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.

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.

Every medium to large sized business has employee promotional merchandise needs. Branded jackets, pens, pencils, coffee mugs, etc. are commonly used promotional items and are usually easy to find and purchase. However, when it comes to processing payments, managing inventories, and distributing these items to your employees and clientele, it can easily turn into a headache for the program administrators. Even worse, promotional items can, through inefficiency, turn into a significant cost center. Visit us at: http://www.powertexgroup.com.

Vendor Managed Promotional Items

Fortunately, there are vendor managed online store models that can help mitigate these costs while saving your team members money on the branded merchandise.

How it works:

Every business is different, which is why every vendor managed inventory program will have a slightly different structure. Powertex manages several larger merchandise distribution programs like these. Although they each have different specifics, there are a number of commonalities in each.

In a vendor managed program, a company that specializes in employee promotional items would help you to: build and maintain the online store, identify employee promotional item needs, source the correct branded items, warehouse, manage the inventory, merchandise and market the items via an online store, and distribute the merchandise. Employees would be able to visit a website, enter their order, pay via the approved payment methods, and get the merchandise delivered either to their distribution centers or the client’s homes.

The Benefits:

1. Increased efficiency: The process of ordering items, merchandising the products, and managing the inventory is more automated and happens without any effort on the part of the organization. Administration needs to take no action other to help define what kind of merchandise is available as online reports continually update merchandise available and the built in Min/Max levels trigger automatic reorders as needed. This leads to a more easily managed order fulfillment process, resulting in decreased delivery times.
2. Decreased costs: Once the website is built and populated, order fulfillment goes smoothly within the framework of the provider. Companies like Powertex have the infrastructure to deal with cost-effectively managing the online order and fulfillment process. Plus, marketing costs can be reduced due to a diminished need for printed materials.Plus, the ability of a provider to coordinate spot-buys, leverage vendor relationships(domestic and abroad), and gain access to overseas production facilities can lead to decrease in the cost of the promotional items themselves.
3. More flexibility: The online platform offers a number of options to cost effectively utilize your program to its fullest extent. One example is the ability to set up electronic gift certificates for your employees. You can reward your employees or give a holiday gift as easily as entering a few online gift certificate codes and sending them out in an email. Your employees can then redeem the coupon online for their favorite branded merchandise with ease.
4. Increased support: From customer support to coordinated email campaigns, a company like Powertex can make sure you have all the resources you need to ensure a successful program. Since your vendor company has a vested interest in helping you sell your branded promotional items, you can rest assured that they will assist you in any way they can.
5. Total transparency: Powertex designs their programs so that their involvement is, as much as possible, invisible to the end user. The goal of this type of program is to build your program, not your vendor’s. From the design of the promotional materials to the packaging, an effort is made to promote the program as YOUR program.

Proper distribution is critical to program success

Online merchandising programs are designed to make corporate branded promotional item distribution as simple and efficient as possible. By utilizing an online store as the primary distribution interface, your company can reduce costs and have a more timely, up-to date catalog for its employees. By having one central order and distribution point, your company can drastically reduce its labor commitment to what otherwise may be a time-consuming and logistically complex program.

If you are interested in building an online employee merchandise distribution program, call Powertex. We can help you build, implement, and maintain your online promotional program. Give us a call today at (800) 588-7111, or email us at: customerservice@powertexgroup.com. Click here to learn more, and here to see some of the other online stores we manage.

Taking a look at what sorts of marketing strategies are right for you:

Powertex Blog

A lot has been written lately about the so-called modern day marketing methods. Blogs, social media, forums, email marketing, search engine marketing, etc. are all changing the face of promotional marketing so fast that it can make your head spin. There are promotional marketing firms that acclaim these new methods as the be-all-end-all solution to the marketing question. However, when you look at it, there is something to be said for the tried and true methods that have just plain worked for decades.

Each business has it’s own unique set of needs from a marketing perspective. What works well for one business can be the kiss of death for another. One thing, however, remains true throughout every industry: there is no substitute for a personal touch and positive word-of-mouth. In fact, in many industries, a majority of client contacts result from direct personal contact or referrals.

What does this mean? Primarily it means that, while electronic marketing solutions can and most certainly SHOULD be used, all alone they are still no substitute for the value of tried and true old-school methods. The value of sending a mass email, for example, can’t possibly compare to sending your client a personalized gift.

There is an important reason that Trade Shows still exist, and are important factors in the promotional marketing world today. There is little substitute for the face-to-face contact that these events offer. When you attend a trade show, and present a prospective client with a unique promotional item that will help to emblazon your name into their memory, it shows the power of building personal relationships between businesses.

Sample Promotional Items

Does this mean you should ignore high-tech marketing solutions? Absolutely not. They are an important method of promotional marketing. Often times they are a great way to cost-effectively communicate with your current or prospective client base. Having a well-tuned website, for example, is absolutely essential in introducing yourself to prospective clients. Many companies use modern marketing methods to near perfection, and see great benefits to doing so.

To be truly successful in the modern promotional marketing sphere, you need to embrace the old and the new. Often times, the best marketing programs combine the old with the new. The low-cost high speed modern methods have their place in making and keeping “touches” with your prospective clients, but at the end of the day, it’s the “personal touch” of tried-and-true marketing methods that cement relationships and grow businesses.

