Choosing the Right Promotional Items

The list of items that can be personalized and used as promotional gifts is ever increasing and almost anything that has space for a promotional logo can now be considered for promotional use. With so much choice, the challenge can be reducing your options to a manageable list of products that meet your specific criteria and requirements. A good promotional product distributor will help you with all of this by understanding your needs and making recommendations for you.

Here are some of the leading product categories to consider:

Clothing

Whether you want branded uniforms for staff or promotional T-shirts to give away, clothing is a popular and highly visible promotional item.

T-shirts, Polo Shirts, fleece tops, coats, hats and jackets are all big sellers and with safety in mind, Hi Viz Clothing has a firm place in the list of most used promotional clothing. The important factor to consider with clothing selection is the personalization you require because branding options range from embroidery, screen printing and digital printing in full colour to laser etching on fleece tops, to pull tags on zips and branded buttons and press studs and rubber name tags sewn into the garment seams.

Manufacturers offer extensive ranges of  'off the shelf' product designs that can be over printed right through to own brand garment designs tailored specifically to your company branding and colour scheme and featuring your own garment label, a unique garment design and personalized packaging.

Clothing is high visibility and frequently long lasting, so the ongoing payback on your initial investment can be substantial.

Food

Confectionery, cakes, biscuits, sweets, chocolate and a vast selection of promotional drink options make food a massively used and extremely popular promotional gift.

The scope for personalization and unique branding is fantastic and with unit costs typically low, these are products are ideal for mass giveaways. It is important to keep in mind shelf life and storage and shipping requirements when selecting these items as you want your customers to receive the product is best condition.

Cup cakes with photographic print look and taste fantastic but need to be delivered and eaten promptly & ndash a shelf life of 2 & ndash 4 days is typical whereas some promotional fruit smoothies can now last for months.

Digital printing means you can even print your artwork in full colour onto personalized cakes.

Environmental, Recycled and Eco Friendly Goods
The popularity of all types of eco friendly and recycled promotional gifts continues to increase. Companies and organisations keen to ensure that their promotional merchandise follows their Environmentally FriendlyCorporate Social Responsibility and Ethical Business policies are consistently looking for new and innovative promotional gifts. From recycled elephant dung notepads to pens made from recycled plastic cups or old bank notes and plant watering devices that can save upto 90% of normal water use for potted plants, the list of available products is enormous.

Computer products, digital cameras, digital photo frames and 'gadgets' Technical gifts and gadgets range in price from the low cost ever popular USB Flashdrives to high USB Flash Drive Versavalue digital cameras and digital photo frames and plasma televisions and computers. The opportunities are as flexible and varied as your budget so ask the question and let your distributor advise you on ideas and possibilities.

Office gifts, desk accessories and personal equipment
Desk mounted promotional gifts remain Office Giftsin use and in view for months and often years and therefore provide a high value marketing opportunity. Desk pads and mouse mats are enduring branding opportunities while mobile phone holders maintain their & lsquo retainability& rsquo value.

Beyond the office
Ice scrapers, hand warmers, sun shades and lip balms provide gifts for all seasons and regular opportunities to be in front of your clients throughout the year, in a very useful way. Beach towels and sun hats, umbrellas and even flags and flag poles are all opportunities to promote your business and event and ensure you get noticed.

Golf products and sport related items
Golf is a massively popular sport and corporate event whether you are attending a tournament and taking guests for a social day or running your own Golf Day where your clients and employees enjoy a round or two of golf plus a meal and entertainment and the range of products available for branding at these events is massive. From polo shirts and caps to jackets, golf balls, umbrellas, tees, gloves and even trophies you have many options to ensure your customers take away memories of a great day with you.

Pens and writing instruments
Pens remain an immensely popular promotional gift because virtually everyone will use one at some point and they can be utilised as a low cost mass promotional giveaway item for conferences, mailout campaigns and trade show attention getters or as a one off top level award or executive gift. Digital printing has enabled full colour wrap around printing to transform the branding options for pens from the traditional 1 colour print in 1 position to photographic images covering the entire pen and clip. For individual gifts the solid silver hand crafted Yard-O-Led range is a prized and very select writing instrument while brands like Parker, Waterman and Cross have kudos and top brand appeal ensuring they are retained and used by the receiver.

These are a few ideas of products you can use for your various corporate and marketing events & ndash but the choices available to you are as broad as your imagination. Virtually everything that can have a space for personalization can be branded as a promotional marketing gift.

With this in mind, ask your distributor to advise you on ideas for your particular events and remember that bespoke manufacture and unique branding options are also available, so feel free to ask for guidance on these.

The best promotional campaigns effectively associate your company's name with a product or products related to your particular industry.