Do your research

I’ve had quite a bit of feedback to the piece I wrote a couple of months ago about the amount of promotional material to be found on the relatively small area of my office.

If you remember, I listed every item that had some kind of promotional message on it with the final total reaching 25, an extraordinary number I think. The conclusion I reached was that marketers have an incredibly difficult job to get their particular message across, such is the competition.

It was then brought to my attention that the branding message is not only limited to items we have been sent that are signalling up a particular product or service. In everything we do nowadays we are bombarded by taglines, brands and logos. Just think about the kitchen in your house. How many different appliances do you have and how many of these have something printed or etched upon them, all ready to reinforce the brand in your eyes or introduce it to your visitors?

For a short time I was wondering why brands need to be reinforced, especially in the minds of people who have already bought them. Then I sat down for a few moments and made a list.

I can’t for the life of me remember who made my washing machine, fridge, microwave, TV, DVD player or iron. I can, on the other hand, tell you who made the Hi-Fi system, vacuum cleaner, cooker, food processor and lawn mower.

Perhaps this tells you more about my lifestyle and what I like doing than I really ought to give away, but it does reveal an important lesson to all marketers. This is that in order to get your message through to a given person you really have to do the best you can to get inside their heads.

Easier said than done, I know, but a little work could pay dividends. With me, for example, I am a rugby and cricket fan and am dreading the onset of the soccer World Cup. Indeed, my mission at the moment is to find a pub close to where I live that will not be showing end to end games, but that’s another story. It is therefore largely pointless to send me any promotional item that uses the footie as its reference, it won’t mean anything to me. But, send me something to do with rugby or cricket and I’ll give it a second look.

Your customers are like this too. They all have things in their lives that are important and a gift that supported this would surely be something they’d remember you and your company by.

Now, there is a problem. Many promotional campaigns consist of a gift that is sent out to hundreds, maybe thousands, of new and existing clients. How could you possibly identify the hobbies and interests of each of these?

It is here that the question of quantity and what you expect to get back from your campaign comes in. Unfortunately, and this may sound like a bit of a cop out, but I can’t help you there. Only you know your customers and which of those makes the biggest contributions to your business.

However, one question I might ask would be ‘is it better to send ten people a gift worth £100 or 100 people a gift worth £10 or a 1000 people a gift worth a pound’?

Once again, my best advice would be to talk to some of the people listed on the Promotional Merchandise website. These are people who know the promotions business and who can offer good quality advice on the best way of focusing your campaign.

And when you’ve decided what to do, let me know how you managed to get your brand across in an increasingly crowded market place.

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