Establish your needs before building your programs.

Your employees are your most important resource: their appearance and dress can make a profound impact on their ability to provide the service and productivity you depend on to make your organization successful. This is the third and final part in our three part series on what to consider when developing employee uniforms to meet your needs. The three articles cover the three most important components of any uniform program: Part 1. Uniform look and branding, Part 2. Uniform design as it affects productivity, Part 3. Uniform sourcing and fulfillment logistics. Read on for tips on how to successfully source and fulfill your uniform programs.

Establish Your Needs –

In order to properly design your supply and fulfillment chain, the first thing to do is fully establish your uniform needs from the perspective of understanding: who needs what uniform goods, how much volume you will consume annually, as well as what fulfillment infrastructure you need in place to get your items to your corporate locations/ employees. All of these needs will be dependant upon your corporate structure, the number of corporate locations, the number of total employees in your organization, what sorts of work your employees do and so on. Obviously, the complexity of the above combination of factors will differ for each organization.

The reason that understanding all of these factors is so important is that they will significantly impact everything from garment choice, to pricing, to inventory levels (read inventory costs), and to  your chosen shipping methods. The end goal of this portion of planning your uniform sourcing and fulfillment chain is to end up with a proper high-level map that will help you understand what available options will allow you to provide the most value and flexibility in your program.

Flexibility Versus Savings –

There is a definite correlation between volume and cost.

There is a direct correlation between volume and cost savings. It is possible to leverage high-volume purchasing power through sourcing and production overseas. Savings of 40-60 percent are not uncommon when compared to the costs of domestic production. Plus, it is much more affordable to develop and produce completely-custom uniform pieces overseas. There are two things to remember, however, when considering offshore sourcing: a.) overseas sourcing requires much larger minimum orders (typically in the thousands) and b.) overseas sourcing typically requires lead times of 90-120 days. Domestic lead times, by comparison, typically range from 48 hour to 15 days.

Which options you choose will need to be based on your total annual consumption. For most companies, sourcing an entire uniform line is out of the question due to the high inventory levels it would require. Oftentimes, the solution is best approached by identifying which items will have the highest turn/consumption rates and source those. Items that do not have a high turn rate, or change frequently, can then be domestically sourced to reduce inventory costs and maintain program flexibility.

Minimizing Inventory Costs and Maximizing Program Value –

One of the major mistakes many companies make is to order too much of either one item, or a combination of items in the quest to capitalize on volume purchase opportunities. What typically happens in these cases is the customer is forced to sit on these items until they are used up. This causes several serious problems: a.) Inventory costs build over time, thus undercutting the initial cost savings b.) The organization is prevented from being able to change or update its uniform program, even if the look is outdated with the current company image c.) The organization has a difficult time finding a new promotional partner who will help with program in which there is a plethora of pre-existing inventory (there is no money in helping a company move inventory that was not purchased through them). It is not uncommon to find an organization that is trapped in a situation where they are bleeding money in held inventory, wearing three year-old uniforms with outdated logos, and stuck with their vendor who pushed them to over purchase (and many vendors WILL push you to over purchase).

Inventory has a cost s well

Get Your Uniforms Where They Need To Go –

One-location organizations are generally pretty simple to manage from a fulfillment perspective. It is when you are looking at multi-location or even multi-national organizations that the complexity increases. Typically, these sorts of solutions will involve a combination of different shipping methods and distribution patterns. For illustration let’s say, a multi-national organization needs uniform garments shipped to Central Europe, Russia, the U.S. and Canada. In this example the organization has distribution centers in Russia the U.S, and office locations in Central Europe and Canada. One solution would be to arrange for overseas sourced uniform goods for Europe and Russia to be shipped directly to the Russian Distribution center, whereas the US promotional partner would service all U.S. and Canadian orders. In addition, for lower-volume goods, the U.S. promotional partner would organize quarterly consolidated orders of lower-volume products for the Russian and Central European locations, thus being able to proactively stock uniform items to those locations while defraying volume and shipping/tariff costs to the overseas locations.

