When developing your company’s promotional programs, it is always important to consider just how they will be implemented, who will do the implementing, and what the benefits of each of your options option would be. Of course, each organization is differently structured, has different specializations, and has a different infrastructure; but in general, it usually ends up being far better for an organization to partner with a quality promotional marketing company than to try to build it on their own. This is due to the three primary benefits that a qualified promotional marketing company can bring to the table: more competitive pricing, higher efficiencies due to optimized infrastructure, and greater flexibility.

Promotional partners use volume to leverage pricing.

More Competitive Pricing – One thing your promotional products company brings to the table right away is something critical to providing the highest value possible; volume. A high-end promotional partner will typically push hundreds of times the volume annually through its supplier when compared against an individual company. The promotional company is then able to leverage that volume to negotiate much better pricing than an outside organization could ever hope to. A good supplier will also have developed long-term relationships with worldwide sourcing partners in order to provide high quality goods at extremely competitive rates. Overseas and domestic relationships can be hard to develop, and even harder to maintain for an individual organization.

One of the reasons our organization has been so successful over the years is that we have been able to offer full scale self-supporting, or even profitable, value-added programs for far cheaper than our clients can. This is simply because our organization has both the volume and the advantage of being able to maximize our economies of scale in regards to our extra value-added services. The bottom line is, due to our highly specialized service platform, we can typically offer higher quality services for less when compared with going it alone.

Your promotional partner should have an optimized program infrastructure.

Higher Efficiencies Due to Optimized Infrastructure – Most companies are good at what they do, but then again most companies aren’t promotional products companies either. With a qualified promotional partner, you can rely on their finely-honed suite of value-added services and the infrastructure that goes along with that. From product sourcing to design, to warehousing and fulfillment, most companies simply aren’t equipped to cost-effectively build the infrastructure necessary to manage a large scale program. The complexities increase even further when you include other high-end services such as custom e-commerce, program marketing, and customer support. Chances are, to build the program from scratch and fund it; you will spend more than it is worth.

In addition to the costs of building a program, there is the cost of managing a program. A good promotional program will be able to offer dedicated in-house support staff to handle things like customer service, program accounting, and technical support for all of your programs. Your partner should also be able to offer tools that make your part easier and more efficient: specialized reports, online program management, custom program support systems, etc… The daily cost of managing and supporting your promotional program can quickly spiral out of control if you are not careful. A quality promotional marketing partner can help absorb or even eliminate those costs.

Your promotional program partners will provide more options for your programs.

Greater Flexibility – Promotional needs change over time, and your promotional programs will need to adapt as well. In other words, what works well today may need to reverse course tomorrow. Your organization will need to change with the times, and you can avoid throwing away your carefully earned investment dollars by going with a partner who has the flexibility to adapt to you needs in a cost-effective way. Chances are, if you have a promotional program need, your promotional partner has ideas and solutions ready to implement to help you reach your goals. Typically they can have these solutions ready to deploy quicker and more efficiently than by starting from scratch.

It should also be noted that the promotional product industry itself changes rapidly as well. Something that was impossible yesterday may be a simple matter today. Most organizations don’t have the time to follow new developments as they arrive. For organizations like Powertex Group, keeping current on promotional trends is not only helpful, but vital to our ability to remain competitive in our market. With a solid promotional partner, you can be sure to get feedback on new program ideas, new products, as well as new business-enhancing techniques involving promotional marketing.

It is important to consider that there are always exceptions to the rule. For example, at Powertex Group, we have several trucking companies that we service. Distribution is what they do, and they can definitely do it competitively. In these cases, Powertex Group provides a whole range of value-added services while working with these partners to utilize their pre-existing distribution channels. The most important part to remember is that your organization is unique; your solutions should be as well. That is why you need a partner who is able to maximize promotional program value while working within your specific environment.

For more information on how a quality promotional supplier can help you, 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.

Powertex is always adjusting to our clients' needs

Connecting with our clients to learn more about their needs.

