A Refreshing Power Source

ECO Friendly Promotional Gifts are the fastest growing sector of my industry, with more and more innovative  gifts coming onto the market almost every week.  For many of my customers, the challenge they are seeking with a promotional gift is to get it onto the desk of their target market, and I do mean ‘onto the desk’. With more and more companies having a ‘clear desk’ policy, and even where they don’t, getting it onto an already ‘busy’ desk, is no easy matter.

Water Powered Calculator

That’s why clever ideas like this will give you an edge. This is a clever solution to the ECO warrior’s mantra of ‘how to eliminate those nasty cell batteries’. Its an ECO friendly water powered calculator. Fill the reservoir with ordinary tap water, give it all a good shake, and hey presto…. you have electrical energy. So now, we have a desktop gift, a calculator no less, that would look good on anyone’s desk, and which is a useful object to have in any office, but which also carries the message about your environmental policy….. I reckon that even if your customer has already got a calculator, and there’s a good chance they will have, that this neat device will still be picked up and used (just to see how it works), and will be kept for years to come.

Any promotional gift that is kept, and is used, keeps reinforcing your brand, logo or message, on a daily basis, giving you an amazing return on investment

A Keepsake That Keeps Bags safe

Every once in a while I see a promotional gift that makes me smile and think about ‘how’ it can be used to best effect.

The Handbag Hanger

This particular item is wonderful and tactile, it practically asks you to pick it up. So what exactly is it, what does it do, and how could a business owner use it as a promotional gift to bring in additional revenue?

I call it ‘The Handbag Butler‘, but you could also call it the handbag hanger, as it unravels to reveal itself as a ‘hook’ that you can suspend from your table whilst dining or drinking, and allows you to keep your handbag where you can see it, right by your side. think about that for a moment. Instead of simply placing your bag on the floor, out of sight, and at risk of having drinks spilt on it, or worse, hanging it over the back of your chair, you now have an instant remedy, that you keep in your handbag, ready for any time you need to use it.

The Handbag Butler

I can see this being a smart choice, not just for bar owners, cafe owners or restaurateurs, for them its almost obvious isn’t it, here’s a little gift for you to keep and remember your enjoyable stay at our hosteliery… no, I think this would be great for businesses thinking outside the box. Who would ‘use’ this device? Well that’s a great question, as if you get this wrong, you’d be appealing to the wrong market for your business. So, does your business appeal to the sort of demographic that’ll use this device? Mmmmm lets see:

• Female
• Old enough to be drinking
• Smart/funky/savvy

So, lets see, what kind of business needs to be remembered by a potential audience like that?

Here at RT Promotions we just love it when a client hits all the buttons and gets their promotional activity spot on.

Taking Care Of Your Clients

Here in the UK we have been having what most people would call a ‘cold snap’… of course, any chance to make a drama out of a crisis, and us Brits jump in feet first… the country simply doesn’t cope with these weather conditions which is laughable.

Car in need of an icescraper

Talking of laughable, this image caught my eye, and the story that goes with it is just plain scary.

It seems that an elderly woman drove into town with her windscreen still covered in snow and ice with just a tiny little viewing window cleared for her. The photo was taken by a member of the public.

The local police p[aid her a visit to ‘give advice’. I’d have loved to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation!!!

The best bit though, in my opinion, was that the police then gave her an ice scraper. I hope it was branded!!!

I’ve always thought that a promotional ice scraper is a smart promotional gift. Yes, it’s likely to only be in use for a few months of the year here in the UK, but I think the period of time it will be kept in the car will be measured in years!!! just think about the sorts of businesses that could link their products or services to an ice scraper…… go on…. think about it. What company would you link, and what message would you put on the ice scraper?

My suggestion would be an optician. The message could be: ‘Insert company name here… clearly the best choice for quality glasses’

Tell me your suggestions, and I’ll give a free gift to the best suggestion.

The Promotional Pen That KILLS Bacteria

Could this promotional pen be the ‘must have’ corporate pen of 2010? A pen that kills 99% of the bacteria it comes into contact with?

The BUG killing promotional pen

Amazing, but true, this new-to-the-market promotional pen has been two years in development and has some amazing properties that have been tested to all manner of technical standards. Take a look at the Living Pen data sheet to see what I mean.

When you consider how many owners the average pen has in it’s lifetime (I am advised it’s five), and then when you consider people simply borrowing your pen to jot something down, it stands to reason that the typical pen could be something of a haven for germs. The ‘Living Pen’ can eliminate all that, and yet still look and perform as a regular promotional pen should.

Can you imagine all the businesses that would want to associate themselves with a clean pen? A bug killing pen? I think the Living Pen could be this years next big thing in the promotional and corporate gifts sector.