The above example is just one possible solution to the problem, there are other, more flexible options available, but again, flexibility and cost often come in direct proportion to one another. The final choice will always be dependant on your needs as an organization. What is most important in this regard is to find a promotional partner who truly understands the complexities of both large and small scale distribution channels in order to help you maximize your program’s value and meet your needs.

There are many factors to take into account when developing a uniform program for your organization, and each organization is unique in its needs. The trick is not to just create a uniform program, but to create on that provides the most value for the money in the areas of branding, productivity, and flexibility. For more information on what to consider when designing and developing your next line of uniform goods, please call us at: (800) 588-7111 (and talk to your sales rep), or email us at: customerservice@powertexgroup.com.

Avoiding a one-size-fits-all mentality is key to reaching your different audiences.

One of the most challenging aspects of designing and implementing promotional marketing programs is accommodating each of your primary audiences. It can be easy to slip into a one-size-fits-all mentality, which is often a sure recipe for failure. The truth is, each audience is different, and in order to effectively sell to them, their solutions should be different as well. Being aware of the important differences between your primary audiences segments is one thing, being able to design programs that accommodate each audiences’ need is another.

In this article, we will look at some of the more common high-level audience segments, and look at what drivers typically motivate them, as well as some quick tips on how best to reach them.

Retail Audiences – This segment can typically be broken down into many sub-segments, each with their own habits and/or motivation. In reaching out to your retail market, it is often helpful to keep that in mind. Always be aware of who your audience is, what your end goal is, and most importantly, what value your products and/or services bring to your clients. In order to effectively reach your clients with promotional marketing programs, you may have to strategically separate out your audiences and fine tune your message and/or offerings to suit each segment.

Retail audiences can often be segmented into a number of different sub-sections

A perfect example of this is in a recent promotion we designed with one client; we had a large incentive program that consisted of an online signup promotion with a subsequent visit to the nearest dealer location to redeem their signup form for a custom-branded cap. During the design process we identified that, for this particular client, a large portion of their potential customer base would be considered either light internet users or loyal to another competing brand. In order to effectively reach this segment, we designed a complimentary walk-in program component that functioned completely independently of the online portion. It was deigned complete with point-of-purchase displays, and physical signup forms that would allow retail/dealer locations an incentive to entice that potential customer segment with the same promotional benefits as the online users.

Dealer Networks/Retail Locations – Dealer networks and retail locations differ from retail audience segments generally in the fact that you are not as much marketing to them as giving them the tools they need to effectively market to their audiences. Consequently, program such as promotional product kitting, dealer promotion discount purchase programs, dealer custom-branded merchandise catalogs, and even employee uniform and incentive programs work well for Dealers and Retail location segments.

Customized name-dropped merchandise is an excellent tool for retail locations

One of the most important things about creating promotional marketing programs aimed at this group is to consider how it helps to build on the clients’ relationship with their dealer or retail location. Every promotion should be designed either to help your retail locations make the sales conversion or to get customers to know your brand through your dealer or retail location.

Another thing, when creating promotions aimed directly at the retail customer, you want to make sure that you are not alienating or bypassing your dealer or retail location base. It might make sense, in many cases, to modify your promotion to drive sales and conversions through these locations rather than a central website or catalog. This will help to add value to your retail network while simultaneously driving sales.

Corporate Members/Employees – Corporate Members and Employee promotions look very different from retail or dealer/retail location promotions in that they are generally aimed at promoting the brand from within and improving employee morale. This can be more difficult that it seems, since often times it is hard to gauge what will work and what will not within each organization. Each organization typically has an extremely large range of workers, from retail workers, mechanics, and manual workers to executives, sales persons, and technical workers. This tends to make it much more difficult to find a one-size-fits- all promotional incentive solution, and often requires a delicate hand in making sure you are properly incenting each group while making sure you are not appearing as favoring one group over the other.

Employee uniform and incentive programs can have a great effect on employee morale.

