color printing to both sides of the popular giveaway and tie it in with other printed or campaign elements.

One popular wet wipe option is a scratch-off message that is great for contents and using the wipe to drive repeat business.

Wet wipes are also a great street team handout because consumers put the wipe directly into their pocket or purse at the time of receipt.

Henry York represents several wet wipe manufacturers and offers many different products including anti-bacterial and custom fragrances.

So the next time you are considering a promotional giveaway consider the wet wipe and the many creative options you have to “clean up” while delivering your brand or campaign message.

Postal mail still does something that no other medium can—deliver your message straight into the hands of your candidate customer.  And for certain campaigns, that’s the best way to evoke a response and deliver a lasting first impression.

A well-printed direct mail piece conveys an image for your brand before it is even opened by defining a style and tone of the contents.  Its tactile feel can deliver a sense of richness, slickness or luxury in a way that digital formats simply cannot.

Postal direct mail also has a much higher delivery rate and despite its higher cost than digital, that delivery rate can convert into a higher transactional response to a campaign.

Spam filters capture a large majority of unsolicited email and your recipient never sees the message, unlike postal where you have a 99% delivery rate if you are dealing with a quality list—which is much easier to obtain, qualify and target than email because demographic data is much more accurate in the postal list world.

The key to any quality direct contact campaign is to acquire a good list, compose a good message and make a great offer that elicits a rapid response. While email provides a low cost alternative to postal mail, there’s nothing like putting your message right into the palm of your customer’s hand.

Despite the somewhat cliché notion of a pen as a promotional giveaway, if the pen looks good and writes well, it’s a hit with anyone and has a lifespan of six months or more.  Where else are you going to get six months of exposure for less than fifty cents?

The mouse pad has become less of a necessity on the modern desktop—but the USB drive has become as essential as a notepad these days.  USB drives last years and often hold your client’s most important data.  What better association could you make for less than $2.00?

The ceramic coffee cup may have been largely replaced by a paper product from a nearby espresso bar, but almost any office worker likes to keep their desk free of coffee rings with a coaster.  If well designed, a smart coaster lives for months and months—right at the reach of your customer every morning.

For an extremely low cost per piece, you can establish your brand as a “convenience” to clients and prospects with promotional giveaways.  The key is selecting quality products, moderating the design to make it attractive and not too loud, and choosing an expert printer to make sure that any custom branding has a long lifespan.

Consider Henry York for your next promotional campaign and benefit from our years of service to clients in every industry.