Promotional merchandise can really work – whether you want to recruit new customers, encourage repeat sales or simply expose your brand, there is a branded gift that will do it for you. That said, there are a few cardinal sins that buyers make when choosing gifts or placing orders. These can stop your gift from working to its full potential, and mean that you are not getting your money’s worth. Fortunately, these mistakes are easily avoided. Here’s what they are so that you can ensure your business never makes any of them!

Mismatching Product with Business Goal

If you don’t consider what exactly it is you want your promotional gift to achieve, you may end up with something that doesn’t achieve much at all.

USB flash drives allow you to upload extra marketing materials to share with selected prospective clients

To avoid this, make a list of the important results you need your gift to accomplish. Maybe what your business needs most is a gift that will attract new customers? Or something that will reward old ones? Whichever it is, be clear about it before you choose anything. For brand awareness, choose useful items that will be seen at a conference or as everyday items, like canvas or non-woven shopping bags. On the other hand, a flash drive could be great for sending as lumpy mail to carefully selected prospective customers to attract them to your business and share marketing materials uploaded onto it.

Over-complicating the Design

Often all you need on your promotional gift to make your brand memorable is just your logo

It can be tempting to try to put as much branding as possible onto your gift, in order to get your money’s worth. Your logo, brand colours, contact details and store opening times can all seem like important information for a potential customer to have. But in reality you are more likely to distract customers from important elements of your message by having a design that is too ‘busy’. As proven by successful brands like Google, Ikea and Apple, simplicity is key in the world of branding. A lot of the time, a logo is all your promotional gift needs. However, if you need to include extra information, try to keep it to a minimum – just a phone number or email address will ensure new contacts can get in touch easily, and they will be able to find that information easily too.

Choosing the Cheapest Option

Don’t pick a promotional gift just because it’s cheap, as you could easily end up with something that is not right for you! A cheap promotional item, like a logo bug, could achieve your goal as a giveaway at an event aimed at children or students. On the other hand, a plastic pen might be misunderstood if given as a Christmas present for the loyal customers of an accountancy firm. Again, this is about matching your product with your business goal, as explained in more detail in an earlier article. It is natural to seek out a good deal, but the quality and suitability of the product should come first. If you are solely motivated by getting the cheapest gift possible, you might be wasting your money as the gift will not have the desired effect. A good way to avoid being swayed negatively by price is to settle on the qualities the gift needs to have first, and then pick the item that fulfills the requirements - but is still within the budget. I know that keeping within the budget is not easy when you need approvals and signatures from the finance department or when you are just trying to keep your costs down, so consider lowering the quantity of the giveaways if that's an option, before reducing the quality of the gift, to ensure your investment pays. Don’t choose a promotional pen just because of its price tag - choose it because its slim barrel suits your company’s smart image, or because it offers full colour printing for a picture that represents your brand well.

Forgetting about the Bigger Picture

Promotional merchandise, just like any other marketing tool, works best as part of a larger marketing campaign. For best results, you should have a clear and well connected set of marketing activities that support each other. Corporate gifts giving could be supported with online based social exercises, using media like Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn. In addition, you could consider newspaper adverts or organising presentations or seminars by a company representative. Make sure the promotional item you choose is an integral part of not only your brand and business goal, but also of the other marketing activities you choose to pursue. Read on the topic in more detail in our free ebook, available to download here.

Procrastinating

Procrastination may mean your items are not delivered on time

It can be difficult to choose between the available options for a gift, and this often leads to business executives pondering over the decision for too long. In addition, larger companies could spend more time finalising the artwork or getting approvals from directors, which can mean delays in placing orders. Our advisors understand these situations and try to be as accommodating as possible, always striving to meet the required delivery dates. However, if your deadline really is urgent as you're working to an event date, it is wise to start planning as early as possible to ensure timely delivery or to avoid express charges, e.g. for a pre-10 delivery. The process of producing a corporate gift is a combined effort of graphic designers, sales advisors and printers so if you are having problems placing your order in time, keep in touch so we can make sure we are still able to provide you with the required item.   At UK Corporate gifts, our advisors are aware of all of these issues, which could potentially cause problems for the finished products. For this reason, we communicate with our clients about their goals and budgets to make sure you get the best value for your money. Don't hesitate to call 01204 577 995 for your free consultation.