As business owners, how many times have you been “sold” something?
This is especially prevalent in the promotional product’s business. People, whom I refer to as “order takers,” will contact you in an attempt to sell you a promotional product item for your business. The sale comes in many forms, including Lowest Price and Quickest Turn Around.
When was the last time someone called upon your business and showed you various ways to brand or to market your business with these same items, as opposed to selling them to you?
There are many ways to reach this objective:
- Find a unique item
- Find an item that is very much in line with what the company business is, i.e., health items for health related companies and construction items for contractors
- Find an item that matches the client they serve
I would like to take a look at the last point in order to show how you can brand your company so it matches with your clients that you currently service.
An illustrative example is that of a recent new client who called me and asked me to consult with them for promotional products items. When I arrived at the business, I immediately noticed that the office was much more “upscale” than the average office in this industry. My initial observations were further reinforced when the clients showed me the humidor containing very high end cigars (no White Owl’s here). They proceeded to talk to me, outlined what they had in mind, and showed me several promotional product items they had used in the recent past, like a credit card shaped mint holder.
As I listened to them and looked at what promotional product items they had previously purchased, two things readily became apparent – this business had customers with net worth in the seven figures and the promotional products items acquired were more appropriate for a business with customers with a much lower net worth. I pointed out to the client that whoever suggested they use such promotional products had not considered with whom they did business. When you are dealing with high net worth customers, you do not approach them with something that looks like it costs $0.50; instead, you use items costing six to eight times that amount with since these are the types of items more in line with they branding they are trying to achieve, such as Mini Mint Tin W/Business Card Box
As often happens, the client later called me to tell me how much positive feedback they received (compared to the other items) from their current and prospective customers. This is just one instance of how I assisted a company in the use of promotional product items in order to brand and market their company with a great measure of success.
John King is the President of Creative Promotional Marketing.
Before starting this marketing company, he has spent the past twenty years in the public relations and marketing field.
Mr. King can be reached at:
714-849-6552
Or
jk@promokng.com
His website address is:
www.promokngcom
Promotional Marketing