More than any other market segment, employee and corporate incentives can easily backfire if not applied correctly. They can easily engender feelings of inequality or favoritism, or they can sometimes be seen as insincere gestures. This is why we recommend, more than for any other type of promotion, consulting an experienced promotional partner before implementing any sort of employee incentive program. You will want someone who can ask the right questions about your organization’s internal structure and your particular corporate culture. Be wary of programs that don’t take into account these things as each organization is vastly different. Their employee incentive and corporate programs need to be designed around that.

When properly implemented, corporate and employee incentive programs can vastly improve employee morale, increase sales, decrease costs, reduce accidents, or any of a whole number of possible goals. They can help you get your organization where it needs to go, and should be considered a valuable part of any organizations’ promotional plan.

When designing your promotional marketing programs, it is always important to consider who you are marketing to in relation to what your end goals is. This article discusses only a very small fraction of the possibilities relating to only a few of the more common market segments. These subjects become incrementally more complex as you divide them down further, add more potential audiences in to the equation, and take into consideration each brand’s individual audiences and culture. With the right tools, the right knowledge, and the right partner, it becomes much simpler to design, implement and deploy programs that help you and your individual audience segments reach their goals. For more information on how you can design effective programs ofr your audience segments, please call us at: (800) 588-7111 (and talk to your sales rep), or email us at: customerservice@powertexgroup.com.

Three steps that will help you to market and grow your licensed promotional marketing program.

Your sourcing, production, merchandising, warehousing, distribution, warehousing, and customer support are all set up and ready to go. You’ve completed your e-commerce online store and launched it. So now what? Well you should already have been working on building a marketing campaign to build your brand and grow your audience. It’s better to plan out your marketing plan from the very beginning stages of any project. However, if you haven’t started already, rest assured it’s never too late to start.

Successfully building a campaign starts with three key phases: 1. Take advantage of your existing strengths 2. Grow your audience and extend your reach 3. Nurture existing customers. These three rules can be applied to just about any situation or program model, and are pretty much universal. Unfortunately, many programs concentrate on one or even two of these phases while missing out on a major slice of the promotional pie.

Existing Newsletters are a great place to start advertising

1. Take advantage of your existing strengths:
This is almost always the best place to start marketing, as it is usually the path of least resistance. Do you have something that is already successful such as a newsletter or a high traffic home page? Don’t be afraid to piggy back your new program advertising onto existing publications or web pages. Look at existing partnerships and cross-promotion opportunities. If you have a partner brand or supporting organization, approach them with a cross-promotion marketing program. If you are a successful company, you must be doing something right already, so why not make it work for you in getting the word out about your new program?

However you choose to promote your program, always remember that your existing audience is your most valuable audience. It’s sometimes hard to keep sight of the fact that, in most industries, your existing customers are almost always your highest opportunity targets. You know they are interested in what you have to offer, and you know they are interested in hearing what you have to say. Brand loyalty never comes from first-time customers, so don’t miss out on the opportunity you already have.

Promotional emails are one way to entice new customers

2. Grow your audience and extend your reach:
The next thing you need to do is to grow you audience. There are a plethora of marketing methods available to help you extend your reach, and how you go about it will really depend on your organization and what your product or service is. Whatever you do, be sure to take advantage of the most cost-effective marketing avenues. Email marketing, social media (such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook), industry press releases, blogs and RSS feeds, search engine optimization, cross branding and working with fan-sites are all very simple to implement, and can be invaluable to extending your reach. With social media sites like Facebook, you are exponentially expanding your reach with each person that signs on as a fan or follows you. Plus, RSS comment feeds from places like Twitter allow your content to be picked up and republished just about anywhere, thus expanding your reach.

When investing in marketing directed towards audience growth, one of the most important rules of thumb to live by is that you should always be able to track your return on investment. At the very least, you should be able to get a good idea of how much of a response you are getting. Marketing of this type can be a double edged sword in that it has potential to grow your audience rapidly, or it can possibly end up as a gigantic waste of marketing dollars. You need to know which avenues are most successful at generating qualified leads in order to wisely invest your marketing dollars. If you can’t track it, it usually best to skip it.

