Part One: Promotional Products Should Produce Results

Early in my career when I first hired an advertising agency and began to evaluate the power of advertising, there were many advertising agents and space sellers who would boldly declare, "You just have to try stuff and see what works." There are two profound questions in that statement:

#1. Do our customers, the advertisers, assume that we are clueless about what works?

#2. Is anyone in their organization tracking results to determine what works for them?

If our customers assume that we don't know what works, it would be because our industry has not been providing them with trained professionals who have education, training, and experience in what works. To the extent this is true of you, the deficiency can be made up with this blog, other free resources on the web and in the public library, coursework at local colleges, and mentoring from more seasoned sales people. In some cases, your supplier may have folks on staff (as we do) who can provide professional consulting with regard to pinpointing products and approaches that have the greatest likelihood of success in any given promotion.

However, before even a seasoned expert can provide solid advice, there needs to be a set of criteria clearly laid out as to objectives, budgets, logistics, end user profile, and the context into which the promotion fits. I can't begin to tell you how often I speak with salespeople, even owners, in this business who don't know much, if anything, about these criteria. A distributor's client called and asked for a quote on 1000 bottles, so the distributor is now calling me to get the quote. What if the bottle they are asking to be quoted is totally wrong for the user they are trying to reach? The results in such a case, can turn out to actually hurt the image of the company, rather than enhancing it.

Here are the primary questions you should be asking:

1. What is the demographic of the end user? Age, sex, lifestyle, occupation, hobbies, family size, education level, etc.

2. What is the way in which the specialty item will be used? Give-Away - trade show, school or similar; part of package deal, prize (for what?), "thank you" for donation, motivator, leave-behind for sales, mailing, etc.

3. What product, service, or other reason is the item being used to create action? What action is desired?

4. Is the desired action more likely to occur due to one viewing of the message? Or is there an advantage to many viewings over time?

5. What is the budget per end user? Total budget?

6. How many end users must be served?

7. What is the overall marketing plan regarding the message or the product being promoted?

8. When is the product needed?

9. Are there any items which the client prefers or will dismiss out-of-hand?

Julie Papadis says

*Randy, I think you should put "scissor" cut out lines around this, so one can cut out, laminate and tape to desk, monitor etc. These questions alone
would lift the image of our industry from one of "used car salesman" to "educated marketing diva," in my case, or "educated marketing agent." We would become a key member of their marketing team instead of the "purveyor of woogets, gidgets and more."

Upon asking these questions 90% of the buyers will be impressed that you asked - 10% will be annoyed. But you will gain three huge benefits from asking them:

1. Those who are impressed will now think of you as a marketing resource, not just a swag salesman.

2. You will gain information that will help you with the overall company strategy that might open doors to future opportunities.

3. Most importantly, you will have clear criteria for making excellent recommendations through your own knowledge and experience and by gathering ideas from those whom you trust.

Next: Is Anyone Tracking The Results