Making The Most Of Your Promotional Products Budget? If Not Read How You Can

Published Friday December 31 2010

Buying promotional merchandise can for your company should be done carefully and considerately to ensure the best return. Too often buyers seem to settle for the easy route and always buy the same things such as promotional bottled water or leather conference folders. If they are looking for promotional clothing then they will always choose a printed T-Shirt or an embroidered polo shirt. This is a waste of budgets because in the vast majority of cases these promotional items are going to the same people year in and year out. A new fresh approach takes very little organising, can be fun and will produce excellent results.

When you need to buy your next lot of promotional gifts take a while to look at all every section within your entire company. Why is it that the Sales and Marketing divisions always seem to get the lions share of any business gifts that are on offer? When was the last time you considered the loading bay, logistics or even reception? Give some time to thinking what these other areas could with, how about some promotional baseball bats for the goods-in department or some post it notes for the administrative staff for example. It's a great way to generate some good old company spirit.

Promotional clothing has come a long way form the old style embroidered polo shirts, baggy sweatshirts and printed T-Shirts. There are now polo shirts available in an amazing range of co-ordinated colours. They make great promotional products and now you only have to buy as few as 50 pieces to get the shirts matched to your company colours.

With regards to how the shirts are branded do try to be a little creative and don't simply redo what you did the last time you bought them. Rather than stick a logo on the left breast of your next order of promotional polo shirts or printed T-Shirts try something different. Talk to your promotional clothing supplier who should be more than happy to offer a number of alternatives. It is important that whatever method of branding you choose you make sure that it can be seen clearly, if it's too discreet then there is no point in it being there.

On the road sales staff should always have a box of promotional merchandise to hand out to special clients, they can often help to smooth out the bumps in a relationship. Do ensure that they are easy to carry and preferably non breakable, promotional mugs or glasses for example are definitely not a good idea.

If possible go and visit promotional merchandise exhibitions if you get the chance. They are great showcases for what's new in the world of promotional products, you can pick up some really good ideas for products you probably never considered in the past. Your promotional merchandise supplier should be attending all these shows on your behalf anyway so do make sure you ask them about these next time you meet up.

Francis Murphy

Francis Murphy is the Managing Director of BTC Group which was established in 1977. His 30+ years of experience in the Promotional Merchandise arena has helped him develop an organisation that has grown to become the largest privately owned Promotional Merchandise company in the UK. To watch a short video Rate this Article: