My friend Ken, the toy poodle breeder, called the other day asking about imprinted pens to give away at dog shows to promote his kennel. From previous conversations I remembered something about height restrictions.
"Ken, isn't there a rule that when a toy poodle gets to a certain height, you can't show it any more?" I asked.
"Sure," he replied. "Ten inches. Then the owner needs to get another poodle."
"So give your prospects a ruler imprinted with your kennel name, the words "Breeder of Champion Poodles", your phone number and a line that says, ‘Call Me When Your Dog Gets Too Tall.'"
"Now that's a great idea," he exclaimed.
Developing great promotional marketing ideas that are relevant to your audience isn't that hard. It simply takes a subtle shift in mindset and an understanding of what you really want to accomplish. Such as, do you really want to simply give something away? Or, do you really want to effectively promote your business?
The shift in mindset comes when you understand the difference between a giveaway and a promotion.
A giveaway is a one-way street. Too often, business owners give away some cheap doo-dad thinking it will create goodwill and effectively promote their business. They are mindless of the fact that the so called promotional marketing item is irrelevant to their business or the prospect's need - such as a breeder giving away an imprinted pen. The recipient takes the promotional item home and: 1) puts it in a drawer, 2) gives it to the kids, 3) throws it away. 4) perhaps uses the item with no real intention of doing business with the advertiser.
With a giveaway, you cannot measure your return on investment. You gain practically nothing meaningful … certainly nothing you can actively follow up on. And, as far as building business? Few will say, "Wow! They have me a cheap promotional marketing item with their name on it! I've really got to do business with them."
A promotion is a two-way street. You determine what your want your target to do, then you figure out a way to get them to do it. Trade shows are a good example.
As I said, most companies give away something cheap, meaningless promotional item to everyone who stops or walks by. But as a business owner/marketer, you don't care about everyone – at least you shouldn't. You should care only about those who are interested in your product or service and can afford to pay for it.
Being a smart promotional marketer, you should offer something of value only to those who first fill out a short need-assessment or questionnaire providing you with their name, contact information and an idea of their interest level or purchasing time frame. This is how you qualify your prospects and obtain meaningful, actionable data. And because you're not giving something to everybody, you can afford to offer a promotional product that costs a bit more and will give your prospect a reason to remember you.
Another bonus to this approach is that because you're not busy handing stuff out to non prospects, you have time to actually talk with interested prospects.
For instance, a Financial Planner that's giving promotional pens to everyone, would do better to offer an imprinted booklet about Managing Your Finances ONLY to those who fill out the short questionnaire. Sure, the booklet costs more than the pens. But, the Financial Planner obtains information on which he/she can effectively follow up. The added bonus is the fact that the return on investment is measurable, and, the prospect has a meaningful promotional marketing item that is relevant to their interest.
If the financial planner simply feels he/she must give out a pen, then a banner pen with a banner that retracts into the pen barrel is a great choice. The banner allows the planner to put charts, graphs and other information of interest to likely prospects. In this case, the prospect has an unusual promotional marketing item, yet the information it delivers is still relevant to the interest of the prospect.
Cheap giveaways have their place when donating to goody bags or as prizes for contests or token thank-you gifts. However, when your goal is to promote your business, secure qualified leads or increase traffic – an effective promotion beats a cheap giveaway.
Michael Merrick Crooks, is founder of Crooks Advertising Alliance a creative strike-force specializing in creative problem-solving as it relates to advertising and promotional marketing. A Battle Creek, MI native, Crooks is a Cub Scout leader and Little League Baseball coach. For more unique marketing articles, visit www.CrooksAdvertising.com and sign up for his free newsletter, CrooksView Creative Digest. Or visit the most authoritative website in the world on the subject of waterless tattoos: www.WaterlessTattoos.com
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