The Promotional Industry Creates Jobs!

Did you know that the promotional products industry has a positive impact on the U.S. 

economy and contributes by creating jobs? 

Nationally, the promotional products industry is a $20+ billion industry with more than 

33,700 businesses—96 percent of which are small businesses—and almost 500,000 

promotional products professionals.

Here in NC the total distributor sales revenue for 2014-2105 was $340.24 million and 

manufacturers of promotional goods $128.25 million. There were 802 promotional products 

companies creating 5,988 industry jobs and 98% of these businesses are considered Small Business. 

Our industry thrives because promotional products are imprinted items that:

• educate
• recruit
• highlight safety awareness
• support worthy causes
• encourage healthy living & lifestyle choices
• recognize and reward employee achievements and inspire action
• celebrate milestones
• reinforce critical messages
• They are even used when legislation is signed, think about it......

Promotional Products are positively impacting our economy, and Promotional Partners celebrates 9 years in this industry this month as a local and national provider to our clients. 

Top 8 Reasons Promotional Items are Effective!

What are the top ten reasons promotional branding works? 

1- Promotional products work well as a standalone advertising medium or part of an integrated communications campaign.

2- Promotional products are one of the most effective forms of advertising.

3-Promotional products are a multi-sensory advertising medium by adding a message 

to a product turns an ordinary message into a marketing experience an audience 

can smell, taste, see, hear and touch.

4- Promotional products are the most tangible, long-lasting and cost-effective form of advertising.

5- Promotional products impact consumers through a social, intellectual, educational

 and entertaining form or engagement.

6-Promotional products are unique and customization is the KEY!

7-Promotional products are a mainstream form of advertising.

8-Consumers Love Promotional Products!

Promotional Products Work! Week is a celebration by the promotional products industry 

to raise awareness about promotional products as an advertising medium and the benefits

 of working with highly qualified promotional products professionals, such as CAS professional 

Olivia Scott to develop and produce innovative advertising and branding strategies.

 We share this video for some statistical data related to our industry- 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2oKunFwoG1EMGx4MGItMjZKYTA/view?pref=2&pli=1

We hope you join us on May 23rd for our Open House from 9-10:30 where we will have on hand several suppliers with tips and trends you won't want to miss! 

RSVP today to olivia.scott@promotionalpartnersinc.com  

Why Are Promotional Items So Effective?

Did you know?

o Promotional products are a tangible representation of your brand

o Promotional products create surprise and delight

o Promotional products are invited into customers’ places, spaces and hands

o Promotional products impact (buying) decisions

o Promotional products have staying power

o Promotional products are the ultimate opt-in advertisement

o Promotional products are tangible advertisements people own, keep, share

o Promotional products are purpose-driven

o Promotional products complement other marketing forms; inclusion in the media mix

Check in throughout the month of May for stories, data and tips related to how and why promotional advertising can provide your brand results!  

What's your favorite promotion? Why?

Something to Roar About......

If nobody is around to hear you roar, did you actually do it? Effective use of a promotional calendar means you actually plan ahead, so the recipient of these promotions knows you did indeed roar! We also hope they roar with you.

We know life is busy, but engaging employees and top clients means planning strategically. For many planning ahead helps create budget and stay on budget with promotional plans.  

Plan promotions around:

1. A company wide theme

2. To coincide with a new a product or service being implemented

3. To tie into a company sponsored community program 

4. An upcoming benchmark date.

No matter what you select, have fun and be genuine to your company’s core values and image.

When should you start planning?

Decide several months before your next budget year how you will implement key promotional dates. Decide the frequency, the recipient and the reason for the promotion. For example will your promotion be:

·         Monthly, quarterly

·         For all clients, only the top 20%, or for those tied to redemption program designed to increase sales or order size

·         Employees- after internal goals are achieved, monthly for fun, as part of a company wide volunteer effort in the community

Next share your calendar up with your promotional consultant as a year at a glance or at least 3 months ahead so we can look for the best ways to implement that theme and locate new product ideas relevant to your branding.

What’s coming up?