Use coupons and gift certificates as a great way to encourage repeat business

3. Nurture existing customers:
This is very much related to step number one, but it is slightly different in that it speaks more specifically towards developing program-specific marketing methods to increase conversion rates and encourage repeat sales. Your program will eventually need to step out on it’s own in this regard. You cannot grow a program simply by piggybacking it onto your existing assets forever, and initiatives aimed specifically at growing the program are important. Tools that can aid in growing this part of your programs are things such as: online store recommended product suggestions, customer product reviews, new or seasonal products, a program-specific promotional newsletter or email, proper product key-wording for easier online store searchability, social media, and custom coupons and customer discounts.

The point is that nurturing existing customers is more than just communicating regularly with them, it is also about using all available tools in order to provide them with a reason to make a purchase. Whether it be an informative article about a certain product, a 10% off coupon code, or a newly added product, these things are all reasons to make a purchase. As you grow your email subscriber database, social media networks, and overall program visibility, be sure not only to make it easy for your customers to keep updated on your brand, but that they have a reason to come back and make multiple purchases. Be creative, and put yourself in your customers’ shoes. What would make you want to come back and make a second, third or fourth purchase?

Promotional licensing programs require a real commitment in all phases to function well, but one of the most critical phases is the marketing phase. You can create the best promotional licensed program, but if no one is purchasing your products, it is all for naught. That is why you want to be planning for how to market your program from the very beginning. To learn more about how to promote your promotional licensing program, give us a call today at (800) 588-7111. Email us at customerservice@powertexgroup.com or visit us at: http://www.powertexgroup.com.

Get more marketing punch with a full-service promotional provider:

We all know the value of a fully realized and well implemented marketing program and the value it can bring to your organization. But does your organization have the know-how and resources to implement a large scale

Licensed Promotional Goods

promotional branding campaign? How about the infrastructure to supply the promotional products to the locations you need? With a large scale promotional campaign comes many different logistics issue that may be expensive and time-consuming to solve.

That is where a promotional licensing relationship can be beneficial. By bringing in a full-scale promotional partner, you can save considerable time and money by utilizing the pre-existing infrastructure that a high-end partner brings. In addition, you can take advantage of the wealth of promotional experience that a specialized promotional company has already accumulated.

In a licensing arrangement, the promotional marketing company becomes a member of your organization and assumes a major part of the responsibility of making your branding initiatives successful. This ensures a close working relationship, and is the closest thing you can have to an extension of your own marketing department.

Experience counts. When you have a promotional partner, you automatically gain access to the full experience derived from dealing with countless other clients in countless other situations. Get invaluable advice on what works, and how to build your program. Stop throwing money around on “best guess” scenarios, and focus on proven tactics and tested models. This will not only help your organization to build its brand, but save considerable money by investing in more effective programs.

When building a promotional program, you not only need to consider what the message is, but how the program will be implemented into your pre-existing business model, and how it will be fulfilled and maintained. Implementation and proper maintenance is where a vast majority of promotions fail, as they are often the most overlooked and under-planned aspects. A proper promotional partner will have an infrastructure in place that will make it cost-effective and simple to maintain and fulfill the program.

Another thing that your promotional partner will bring to the table is a flexible range of assets and abilities to help you successfully launch your projects. From art and design, to full promotional line creation, to online technologies, to warehousing and comprehensive distribution capabilities, the extra capabilities that your partner offers

Putting it Together with Promotional Programs

will give you the proper support in areas that you need to ensure a successful program. This adds strength to your organization by giving you the proper supplement in areas where you may not be as strong or as experienced. This can add much value in that it saves you the very costly measure of having to build a separate department or add employees to compensate for your new marketing programs.

With a promotional licensing program, not only do you gain a new promotional partner, but you can gain valuable marketing experience, save time/money, and hone your marketing focus. In the branding world, the possibilities are almost endless, and it can definitely be helpful to have an experienced promotional partner in reaching your full branding potential. To learn more about the benefits of a licensing deal or gain a new partner in your promotional marketing endeavors, give us a call today at (800) 588-7111. Email us at customerservice@powertexgroup.com or visit us at: http://www.powertexgroup.com.