It’s no secret that the last year has brought significant changes to the promotional products industry. Many in our industry have found that it is no longer enough to simply offer competitively priced products. In order to compete, a company now HAS to offer a complete service platform to survive. They have come to understand that each client is unique, and so should be their solutions.

This is something that we’ve long understood at Powertex Group, and it is part of the reason why we have been able to remain strong despite the current economic crisis. In fact, we feel that we have gained valuable insights and been able to take advantage of the last year to position ourselves for significant continued success throughout 2010.

We asked a cross-section of our customers for help

That however, is not enough to ensure long term growth. We have to continue to drive innovation not only this year, but next year and beyond.  It is in that spirit that we recently reached out to a cross-section of our clientele to ask them their opinions on what they currently are pleased with, where we offer value, and where we can potentially raise our service level to meet our client’s needs. I would like to point out, before we go any further, that while it is impossible to conduct interviews with each an every single client on our list, we are leaving this informal customer survey open to all. If you have feedback that you feel strongly about, or you have service and platform suggestions, please call us or email our customer service desk (information at the end of this article) to give us you thoughts. We want your feedback, and would love to discuss your ideas. The whole point of this process is to be able to better provide a more comprehensive service platform for our clients.

The following interview questions were asked of our clients. We have provided summaries of the responses provided, as well as a synopsis of what it means for us.

In your opinion, what services/products that we provide offer the most value to your organization?

We were very honored to have, throughout the course of our survey process, to hear our clients mention nearly every single department at least once. From accounting to production we had someone show appreciation for just about all aspects of our business. There were, however, several things that rose above the rest: distribution and fulfillment, e-commerce, understanding of our client’s corporate environment, and our creative team.

It was good to know that many of our clients see us in very much the same light that we see ourselves. We view these things as our real separators within our industry, and in the end, there were few surprises here.

What competitor’s services/products provide better value than what is offered by Powertex? Why are they better for your organization?

There were lots of suggestions for more e-commerce and customization options

There were a lot of different suggestions, but what it boils down to is the following areas were mentioned the most: More on-demand production (pointing to direct-print competitors), Several E-Commerce features that are offered in the marketplace that we should look at (especially at the entry level), better call center (dealer relations) integrations, more creative product ideas at better prices, more name brand options, and more international marketing/distribution options.

The good thing about this list: 5 out of 6 of them have some solutions being developed, tested, or are ready to launch this year. You can bet we’ll be revisiting each of these near-term, and we are already discussing the remaining item on the list. More to come on our solutions as we get closer to wrapping them up and rolling them out.

Are there ways in which we can further save you valuable time in terms of our business relationship?

Some suggestions were for more timely, comprehensive reporting.

We didn’t get a lot of feedback on this question. What we did get broke down for the most part, in the following two suggestions:  better and more timely sales/information reporting (i.e. sales data-item breakdowns etc.), and a greater selection of sure ship items (i.e. items available within 48 hours to 10 days of order).

We are always looking to get better and more timely information to our clients, and we are currently researching create a client dashboard of sorts, where clients of all types can log in to take the pulse of their programs in real-time. As far as the sure-ship items, we just released our new ’10 catalog this week, and we will be revisiting that soon, due to its popularity.

If you could change one thing about our business relationship, what would that be?

Our clients asked us to look at better ways to turn inventories and provide even lower pricing

The most common responses to this question were; to look at working out more programs to better turn certain inventoried items, and provide even lower prices.

With regards to the inventory issues and lower prices; those are projects that are ALWAYS in progress. They both require our organization to walk the fine line between flexibility and competitiveness. We are looking into revisiting our sourcing, warehousing, and distribution methods in order to try to develop new solutions for each of these. These are at the core of what we do, and we need to be constantly pushing the envelope one these.

Do you have any ideas on how we can increase the value we provide to your organization through additional products and/or services?

Our clients asked for new international distribution options.