2009’s Most Effective Promotional Gift

It’s the last day of the year, and in my rush to get things done ahead of the evenings celebrations I made some time to reflect on the past year and in particular, what for me has been the most effective promotional gift of 2009.

Syringe Shaped Highlighter and Pen

The best thing about running a promotional and corporate gifts company is that you get to see loads of ‘fun’ and interesting goods, and we see LOADS. Now, unfortunately, that means we get to see some real stinkers, things that should never have left the drawing board (more of that another day), but we also get to see the winners.

2009 has seen some suprising and unusual successes, but for me, the winner has to be this Syringe Shaped Highlighter and Pen. I liked it so much I had a thousand printed with our company logo and telephone number on, and we use it as a promotional giveaway for our business, RT Promotions, giving them to anyone and everyone we meet. They go down a storm at networking events.

 Why would a promotional gift company use a pen that would seem to be linked to drugs? Easy, we want to stand out from the crowd and be remembered. If we gave an ‘ordinary’ giveaway, I think you can guess what would happen to most of them. 

This little dual-purpose pen/highlighter has been an amazing success for us, often from the most unexpected sources, and all because we selected a giveaway that would be hard to put away. These pens are begging to be used and talked about, and that’s what I call ‘Memory Hook Marketing’!!! 

To my mind, this is the perfect promotional gift for medical conferences, or surgical conferences, but could equally be linked to any company, business or service that ‘could give you a BOOST’.

Car Number Plates

My business, RT Promotions, has regular dealings with car traders. You know, the folk who sell used cars!!!! Well, a common problem they have is that the original seller, the garage where they started out their life, usually brands the car’s number plates, (sometimes referred to as registration plates or tags), with their logo, telephone number and even their website. It’s only branded discretely, usually a small print along the top line of the plate, but thats not the point. It’s advertising a competitor.

So, what’s the solution?

Well, there’s only two things you can do. Either manufacture two brand new number plates, simply to obliterate the competitors name, not exactly a low-cost option.

Or……

My company offers a simple ultra-thin sticker solution.We call them ‘number plate over-stickers‘ and they are sold in packs, so you have a white reflective tape for the forward facing number plate, and a yellow reflective sticker for the rear plate. Your logo, brand, and other details are printed onto the strips, and you simply stick them over your competitors branding.

Once again, these simple ideas are all part of a strategy that we call ‘Memory Hook Marketing’, whereby you are continually seeking out ways to remind customers or potential customers of your company.

ECO Friendly Battery Charger

Do you ever find yourself running out of power on one of your mobile devices, and with no mains power to hand to do a charge up?

Well maybe this neat little device is the sort of thing you need to have.

Solar Energy Charger

With a sleek, techie design, this rather nice Solar Energy Charger harvests the energy from the sun, and then charges up your mobile device. No matter where you are in the world, as long as you can get some solar energy, you can keep the power going. If you think this is a smart idea, consider the power of using something like this as a promotional gift. Not only is it a desirable object, but it carries with it some serious ECO Friendly status, that maybe you can link to your corporate or company message.

Perhaps you run a company that could use any of the following messages to link yourself to a product like this:

“We have the power and the solution”
“There for you, whenever you need us”
“Helping the planet, helping our clients”

Do Newsletters Work?

I’ve always thought you can get on clients nerves if you don’t find the right balance with ‘Newsletters’. Too often or too salesy will have the opposite of your intended effect.

 

RT Promotions Mini Cooper

So where’s the line?
What’s too often?
What’s ‘too salesy’, and how are you meant to promote your product or services if you don’t announce it?

I’ll cut to the chase here. I don’t have a fixed answer. It will depend on quite a few variables including:
Your current relationship with the recipient
The style and language you use in your newsletter

My simple little point here is that although my business, RT Promotions, sends out infrequent newsletters, one of the best responses I’ve ever had was to the simple news I sent out a few days ago, simply telling folk we’d moved offices.

Go figure!!!!

How Memorable Are You?

How often do you get back to the office after attending a networking event, empty out your pockets, look at the business cards you’ve collected, and then think, “who was that person?”

We’ve all done it haven’t we? Maybe not quite as soon after the event as I’ve just described, but we’ve all looked at a business card and then thought, “did I actually meet this person?”

Steve Trister

Take a look at this card. Not exactly memorable is it? it’s a plain white card, with a simple black font. I’ve seen simple cards that are classy, but this isn’t even that. It looks like it’s been printed in one of those DIY machines you see in motorway service areas.
However, there’s a big BUT.
There’s a twist.

Not All Promo Gifts Are Equal

I came across a promotional gift that I simply had to have. Me? the guy that can have pretty much any corporate giveaway I choose? The man that’s seen so many gifts that its going to take something pretty special to get me to even slow down, let alone want one. What kind of gift would do that?