Streamline Your Promotional Products Ordering System and Reduce Costs:

Getting promotional products to members, sales representatives and different locations can be logistically difficult at times. Plus, the need to dedicate more people within your organization sort out the logistics, coordinate deliveries, and place orders can be time consuming and costly. Factor in the paperwork, time involved with consolidating orders and putting everything together for accounting, and you can have a process that is more involved than it needs to be.

Simplify the process:

Powertex has devised a simple solution for our clients to simplify and streamline this process. Through utilizing an online order process, Powertex has helped several of our clients more effectively order, organize and distribute the promotional items where and when they need them.

The premise is simple: set up a digital order form where all information is submitted to one central location, where all sides can see pending orders, make modifications, approve/deny orders, and check the status of the order fulfillment process. By entering the information in one location, the risk of entry errors is significantly reduced due to the lack of data re-entry necessary.

Promotional Products Order Form Example

The order form can be accessed from any location by any approved member of your staff who can place an order 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The form can be customized to gather any important data you may need; including sales representative’s numbers, coupon codes, territory numbers, etc. The team member simply signs up online, enters their information, and orders the promotional products they need. The data, along with the order information and delivery location information, is passed to the database. An order confirmation email is sent, and then (if necessary) the electronic approvals are made. After the approval process, the order is sent directly to production. If a custom imprint is necessary, the artwork order is produced, and the fulfillment process started.

During each step of the production and delivery process, the individual order status is updated and visible in the back end through each stage; pending orders, batched, art complete, produced, shipped. Inventory reports and orders per customer can be run as well at any point in time, thus giving the whole fulfillment process accountability, and making customer service requests easier by providing order status reports at a glance.

Invoicing and billing is simplified as well. Once the order has been placed, produced and fulfilled, the billing information can be either consolidated, or separated based on what your needs may be. The billing information is then sent to the proper location.

Powertex Promotional Item Distribution

Though the use of an online ordering system, the process of managing, ordering, and fulfilling promotional items can be significantly streamlined. Take the labor and cost out of managing your promotional products program with a centralized ordering and tracking solution from Powertex. We can build your organization a customized solution that fits your needs and gives you the information you need to ensure a smooth workflow, thus ensuring savings in both time and money. Give us a call today at (800) 588-7111, or email us at
customerservice@powertexgroup.com. To learn more visit us at: http://www.powertexgroup.com.

Publishing and direct mail services are examples of important value added services

There are a number of ways in which businesses attempt to differentiate themselves within the modern business arena. The most obvious of these methods are branding and product/service design. However, one of the most important methods of differentiation is through value added services. Virtually all growing organizations owe at least part of their success to their commitment to their value added services. This is, in large part, because these services can: save money, allow for more flexibility, increase convenience, save time, and make happier customers. This is why it is important to consider value added services when choosing a promotional products company.

What is a value added service exactly? According to Michael Pynch CMA, CPA Director – Business Consulting at Wipfli, “A value added service is any service that is offered as a complement to a standard product or service that a company sells. Value added services may be included in the price of the standard product or service or may be priced separately.” He continues, “In this fast paced service-based economy, exceeding customer expectations is the key to a positive buying experience. Value added services are important to consumers as they address the need for convenience and provide a means to get more for your money.” And most importantly, “Companies use value added services to differentiate what they do from their competitors. There are so many products and services that have become commodities that companies have to be creative and look for ways to influence customers to buy from them. When consumers view the products of two separate companies as the same, then the easiest way to compare the products is by price. Value added services offer companies a way to contrast what they provide, and challenge customers to determine the overall value of the product/service rather than just price shopping.”

We use value added services all the time. Sometimes we pay for them, sometimes we don’t, but they are always designed to enhance our overall experience. They are so ingrained in our daily lives that we often don’t notice them until they are missing. My local grocery store has a library drop box outside the front door. 1 Hour photo labs have been a fixture in big box retail stores for years now. FedEx-Kinko’s is one of the most excellent examples of value added mastery. After having your items printed there, you could take to another entity to have them shipped, but why would you? They can give you a competitive price, while shipping your package in minutes. So simple.