June is National Zoo and Aquarium Month. Perhaps plan a day trip for employees to the NC Zoo, buy zoo tickets to give away to your top clients or provide travel tips and a schedule of activities on your company blog for families planning a trip to the zoo. For employee fun, who’s game to allow departments to “re-naming” themselves by species?

Additionally, June is also National Ocean’s Month which offers an opportunity to tie to conservation and Eco-friendly themes for your company or your company's recycling efforts.  Men’s health month is great for companies that provide sports, health and fitness services in addition to wellness program initiatives or water sport safety tips.

Specific dates to consider:

June 1- National Running Day-

June 5- National Cancer Survivors Day

June 14- World Blood Donor Day

June 21- Go Stake Boarding Day and in Apex- you can check out the new skateboard plaza; https://www.apexnc.org/485/Trackside-Skate-Plaza

Make sure to wear your helmet and pads!

Use your imagination! Ask us for ways to be relevant to ways to tie into your brand message and don’t for get to share your success with us as photos and stories!

Top 5 Tips for Better Results at Tradeshow

Interaction and follow up with attendees is critical at a trade show, but where do you invest money to get the greatest ROI?

• Product selection- if your message is adaptable, does your product give away have properties that suggest mobility, agility, flexibility, transformation? Are you a "solid, stable" company that offers your clients the ability to grow? Box shaped products and themes play on building blocks associated with growing upward on a stable base.  
  
• How does your image projecting to your target audience? Look in the mirror, compare your neighbors booth- when the color, placement and selection of materials and products including your actual display pieces are of a high quality, it makes you look thoughtful, "put together" like a well dressed person. After all, don't you stop at the booths that look sharp and pass by the ones that look messy and homemade? Complete show packages allow you to take away pieces and parts to use in other settings, offering an overall discount from purchasing items one at a time.  
• https://showdowndisplays.com/Category/Select?categoryId=7
  
  
  
  
• Collateral Materials- what are you giving away as a message piece? Offering perhaps a white paper to weed out the trick or treat attendee gaining instead qualified leads? Consider instead showing them a link on your site you track for downloads, providing them a product with a QR code that directs them to print content, printing out top tips as your industry "expert" to showcase how you are the BEST choice for them as a partner. 
• Draw them in and keep them in- Games do draw in attendees, but you have to have prizes to support those games, offering services related to your industry- free exams, screenings, massages work too- if you are tech company- what about a charging station for mobile devices? Your services speak to connection. Quirky messages can be fun- if you are selling fitness to middle aged business people and you have a doughnut roll game and give away stress doughnuts with your branding....you are having fun while making a point.
• Invite attendees to join you- Plan ahead and develop a list of attendees you can't miss, offer them a opportunity or product unique to them by sending them an invitation prior to the event in the form of a post card, mailer or game- http://www.chestinc.com/index.php/catalogsearch/result/?q=tradeshow+builder
   

 Share all your relevant goals during consultations to make the most of our presentation and product ideas. What was your best trade show item in 2015?

Email Tips From A Google Insider

Once again we share a blog from Cassandra Johnson, blogger for PPAI publication,  

Promotional Consultant Today. If your office is anything like our office, you receive HUNDREDS 

of emails a day. In fact our owner Olivia often jokes that her responsiveness and accessibility by 

e-mail is putting pounds on her waist line.  The promotional industry “lives” by email. We share 

information between suppliers multiple times a day regarding artwork, pricing, stock, virtual images, 

e proofs…..well you get it…..then that information is shared with the client creating some long 

e-mail threads.

We share some quick tips today- 

“The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place” 

George Bernard Shaw

Email Tips From A Google Insider

Email.  It’s a word cursed across all companies. The statistics surrounding the time spend managing 

email are staggering. Research shows the average worker spends 13 hours a week, 28 percent of 

office time, on email. One estimate is that the average worker writes 41, 638 words a year in emails,

 the equivalent of writing a 166 page novel each year.

However if you are using Gmail either for work or personal email, you are in luck. Promotional 

Consultant Today shares these tips from former Google employee Rodolphe Dutel on little- 

know Gmail features that can help improve your email use. 

