Promotional Giveaways Produce Business Results

Promotional Gifts are for Lead Generation and Rewarding Customers

Dec 9, 2008 Gopinathan Thachappilly

Promotional products constitute a 20 billion dollar industry and promotional giveaways have become a widely used promotional strategy. Does this strategy produce results?

Businesses give out promotional items at trade shows and as free gifts when customers buy regular merchandise. The aim is to generate leads or reward customers who patronize the business.

The question is whether the expenditure on these giveaways produces business results in the form of increased sales. Or is it all just a waste of money that could be better used on other marketing efforts?

The short answer is that promotional giveaways can produce results if the campaign is carefully developed and implemented.

Plan Your Promotional Giveaway Campaign

Clarify your ideas and prepare a detailed campaign plan:

  • What should the campaign achieve - customer leads generation, new customer acquisition or increased customer patronage?
  • Whom do you want to target and how do you reach them best?
  • What kind of promotional giveaway is best for this target group?
  • Would your campaign budget be enough for this ideal item; if not what else would be affordable and effective?
  • Do you have the staff to handle the campaign well or would it be better to entrust it to an outside agency?
  • What results would indicate that the campaign has been a success, and how will you track these results?

Select an Appropriate Promotional Product

An ideal promotional giveaway will:

  • Be seen again and again by the recipient, and will not be something that will be thrown away once used
  • Be designed to elicit response, as when a discount coupon is included with the item
  • Convey your branding and sales message with a strong visual impact

Ensure that Promotional Gift Recipients Deserve the Items

If the campaign objective is lead generation, ensure that the recipients are real prospects. Giving out your promo items freely to every freebie seeker visiting your stall is a wasteful option. Develop ways to identify real prospects and arrange to restrict your promotional giveaways to this group.

If the campaign involves free gifts to customers actually buying from you, reward the volume customers better with premium gifts.

Sending promotional gifts to past customers is a good way to generate more sales. Patrons love to be appreciated for their patronage.

Attend to the Promotional Campaign Details

If your aim is to identify leads, don't forget to collect the contact details of your promotional gift recipients. And do follow up with them, or better, make it in their interest to respond (as when the gift includes a discount voucher mentioned earlier).

Place your orders for the promotional merchandise sufficiently early so that you get a chance to approve the design, check quality and get everything ready by the deadline.

Promotional gift giveaways do produce business results, provided you plan the campaign well, select appropriate promotional item, quality gift recipients and attend to the small details.

The copyright of the article Promotional Giveaways Produce Business Results in Marketing/PR is owned by Gopinathan Thachappilly. Permission to republish Promotional Giveaways Produce Business Results in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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