Buying Promotional merchandise or any other sort of advertising products 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 considering your next purchase of business gifts take a step back and look at all the various departments in your company and see what works best where. Too often buyers of business gifts think only of the big departments like Sales & Marketing. When was the last time you considered the loading bay, logistics or even reception. All these areas are key to your business. Giving away a few well targeted promotional gifts such as air fresheners for delivery drivers or promotional sweets at reception will do down extremely well and provoke a feeling of goodwill towards the company.

In terms of promotional clothing why settle for a boring printed one colour T-Shirt or embroidered polo when you can now buy polo shirts in an amazing range of co-ordinated colours. If you are ordering as little as 50 pieces you can now get these great promotional products Pantone matched to your company colours. Other promotional clothing like promotional jackets or promotional baseball caps are always well received.

When it comes to branding these products don’t do what you have always done in the past. Rather than stick a logo on the left breast of your next order of promotional polo shirts or printed T-Shirts try something different. Your promotional clothing supplier should be very happy to suggest a different layout, say for example a small logo at the top back of the garment just under the collar. Or a small logo at the bottom front of a garment. Just make sure wherever you put these logos they will be seen because that’s the whole point of the exercise.

It’s always a good idea for sales staff who are on the road to have a small selection of promotional items so that they can thank their clients. They also act as good reminders to your customers especially when they are practical items. The range could include printed pens or maybe promotional paper products perhaps.

Lastly do go and visit promotional merchandise exhibitions if you get the chance. This is really important as it is at these shows you will see what the latest products and trends are in the promotional merchandise industry. If you or a colleague can’t make it yourself then make sure your promotional merchandise supplier goes on your behalf and then reports back to you with what’s new and what’s not. You should treat your promotional gifts like your fashion clothes and you would not go out in something that was years out of date would you?

Author: Francis George Murphy
Source: ezinearticles.com