Does your company giveaway make your customers smile?

When consulting with my customers on promotional products, their uses, and how to ensure they are used effectively to get your marketing message across, I am often asked, ”What is the right product for us”. Holy grail and length of pieces of string come to mind. There’s lots of questions I’d like them to consider before I can answer in a meaningful way, but lets keep it simple and go for just three shall we? What are you attempting to achieve? Who is your target? What is your compelling message? That should do it, and then maybe we wil be able to make a considered decision. I was reading an article by a marketing consultant (in Australia) and whilst I found her opinions interesting, I felt she had missed the point. In my experience, it’s not about the product, it’s about the SMILE factor. What do I mean by smile factor? Well, if for example we are considering using a pen as a promotional gift, then you might be suprised to hear that almost everyone I’ve ever dealt with doesn’t make their decision on price. They want to touch, hold, and write with the pen…then, when they have a pen that feels right, the biggest factor for them will be COLOUR. In fact, as much as 50% of my pen purchases are made on colour alone. Pens account for over 50% (by volume) of the promotional gifts market, and a typical pen, has an average of over five owners in its lifetime. Smart thinkers will use these statistics in their strategy, actually planning to lose their pens!!Have a look in your pocket, bag, pen pot…how many “stolen” pens do you have?