Promotional Items Sales Increase for 3rd Straight Year

A new report from Promotional Products Association International shows that in 2012 promotional
product sales volume has increased 4.38% over 2011. That's a total of 18 billion in sales volume for 2012. This is now the third year in a row that promo product sales volume has increased, and online sales of promotional gifts has increased by 20%. The biggest selling products are apparel (28.9%), followed by bags (8.7%), writing instruments (8.6%) and finally mugs and glasses (7.1%).

Despite the economic downturn and an increased reliance on digital marketing, promotional products are still going strong. It's funny, as it's one of the oldest marketing tactics around and yet, if sales volume over the past few years is any indication, promo products continue to be an effective way to increase brand awareness and earn new customers. The increasing number of online sales only further indicates that promotional products have been able to adapt to a new digital marketing world.

While just about every other tactic has been declared "dead" at some point (everything from print advertising to SEO and e-mail) promotional products seem to be immune to these claims thanks to the versatility of the products. When you have literally thousands of gifts to choose from and they can be customized in a wide variety of ways, there's always a way to create an effective promotional product campaign (plus, giving away gifts for free also helps!).

The categories of best selling products also delivers some interesting insights as well. Apparel is by far the most popular, which comes as no surprise. Think about your own collection of t-shirts and hats- How many of them are promotional giveaways? Customized t-shirts and hats are unique in that they can be used as both giveaways to create brand awareness or as uniforms for employees or team members. Tote bags comes in second, just barely beating out writing instruments by a fraction. Tote bags, apparel and writing instruments are popular as they all are used frequently, and are often times seen by many different people. That kind of exposure makes promotional products so unique. Of course, as I like to say, these numbers are encouraging but the only way to know if promotional products will work for your business is to try them yourself. Visit Our promo product catalog and see what we can do for you!