The Redbows Promotional Gifts Blog

Promotional Chocolates are a great way to say thank you to clients, employees, teams and suppliers at Christmas. There is still time to place orders this week so that you can get your chocolates before Christmas. You can use any of the promotional chocolates on our Promotional Gifts Store website for  promotions but favorites at this time of year are off course the Christmas themed ones. These can be viewed on our Promotional Sweets Store at (http://bit.ly/gP3JaK). So what is available? Christmas Crackers filled with fudge or chocolates, chocolate nets and chocolate boxes. We can also supply small mini chocolate boxes, chocolate bars and nuts. Just contact our Promotional Gifts Consultants for more information.

Today’s internet technologies allows promotional gifts suppliers like Redbows to offer clients a number of logistics and customer service management facilities. One of the most recent innovations is client specific portals. The technology behind our Promotional Gifts Store allows us to create unique client portals showing only those promotional gifts approved for use by a specific client. Employees and contacts within the client organisation can log into the portal and place on-line orders (at agreed pricing) and call-off the agreed promotional gifts, all branded to the organisation’s marketing brief. In this way a client can place a blanket order on Redbows and then release the portal login details to their company, assured that the right promotional gifts will be used throughout the company – no matter where in the world they are based. The portal also allows client managers (with administration rights) to log into an admin panel to review purchases and order quantities, values and budget remaining. This concept is really an extension of our logistics operations where Redbows can print bulk orders for clients and hold the stock of printed items for call-off. Using the internet and our unique promotional gifts website solution allows us to provide an even more ‘open’ management and customer service facility to clients. At Redbows we make promotion easy.

We drink six million bottles of water a day in the UK and this generates quite a substantial carbon footprint – logistics, packaging, disposal and recycling. Drinking bottled water has health benefits and it is available in many outlets but how much healthier is normal tap water, if at all. There is an argument that companies and clubs can make a difference if they supply and make readily available eco promotional water bottles – so that their clients and members can choose.

What does it mean to go green when it comes to eco promotional gifts? We wrote a small blog post on our ECO Gifts Store if you want to learn more about ‘greenwashing’ and how products on our ECO Gifts website are classified and grouped according to their eco credentials.

The other day I received a special mailer from my mobile phone network provider. The mail shot device was based around a six chocolate box and was a reward for my loyal custom over the last two years. Nicely printed, with Fairtrade promotional chocolates inside and a printed ‘thank you’ card.

So how nice is it to get a freebie like this? Well not bad actually and the nice thing about this one is that it reminds me that I need to go out and check on their latest upgrade details. Having an iPhone 3 I thought I would wait till someone eventually had stock of the iPhone 4. So refreshed by my Fairtrade chocolates I am now going to head over to their nearest retail outlet. It just shows how effective promotional chocolates can be.

We’ve been working on our new ECO Gifts Store, a website for environmentally friendly promotional gifts. As well as uploading new products, we have written a few articles covering some of the key terms used by eco gifts suppliers, like sustainability. For the full blog entry click: sustainable ECO promotional gifts.

Promotional flashdrives are without question today’s ultimate promotional gift. Promotional flashdrives or USB flashdrives or USB memory sticks as they are sometimes called tick all the boxes when it comes to promotional gifts. They are one of the most sought after computer peripherals whether you work in an office or are a student studying at school or university. Nearly everyone has one or more flashdrives and the range available means that it is possible to choose a flashdrive to suit any budget or marketing program. ECO environmentally friendly flashdrives are also now available with casings made from recycled plastics or sustainably farmed materials like wood and bamboo. With many sizes available the most popular size of flashdrive is the 1GB but the physical forms available vary greatly. Wristband flashdrives with an embossed logo are very popular for schools and colleges, where as Twister flashdrives with a screen printed imprint are popular in office environments. At the higher end of the price spectrum, leather bound flashdrives have a unique appearance and whilst more expensive do have a certain appeal. The low cost of tooling now allows suppliers to manufacture bespoke flashdrive casings, even around a company logo and these can appeal for wider corporate marketing programs. Promotional flashdrives can also be supplied with pre-loaded data but this is rarity these days with most clients taking their branded usb flashdrives unpopulated. If you were to consider data upload there is a nominal charge and typical items uploaded to a flashdrive include presentations, data sheets, corporate brochures and conference programs. The best promotional gift available? You have to go a long way to beat promotional flashdrives.

With Christmas approaching the promotional gifts industry typically sees a surge in activity – almost all of it related to Christmas. For promotional chocolates suppliers the rush is on the fill their promotional advent calendar product lines before around mid October. This is for the mass runs but other suppliers can produce smaller quantities and run even into November. Mass production runs typically produce several artwork versions in one go – the print technology allows this and achieves a very reasonable bulk print price. The thing about promotional advent calendars is off course that you really want to be distributing them around mid-November at the latest in order to be on people’s desks just before December 1st.  So ‘get your skates on’ as they say if you want to get an order in now for your promotional advent calendars. At Redbows we supply several versions including both part and fully personalised. The part personalised use standard templates with space for your imprint but with a fully personalised advent calendar you can go for a completely bespoke image. Another important aspect to consider is whether you want British or European chocolates inside your advent calendar. Both are of a very high quality – its just leadtimes and transportation charges that vary in reality. For other types of seasonal offers, see our Christmas chocolates collection.

Summer is almost over and in world of promotional gifts this means that what lies ahead is the busiest time for companies like Redbows. With VAT set to rise to 20% at the end of the year we anticipate many clients will look to bring their Q1 2011 promotional gift spends into 2010 – allowing them to save 2.5% in terms of cash at least. We are also always on the look out for the best possible pricing and supplies for our clients and this autumn will see us increase our stocks of express delivery gifts, allowing us to respond to even shorter lead times. With autumn approaching its always worth noting that those seasonable items that will see a flurry of activity – notably advent calendars. Pricing is now available for our 2010 advent calendars to allow us to meet the tight timescales of end of October production runs. Other developments this summer have included the launch of our new ECO Gifts Store and we anticipate that 2011 will be the year of the ECO promotional gifts company. So will our predictions and forecasts hold true? We’ll just have to see in 2011.

We were with a client this week who runs the marketing operation across several company divisions. They are looking at pooling all their corporate gifts purchases into one large buying lot to get the prices down, plan logistics better and improve the use of promotional merchandise throughout the group. This is a great idea as it also helps to simplify the logistics process for a promotional gifts company life Redbows. We use our warehouse facilities to stock and then distribute the branded gifts, to depots and sites around the UK. The whole ethos is one of delivering better customer service across the supply chain. It just takes a little planning in the set up stage but once complete can cover any type of corporate gift, from pens and mugs to clothing and document wallets – everything a business would need to market itself.