What our clients’ said: Better international shipping/distribution options, improvements in reporting and transparency in billing and shipping, developing a combined platform where we can combine our clients’ vendors with our own offerings (i.e. sell parts, accessories, and branded merchandise from a completely managed platforms), more options for product customization and individual item customization.

What we say: We are on it. Many of these items have already been discussed internally, and several of them are already in progress.  We are not surprised at these entries, because they have come up across many different client types. Most of these were touched on in the feedback above as well, and we see each of these four projects as being key to improving our service levels to our clients.

All in all, there weren’t too many surprises that came up within this survey process. There did result, in our conversations, a lot useful suggestions on HOW BEST to accomplish these needs for our clients. For that, we would like to extend a sincere thank you to all who participated. Your feedback is essential in helping us get better, and remaining competitive in our market. We will be providing updates on where we are with our service offerings throughout the year. There is a lot in store already, and we are looking forward to an exciting 2010.

For those who have other feedback or suggestions for any of the content in this survey, we would be glad to take our feedback as well. We need to know how what we can do to not only provide value, but what we can do to become invaluable. To submit your feedback, please call us at: (800) 588-7111 (and talk to your sales rep), or email us at: customerservice@powertexgroup.com.

Social Media and M-commerce are examples of rising technologies

In a promotional marketing world where change is the name of the game, it is important to keep perspective on what is most important; your brand. It seems each month brings a slew of new techniques, new strategies, and new platforms. Of course, most of these end up either being flash-in-the-pan ideas or not relevant to your particular needs. There is always more work to be done in the promotional marketing world, and it is necessary to keep your ear to the ground for developing trends. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the most important part of any marketing endeavor is to grow your client base and convey a sense of value to your customers. That means always paying attention to the basics, no matter what particular technology or technique you are using.

The basics of promotional marketing are as such: brand identity, brand integrity, and brand value. No matter how your are reaching out to your clients, always be sure to use the medium to convey your message, rather than changing your message to suit the medium. Never sacrifice your brand integrity by communicating just for the sake of communicating.

A video on youtube describes who we are

Brand Identity: The first piece of the promotional marketing trifecta, it can be considered the foundation. The question you need to ask when looking at how best to define your brand identity is a deceptively simple one; “Who am I to my customers?” Before  you send one more promotional email, post one more tweet, or give one more tee shirt away, you need to have the answer to this question.

The complicated part of this question is that, we all know who we are, but do we really know who we are from our clients’ perspectives? Take Cadillac for example. From one perspective, they are a producer of luxury vehicles. They handle the sourcing, production, delivery of these vehicles, and maintain complex dealer relationships across the country. Another definition of Cadillac is a creator of, as their latest commercial puts it; “reinvented, re-imagined, re-inspired” vehicles that  “reignite the soul”. Which definition do you think is more relevant to their customer? It is obvious marketing speak, but the important things are there: “reinvented, re-imagined, and re-inspired” speak to not only the new and modern design characteristics, but also references the long Cadillac history and existing brand reputation. Reigniting the soul speaks to the excitement of finding something fresh and new; something invigorating.

The reality is that your customers don’t really need to know about, nor do they really care about 90% of what you do. They are only interested in the parts of your identity that directly affect them. Take care to hone your external identity with this in mind.

Mathews, one of our customers, a company expert at cross-branding and brand integrity

Brand Integrity: This is often one of the most overlooked aspects of consistent branding. With so many different mediums available in the modern marketing world, it can be incredibly difficult to struggle to maintain your brand identity across them all. This can be made much easier however, if you’ve adequately defined the first brand basic, and have a strong, coherent definition of who you are, and who you want to be to your clients.

One of the reasons so many companies have struggled with social media is not because it is so new, but because it offers a platform that is generally outside the realm of total control. Once you place your message out there, you have lost complete control of it contextually. This is something many brands have struggled with, while others have been able to thrive. Why? Because many brands have been able to successfully maintain their brand integrity while encouraging and embracing the communal nature of social media. Those that have not been able to bring their message along with them, however, have struggled in communicating directly with their audience. Not having a strong company definition, combined with not being able to properly communicate value to their customers across platforms, has led some organizations to struggle in modern marketing arenas.

