The Redbows Promotional Gifts Blog

What are the top tips when it comes to selecting promotional items and giveaways? People often approach the process of selecting promotional items based on their own likes and needs. A more strategic process can lead to improved results and a better understanding of the how promotional items and giveaways can improve your marketing. The first tip is to think about your objectives and aims? Just what do you want to achieve? Clients often state a range of responses when asked this question. These can vary from attracting new clients as part of a wider lead generation campaign to reward existing clients for their business or employees for their loyalty and a job well done. Once you have a clear boundary around your aims, you are in a better position to set objectives. This is important if you want to fully analyse the results of your campaign because it introduces metrics. Objectives are quantified by volume and time and may be more appropriate to a lead generation campaign than a loyalty program. With your aims and objectives in mind you are then in a position to consider the theme of your campaign and tie in appropriate promotional items for consideration but against a budget. Without a budget this stage of the selection process can lead to dissappointment. There is no point is choosing items whose unit cost is going to produce a spend that is off budget. Better to be realistic and select items that fit easily within 80% of your budget to allow some funds for additional costs like artwork, fulfillment or even an overstocking of the chosen promotional items. We always recommend that clients produce a check list for this stage and then rate the appropriateness of the selected items against the promotion on a scale of say one to ten. You will probably then end up with one or two promotional items that seem the most appropriate. It is now time to move onto other aspects of the campaign like imprint colours, product colours and how to tie into the corporate image. This is just a few of the basics that are important when it comes to selecting promotional items. They apply to any products and giveaways be they promotional pens, promotional mugs or even USB flashdrives. To see the thousands of promotional items and giveaways available from Redbows visit our Promotional Gifts Store.

When it comes to promotional coffee mugs there are now a number of alternative offerings within the promotional gifts industry. This is in no small way thanks to the explosion of coffee drinking seen within the UK during the last decade with the arrival of Costa and Starbucks to name just two of the leading coffee houses. Think traditional British drinks and you think about the great British Cuppa or cup of tea. Since we started to take coffee so passionately on the high street we can now get all sorts of coffee mugs including small and large Lattes, giant coffee cups and mugs. What most of these coffee mugs have in common is that they are made from ceramics (also known as earthenware). Now not that I am traditionalist but I reckon that you can taste a difference when you drink from a ceramic mug as opposed to a plastic one (even recycled plastic) or worst case a paper mug on the go. Also I believe that ceramic promotional mugs keep your drinks warmer for longer. Quite simply they are built to contain the heat and provide you with a refreshing brew. So what’s the tie-in to this autumn? Well as the summer months fade and hopes of another heatwave pass into the distant pass, sales of warm drinks rise – and exponentially. Within corporate and business offices, more time is now spent at the kettle and canteen than the water fountain as people rush for their morning coffee and afternoon teas. If a typical personal has 3 cups a day, that can mean that they can see you advert over 15 times a week. Make your artwork unique and something to talk about and you may also find that it becomes their favourite and that they promote you even more. Promotional mugs are simply more than a promotional gift, they are a necessity not to be taken for granted.

When it comes to promotional items few have the durability of promotional coasters. This is especially true around this time of year as we approach the autumn and winter months when people turn to their favourite promotional mugs and automatically place them on the nearest coaster. You see the point is that on your desk you probably have just one coaster. It is always there and you see it everday. You probably don’t even have to be using a mug to use it. Sometimes you may simply have a bottle of water or well known brand of energy drink and place it on your coaster. Now the trick with coasters is not to buy too cheap. Sure you can get cheap promotional coasters made from condensed card or paper but what you really want is one that can take a hot mug or cup and not buckle. This means that you almost certainly opt for plastic coasters. Plastic coasters also give other options over say leather coasters. Firstly they can take a very vivid imprint, especially on a solid background colour. Plastic coasters are also generally available in an environmentally friendly, recycled ECO plastic material. So if you want low-cost, cheap promotional items think about promotional coasters. Their unit price is volume dependent and this means that you can get a very inexpensive promotional item to mail and hand out to all your clients and prospects. What’s more you get to purchase for a few pence a very valuable advertising space on their desks.

At a local networking event the other night, we came across a great idea for Christmas – Good Bags. So why not think about collating several promotional gifts together and supply them to clients in a branded promotional bag such as a organic cotton shopper? You see we supply a wide range of shopping bags and this means that they can be designed to suite any budget. In addition they offer great advertising space. Stuffed with promotional chocolates, sweets, mints and cakes, they are a superb alternative to Christmas hampers – and long after your Christmas goodies have been eaten, the promotional shopping bags remain behind to be used again and again, providing ongoing advertising for your brand. Now is the time to really think about Christmas presents for your corporate clients and our Christmas goody bags are guaranteed winners. You could even include promotional teddies and other similarly related types of toys and presents. Everyone loves chocolates, sweets and presents, so why not reward your clients this Christmas?

When we think about corporate gifts, we often think about essential promotional products likes pens, mugs and other desktop items. However, the world of corporate gifts is not just focused on products that you would find in an office. Often some of the best corporate gifts are those that your clients carry around with them and use in their spare time away from the office. Promotional Golf Gifts are just one collection of such items. Now in the spring and summer months off course many clubs and organisations run corporate golf events and it is not uncommon to find one or more companies sponsoring or hosting these and providing the participants with a range of branded golfing gifts like golf balls, golf tees, pitch forks and clothing. What few people realise outside the golfing world is that golf is a year long passion for most players. During the winter months most will either still venture out onto the golf courses or at least head down to their local driving ranges for practice. Now this means that any branded promotional golf gifts you supply, especially the really useful ones, stand a chance of being used, seen and even relied upon – just what you want in a corporate gift – repeat branding exposure. Off course for the more fair weather players some of the indoor golf items we supply, like putters and practice pitches may also have the same effect. The point is that the UK has a lot of corporate golfers. The sport is one of the fastest growing keep-fit hobbies and linking this to promotional gifts will provide you with plenty of opportunities to get that all important share of a client’s attention.

