Promotional Product Dos and Don'ts

Custom promotional products offer a limitless array of possibilities. But just because you can put your logo on almost anything, doesn't mean you should. Nor  does it mean that that patricular promotional item is right for your business, or your audience. Whether you're a promotional product newbie or you're just looking for a refresher course, here's a few dos and don'ts for using promotional products for your business.

• Don't Forgo Quality over Quantity: Just because you can get 100,000 pieces of product X for the same cost as 75,000 pieces of product Y, doesn't mean X is the better investment. Your gift needs to be a quality item that the recipient will hold on to for a long time. The higher the quality the more likely they are to use it. Which can mean years of brand exposure for your business.
• Do Understand Your Audience: Think about your customers (or potential customers) and choose a product based on what they like. Do you cater to families? Are most of your customers women? After you've got a thorough outline of who your audience is, choose a product that is right for this audience. This will mean most of your products will go to those most likely to turn in to customers, and not to the ones just looking for freebies.
• Don't go For Apparel That Isn't One Size Fits All: That's part of the problem of giving away products like t-shirts. Usually all the Larges dissapear almost immediately, then you're stuck with a bunch of extra smalls of XXLs that no one wants.
• Do Consider Child Safe Gifts: Speaking of knowing your audience- If you're catering to families make sure your custom gifts aren't a choking hazard or something where a kid could hurt themselves. First and foremost it's the right thing to do and secondly, it's bad press that no one wants for their business.
• Don't Get Too Specific: You want to cater to your audience, but you also don't want to alienate certain segments of that audience. For instance, If you're giving out promo items in December, don't focus on just 1 holiday. I would recommend trying to avoid things that exclude based on religion, political beliefs or ethnicities (unless your business exclusively targets one of these groups, then by all means).
• Do Stay Within Your Budget: Promotional products are one of the most affordable ways you can create brand awareness, but you want to make sure that you stay within your budget. Start by first setting the budget, then from there create your campaign.
• Don't Forget Your Contact Info: The entire reason why you're creating promotional products is to generate more business! And yet I've actually seen promotional products that forget to include the company's website and/or phone number. Remember to give the recipient every opportunity to contact you.