Distributing promotional items such as pens, paper folders, paperweights, bags, branded stationery, electronic items etc. is a hugely popular way of marketing for some businesses. It would not be that effective, however, if you sent the promotional merchandise to the wrong set of people. If you had customers all over the country – or the world – how would you determine which promotional material you should be sending and to whom? Here are a few tips for you:
Ask them
Sounds pretty obvious, doesn’t it? You’ll be surprised to know that many businesses don’t bother with this seemingly obvious and understandably common step. If you use direct marketing, you could have your customers write, email, call, or respond to a survey so that you know what they like and what they would like to receive from you. You may even use your website (which is by far the quickest way) to have your customers respond to a poll.
Understand them
If, for whatever reason, you are unable to know or gather information from your customers about what kind of promotional items they would like to receive from you, the next best thing to do is to sit down and crunch numbers.
What percentages of your customers are male and female? What are their age groups? What do they like to do when they don’t work? What might be the disposable income of your customer groups, on an average? Once you manage to get some demographic and lifestyle related data pertaining to your customers, you’ll be in a better position to know exactly what kind of promotional items work best for your business.
Learn from best business practices
Sometimes, none of the two points mentioned above will work. Or perhaps you wish to have greater clarity on what kind of promotional items or marketing merchandise work best for your customers. You could add to the information you’ve gathered by checking out the industry’s best practices. It could be possible that you’d know what your competitors distribute to their customers. You’d now have even more information on what seems to work best with customers – in general – within your industry.
What do you know about your customers? Answering that question precisely gives you clarity and a greater chance of connecting with them.