To learn more about what marketing methods are right for your company, contact Powertex. We can help you develop programs that will help you meet your marketing needs and grow your business. Give us a call today at (800) 588-7111, or email us at customerservice@powertexgroup.com. Visit us at: http://www.powertexgroup.com.

Keep up on new technology trends or risk being left behind.

Powertex Group Home Page

Business and technology move quickly, which is why it is important to occasionally take a moment to gain perspective how far things have come, and where they are going. The last several years have seen a drastic shift in available mainstream technologies as well as applications for those technologies. We have seen advances in a variety of areas such as cell phones, social networking, miniaturization, and internet technology amongst other converging technologies. This has led us to a point where we are set to leap into a new generation of marketing techniques and delivery platforms.

Where we’ve been:

Youtube Powertex Page

In the mid-late 1990’s we saw websites and, more importantly, e-commerce websites emerge as a necessity for retail businesses. This caused innovations in search engine technologies, web marketing, web advertising, and affiliate programs that added an extra dimension to business promotion. From the year 2000 to around 2006, there were a few major innovations that changed the marketing game, such as more targeted advertising abilities, better visitor analysis, better e-commerce features, better usability and online merchandising. Blogs also rose to prominence during this period, along with content aggregators (such as Digg and Reddit), pod-casting, online pay-for Mp3 services (such as iTunes), RSS news feeds were popularized, Youtube pioneered user-submitted video, and more ample online news platforms evolved as well. Each of these innovations was game-changing in the sense that they each created massive opportunities for those that were willing and able to integrate those new platforms into their business and marketing model.

Recent developments:

It wasn’t until the last 2 years, however, that we saw the biggest and arguably most important technological innovations since the late 1990’s. There are 5 things that have recently converged to change how we look at not only marketing, but business in general:

1. Cell phones - One of the most immediately impacting developments, the cell phone has yet to reach its full potential. The ubiquity of the Smart phone has made it possible for not only the road warrior, but the average user to be connected 24/7 via email, text message, GPS, and internet browsing. Through recent (and continued) innovations in processors, batteries, motion-gesture technology, touch screens, 3G wireless access, and new interface technologies, the smart phone is set to possibly replace the computer as the primary source of internet access. The smaller screens and unique limitations as well as opportunities that smart phones provide will continue to drive a whole new marketing methodology in the near future.

2. Social Media - Probably the single most important development with regards to marketing, social media has changed how people interact with the web. No longer is the web a place where

Facebook Powertex Group Page

only tech-savvy people can participate,but it is something where everyone can share their thoughts. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Twitter are critical new platforms to watch, as they are incredibly successful, and have not yet even matured as market delivery platforms. Do yourself a favor, if you haven’t already, get involved with these platforms, and at least be sure you understand how they work. People are getting networked and connected like never before, and you can’t afford to be left behind.

3. GPS - GPS has been around for a long time already, but has never really been a major market factor until the last couple years. GPS usage in driving and navigation has jumped in the last few years, and has become more of a factor in where people go for dinner, where they stop for gas, and which routes they take to get there. Not only that, but GPS mapping has become more and more tied into the internet, and social media in particular. In the near future we will begin to see the real capabilities of GPS from being able to geo-tag photos of people you know, to being able to provide a visitor coupon based on their geo-position in relation to their nearest restaurant.

4. Search Technology - We have yet to see the full impact of this convergent marketing technology, but there are new developments in the Search Engine world that will revolutionize t

Wolphram Alpha Search Engine

his area by finally realizing the dream of a more “semantic” web. These technologies will take human-style queries and return useable information. The recent release of a project code-named “Wolfram Alpha” has demonstrated just how far these technologies have advanced. For instance, in the Wolfram Engine, should you ask it for “Champaign, IL county retail sales” it won’t return a page with links to web pages, rather it will scour the web for raw data. It will then pull that data together, repackage it, and put it into a human-useable format. In this instance, it will tell you a dollar amount, generate a chart with last year’s retail sale in the county by month, show you the 1-year maximum sales for the county as well as the minimum, display various currency conversions for the amount provided, as well as provide the breakdown of those sales by wholesale, retail, service, and manufacturing. Never before have such capabilities been available, and it will be in the next few years that we will finally be able to realize the full potential of these new web search advances.

5. Computers and the Web as a Total Media Delivery Platform -

Hulu Media Delivery Platform

For the first time in its history, the web, through services like Netflix’s video-on-demand service, Hulu.com, Joost, and MTV.com, has become a total media delivery platform. More and more computers are making their way to the living room, and the line between a computer and an entertainment center is becoming more and more blurred. This is causing the death of traditional media such as cable and news media outlets. Look for more and more opportunities for aggressive marketing in these areas as these technologies mature.

What it means for you:

What this all means for you is that, for better or for worse, there is a marketing and technology revolution going on that, once finished, will see major changes in not only how your business approaches promotional marketing, but in how it operates. There will be big winners, and there will be big losers by the time this all shakes out, and it will be up to your organization how well it adapts to these new opportunities. No one knows exactly where each of the above technologies will end up as of yet, but one thing is for sure: the future is happing now.

As an industry leader in promotional marketing, Powertex Group is dedicated to ensuring that we are always on the cutting edge of developing technologies. We strive to make ourselves leaders in all aspects of marketing, which is why we have such value to our promotional partners. To learn more about how these upcoming technologies can impact your promotional marketing efforts, give us a call today at (800) 588-7111. Email us at customerservice@powertexgroup.com. Visit us at: http://www.powertexgroup.com.