Strong brand integrity is crucial in developing a cohesive branding platform. Again, be sure never to mold your message to your platform, but mold the platform to your message. Use your assets correctly, and you can build a strong, cohesive platform for promotion.

The Carbon Signature Series is an excellent example of communicating brand value

Brand Value: When engaging your audience, always consider the value that you provide. This is not to be interpreted as an excuse to SELL, SELL, SELL to your customers. It is more a reminder that your customers (and potential customers) derive value from your goods and/or services. Why would your customer choose your service over someone else? Are you faster in supplying what your clients need? Do you provide a more comprehensive solution? Be sure, when creating your marketing message, that you always keep your perceived value in mind.

In our industry, for example, our customers don’t particularly care that we deal with national and international logistics in sourcing, shipping, and production every day. Nor do they care that we face rapid production deadlines and complex production deadlines every hour of our day. What they care about, and the value we bring, is that we provide hassle-free cost effective customized promotional programs.

When we communicate with our audience, we focus on the value we bring as a provider of solutions, and someone who can help achieve goals. This allows us to more easily engage our customers, since we are talking about things that they care about and that bring value to them.

At the end of the day, you should come back to these three simple concepts: brand identity, brand integrity, and brand value. No matter what your strategy or platform, these three basic ideas should be at the core of your marketing message. To learn more about branding basics, contact our expert staff at (800) 588-7111. Contact us by email at: customerservice@powertexgroup.com

Try Something Different With Eco-Promos :

Bamboo items make excellent eco-friendly gifts

We see it in the news, we read it in the papers. Ecological issues are becoming a concern for just about everybody, and businesses are no different. Businesses across the world are realizing the benefits of implementing environmentally-conscious technologies into their operations. Beyond obviously limiting the impact on our environment, companies are seeing better relations with their customers and even cost advantages in some cases.

The promotional marketing arena is the latest business area to see its share of “green” growth with a boom in eco-friendly promotional products from industry leaders. This trend is quickly gathering steam, and according to industry predictions, will be less of a trend, and more the norm in the near future. Traditionally, only environmental groups requested eco-friendly promos, but now most larger organizations like Volkswagen, Starbucks, and Apple utilize them in some form or another. Some organizations are now making it a requirement that a significant potion of their promos be ecologically friendly. There have even been recent reports in which environmentally-conscious companies are actually returning brochures that are not printed on recycled paper in an effort to promote green ideas across the industry.

Eco-Friendly promotions come in many different shapes, sizes and materials

Many organizations have an interest in raising awareness of ecological concerns, and eco-friendly promotional items are a great way to do it. However, the waters of ecological or green marketing are largely untested, since it is a relatively new concept. There have been, as of yet, very limited industry-wide investigations as to the actual cost/benefit ratio of utilizing green marketing techniques, leaving the quantifiable benefits a somewhat intangible at this point for most. Certain organizations, however, have been able to utilize these techniques to great success, and there a few things you need to consider before going green with your next promotional marketing campaign:

Will my audience place value on the fact that my products are green? Will it be apparent that my program is green-oriented, or will I have to invest in additional education? Does the fact that my promotion is green add value to my brand (or how do environmental issues relate to my brand?).

Depending on the type of promotional products you are ordering, green items can sometimes carry a higher premium. Some items, such as shoulder bags and notepads have very little price difference, while others, like some polos, can vary significantly. Just make sure to talk to a promotional products specialist in the initial planning stages of a promotional marketing campaign with a green theme to understand which types of eco-promos will be most friendly to your budget.

There are many options available, and your representative can help you find competitively priced items for your promotions. Powertex Group can help you to consider the benefits of eco-marketing for your organization, as well as line up a selection of green promos for your next promotion. To learn more on how you can go green, contact Powertex today at: Phone (800) 588-7111 Email: 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.