The good news for those who don’t use Gmail is that as email systems work to keep up with each other, many of these same features may also be available now or in the near future.

Enable Undo Send. If you’ve ever found yourself resending emails because you made a mistake 

in the first try or forgot an attachment, you know how this can derail your day.  In Gmail’s 

Setting menu, there is the option to “enable Undo Send” and a time setting for this Undo to be active. 

If you enable this setting, after you click the send button, you will see an UNDO link next to the 

message saying your email has been sent. This link gives you between five and 30 seconds (you choose) to undo the send if you spot something amiss in your email.

Use Canned Responses.

If you find yourself constantly writing the same responses on emails r very similar ones, there is 

an option in Gmail to craft Canned Responses that can be populated into an email as a starting 

point, saving you time in retyping the same thing over and over. You can then customize the email 

from that point. To enable and create your canned responses, go to Setting and then click on Labs, then Canned Responses.

Use Email Offline.

If you want to take advantage of available time when you are not connected to a network or wifi, 

search the app store in your device for Gmail Offline, a Google app that stores a limited amount 

of your Gmail information on your device so you can respond or create emails when not connected 

and they will be sent the next time you connect.

Keep Your Email Safe.

To keep others from accessing your email and keep your information safe, Google has a two-factor 

authentication system that requires the user to enter both a password and a second unique code 

( sent to you via the app or text message) to access the email system. 

Yes, it’s an extra step to log in, but it might keep you from later explaining how critical information 

got in the wrong hands or why your email address is sending out tons of spam. Information on how 

to set up the two-factor authentication can be found here.

The two-factor authentication can be found https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1066447

Consider Apps

There are a number of paid and free apps that can help you manage your email. Dutel suggests using 

Inbox Pause if you want to pause your email system from receiving incoming emails for a period of 

time while you are immersed in a project ( the emails are delivered to you when you un-pause). 

Unroll.me another program to help quickly and easily unsubscribe from email you don’t want and 

get a single daily digest of those emails you do want. Sidekick will send you notifications when 

an email has been sent, delivered and read. There are many other apps that work with Gmail. 

Check the app store for your device to find these and others.

Source: Rodolphe Dutel http://blog.remotive.io/author/rodolphe/  is a buffer product specialist 

and is alos the founder of Remotive.

Compiled by Cassandra Johnson

What tip do you think you can implement? 

Going to Jail Before the Super Bowl Coin Toss?

Super Bowl 50 is this weekend- fans are posting for their favorite to win on social media networks. Naturally being a fan extends to showing your spirit with licensed fan apparel such as T-shirts, hats and jerseys. However, know the facts!

It’s important as a consumer to pay close attention to the products to avoid fakes or even copyright infringements.


What should you look for before making a purchase? 

• There should always look at the merchandise tag. 

• If it’s real, there will be an NFL sticker with a hologram indicating that it’s official. 

Some fake merchandise will have a tag that looks like a hologram, but that can be deceiving. Customers should move the tag to make sure that it’s really a hologram, and not just a shiny piece of paper.

Did you know that since last year’s Super Bowl, HSI (Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations) has seized more than $19 million in fake NFL merchandise??

Consumers may be looking for a bargain to support their favorite team, but those bargains may be funding illegal activities according on the black market according to ICE- HSI.

What about infringements? 

In promotional branding it's important to have consent to use a registered trademark logo from the organization making the request for use on promotional products. While many companies have a brand standard guide, a larger organization will have a rigorous brand standard guide. Such guides will dictate specifically how a logo may be applied to promotional products and how it may not be applied. The guide will include examples for ways a logo may not be modified to fit an imprint area or to add on creative embellishments, as well as examples of preferred lay outs or modifications, such as a stacked version for a wider logo or single color version for a full color logo to protect the brand and guide purchasers throughout the organization. 

Curious about how to develop a brand guide? Ask us for a copy of our top tips in developing and implementing your own company brand guide.

Want to know more about NFL guidelines?  http://www.nfl.com/help/terms

Who's going to win? Panthers or Broncos??