Well after much work we have almost finished the revamp of our primary Promotional Gifts website. Unlike the Promotional Gifts Store which features numerous product collections and thousands of promotional goods, we wanted the Redbows website to go back to its roots. We wanted to provide a source of the cheapest promotional gifts available and those considered essential for most marketing and promotions managers. Hence the new name for the Redbows website – the Essential Gifts Store. What we have done is made the website display our lowest cost and most popular promotional gifts including pens, mugs, mousemats and many others. We have also added seasonal best sellers such as our chocolate advent calendars. We will add more collections and promotional merchandise to this website over time and see how effective this latest approach is to serving our clients.

One of the most powerful promotional giveaways is a promotional bag. In today’s environment we are all conscious of the pollution and general environmental damage done by plastic bags. For this reasons, supermarkets in particular are now turning their attention to ‘Bags For Life’. Some of these may be plastic and made from recycled plastics but more and more are turning to Totes and Shoppers made from natural and sustainably managed materials such as organic cotton and recycled clothes. What’s more these types of shopping bag are very durable, with a long life expectancy and you can imagine them being used several times a week. Promotional bags or personalised bags as they are sometimes known also have the added benefit that they provide a large advertising space; in fact you have two – one either side and it is possible to print two different messages or imprints to get the maximum possible impact. This means that they can also be extremely useful at exhibitions, trade shows, seminars and conferences – in fact anywhere you have to distribute a largish quantity of promotional materials, corporate gifts and marketing literature. The adage that you get what you pay for certainly holds true with promotional gifts. Sure you can find cheaper promotional gifts such as plastic promotional pens or ceramic promotional mugs, but bags tend to currently be very in vogue.  Off course materials aside, you can also choose your Totes and Shoppers from a wide range of sizes, styles and colours, including short or long handles. Most promotional gifts suppliers tend to carry reasonable sized quantities in stock for a quick personalisation but larger orders may have to be brought in from factories overseas. As an aside off course you could also consider other bag types including executive, laptop, PC, backpack and rucksacks. The promotional bag is here to say – not just as a shopping accessory but something that can have a stronger impact on our environment.

Personalising promotional pens takes some planning. Now personalised pens are one of the most commonly seen corporate gifts around. We supply thousands to organisations, businesses, charities and clubs across the UK. Aside from choosing which promotional pens to run with (plastic, ECO plastic, wooden, mechanical, multifunction, ballpen, rollerball, inkpen and so on), there are several other factors that need to be taken into account. Primarily, what to imprint and where to put it! Seriously, the limiting factors that come into play with promotional pens are that you can imprint on the barrel and sometimes the pen clip itself. Given that there is a limited print area for both of these, combined they present a large area for promtoing your organisation and contact details. The key is to draw out the area on paper and then consider what to print where. A lot depends on your marketing message length and the length of your website address if you want to include this. Most clients seem able to strike a good balance, and with the right choose of imprint and pen colours to achieving a striking combination. It all just takes a little planning if you want to achieve the best personalisation.

Can you really get cheap promotional items? Well the answer is off course yes but there are other factors to consider. Firstly, let’s talk volume. The pricing of promotional items is volume related; so the more you purchase the more lower the unit cost. Secondly, there are often one off charges like origination (and sometimes a set up or mould cost). You  can ‘amortise’ – accounting term – these costs and spread them over your total volume run. So, take promotional pens or promotional mugs as examples. Typical purchase quantities are 250-1000 pieces and there will be colour origination charges. If you opt for more than one colour, expect higher origination charges and therefore a higher overall unit cost for your promotional items. Thirdly, think quality and longevity. How long do you want your personalised mugs or personalised pens to last? The higher the quality, the longer the promotional items will last and be in use for. The lower the quality, the more general ‘wear and tear’ will impact on them. Look at the materials we use in our pens and mugs. Mugs can be made from plastic, recycled plastics, ceramics, earthernware and even china. The imprint can be a single spot colour, photo or CYMK print. All will affect the unit price and longevity of the products. If you consider pens, Redbows supplies personalised pens that include plastic, frosted plastic, recycled ECO plastics, metal and wood from sustainable forests. So when planning your promotional campaign, think wider than simply finding the cheapest promotional items, think about client impact, product quality and longevity, and exactly what you want the promotional item to say about your brand.

I have been visiting clients over the last few weeks and carrying out my own survey of which promotional gifts I see most often in their offices. Now promotional pens and mugs were no surprise – they remain a firm favourite. However, what caught my eye was the large number of promotional calendars and wall planners in use. For example, in sales and service offices, desktop calendars (you know the A5 free standing type) seemed to be a real favourite. People were using them to mark specific dates or as a quick reference guide when booking visits and service jobs with clients. In office canteens and workshops wall planners, holiday planners and the like are quite widespread. Off course the great thing about these types of promotional gifts is that they do offer a very neat advertising opportunity and one with a long shelf-life. Here we may be talking longer than a year off course as your clients get used to their calendars and every year want a new one. In addition formats and images can be tailored to your client audience. So give promotional calendars and wall planners some thought this September and October and catch the best prices and print run opportunities for Christmas and the New Year.