Promotional gifts are an important tool in: cementing long term business relationships, showing appreciation to your clients, and initiating new client relationships. With literally thousands upon thousands of promotional products available, you can always find a promotional item suited to your needs. The hardest part is knowing what types of promotional items are the best choice for your next initiative.

According to the Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI), the general guidelines listed below are a great place to start in finding the ideal gift for your valued clients.

Promotional Item Examples

Practically Speaking. Want your client to remember you every day? Then give him a gift that he’ll pull out on a daily basis, whether it’s a great pen or a USB port that he can use regularly.

Make It Personal. Show your client you know them. Look to send gifts that reflect your client’s personal interests. Leisman Insurance Agency sends baby presents whenever one of their clients has a child.

Watch the Budget. Some companies still put limits on how expensive a gift their employees can receive ($25 is a common cap). If your client works at one of those firms, you’ll need to watch your gifting budget, but some of the most clever gifts come in way under $30.

Gifts Aren’t Billboards. Yes, you want to get the message across that your company is valuable to your client, but plastering your logo all over a gift to do so may not be the smartest move. Rather than put off your customer with glaring marketing messages, place the decoration subtly.

Promotional Gift Samples

Give Gifts Year Round. Giving gifts during the holidays is nice, but your company might stand out more if you give gifts at other times of the year, such as Valentine’s day or the Fourth of July. Send out corporate gifts in the middle of December and your otherwise memorable item may get lost in the mad gifting shuffle.”

Just remember that if you are going to give a gift, you want it to be one that they will remember, and even better, use often. Gift giving is more than just self promotion, creating a daily top-of-mind presence can go a long ways towards building and maintaining relationships. Before you start your next promotional marketing program, please call Powertex 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.

Summertime is the perfect time of year to focus on event-based promotional marketing.

Golf Outing Event

Summertime is here, and it’s the perfect opportunity to increase your brand awareness through event-based promotional marketing. With all of the summer festivals, sports events, and fairs it’s the best time of the year to use strategic co-branding to grow your brand. Many organizations understand the importance of event-based marketing, but many more totally miss the boat. Below are a few examples of how you can take advantage of summer festivities:

Baseball/Softball Games: If you have a popular baseball or softball league in your area, arrange to give out baseball caps with their logo on it. Then, as a subtle way to brand it, you could have your logo printed in a de-emphasized location like the side or back of the cap. People love to sport their team’s logo, and you can have your brand along for the ride wherever they go.

Golf Outings: Golf events are great for free giveaways. The easiest way to increase the value of your offering is to tie it to an established popular brand. Many popular brands like Nike, Calloway, and Cutter & Buck are available for promotional customization. You could easily get Nike or Max-Flite golf balls branded with your logo. Cutter & Buck windshirts go over well too. Brands like these have a high perceived value, and are much more likely to be well appreciated.

Music Festivals: If you are after a younger demographic, this is a great way to go. Besides the larger music festivals, there are usually countless other outdoor music festivals going on that would really be open to cross-promotion ideas. T-shirts are a staple in this market, but the younger crowd, being more marketing-savvy than most markets really love more subtle trendy items. Things like wristbands, buffs, glow sticks, and nalgene water bottles go over well with music festival goers, and are perfect platforms to showcase your brand.

Charity Sport Event

Charity Sports Events: When planning your targeted event campaigns, don’t forget summer charity sports events. These types of events are the classic triple play of brand awareness. They show: your company’s commitment to the community charities, a commitment to local sports and fitness, and your brand’s leadership in support of causes beyond your own corporate well-being. Sweat bands, t-shirts, and water bottles are staples to this type of event, and are almost guaranteed to be used.

When planning your summer promotions, be sure not to forget events specific to our local events. Just about every town in America has some specific event each year, and they each may draw a different type of demographic that may be suited to you. Consider what events would be best for your brand, and plan accordingly. To learn more about promoting yourself at events, contact Powertex. Give us a call today at (800) 588-7111, or email us at customerservice@powertexgroup.com. Visit us at: http://www.powertexgroup.com.

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.