Wordlwide distribution services allow you to get your products to their destinations on time.

In the world of promotional products, value added services take on a critical significance. There are literally thousands of organizations that can make a logoed pen, or a custom t-shirt. Where the great divide occurs in the promotional products industry is in value added services. The organizations that go well beyond just providing products are few and far between.

When you are searching for someone to provide products for your next promotion, you will definitely want an organization that can bring more flexibility and value. One that can combine services to help you source, produce, warehouse, deliver, market, and merchandise your products can make your promotions much more effective and cost efficient than trying to do it all yourself. A good promotional partner can shorten the supply chain through value added services and can be a single source for your promotional needs. They can also eliminate many of the barriers to creating and maintaining an effective program, since they will have the infrastructure to deal with marketing, managing the inventory of, and distributing your promotional items. Chances are, a top-notch promotional product company will have the ability to effectively run most aspects of your program for far less money than it would cost you to set it up from scratch. They will become more than your supplier, they will become your partner in promoting a truly successful promotional program.

If you are interested in finding a full service promotional products company, call Powertex. Our powerful combination of value added services can help you build, implement, and maintain your next promotional program. Give us a call today at (800) 588-7111, or email us at: customerservice@powertexgroup.com. Visit us at: http://www.powertexgroup.com.

Capture Client Information to Maximize Your Sales Potential.

We all know the value of promotional marketing.

Or do we?

Sample BRP customer satisfaction survey

Think back to the last promotional marketing campaign you ran. Can you say with certainty how your organization benefited from that campaign? Do you know how much your return on investment was, how many leads you gained, or how your customer retention rate was affected? If the answer to these questions is no, then you may be missing out on a huge opportunity to get much more from your promotional marketing campaigns.

Much of the secret to realizing success in the promotional marketing world is to design your promotions to have a measurable end result. Without an expected end result, and a legitimate to track the results, you can never be sure of a campaign’s success or failure. The examples below are a perfect illustration of why measurable results matter:

A. Salesman A attends the trade show every year. Between travel, fees and promotional items, he invests a significant amount of money into the trade show. He always orders some high-priced pens to take with him, so he has something nice to give his potential customers. Throughout the day, he talks to hundreds of people, handing out almost all of his promotional items, and at the end, he goes home to await the phone calls that inevitably come after the trade show. He knows that he gets more business, but has no idea how much, or what kind.

B. Salesman B attends the same trade show, brings the same pens, and has essentially the same booth, but instead of just handing out the promotional items, he politely asks for a business card in exchange. Once he arrives back at his office, he enters his stack of contact information into his computer – along with notes on who the potential hot leads may be. Throughout the next year, he tracks what sorts of customers he has gained from the trade show, and he can follow up with his hot leads immediately. He knows exactly how much income his trade show appearance is responsible for. Next year, he can make an informed decision whether the investment is worth it. He also has a gauge by which to determine the next year’s relative success or failure.

Mathews Special Offer Example

There are so many ways to gather information on your promotional marketing campaigns. If you run a store front, you could offer a promotional item as an incentive with a purchase of a particular item. You can then track your sales throughout the promotion, and compare it to recent sales data to determine the relative profitability of the promotion. If it is successful, run it again at a later date. If not, scrap the idea and try something new.

Reward your customers for completing a survey. You will get more respondents, plus you’ll get valuable data about how you are perceived by your customers. You’ll also get feedback on how to better serve your clients and improve retention rates.

Getting more from your promotional marketing initiatives isn’t difficult, it just takes a little more planning on the front end. Plan for some way to achieve a measurable result, and set goals for the promotion. When it comes time to make a decision on what sort of promotion to run next, you’ll have reliable data to help you create a more successful campaign. To learn more about capturing customer data during your next promotion, contact Powertex. Give us a call today at (800) 588-7111, or email us a customerservice@powertexgroup.com. Visit us at: http://www.powertexgroup.com.