Looking to get a great return on your marketing investment? In good times or bad it is always wise to seek those marketing tools that will give you more for your marketing rand. When it comes to promotional giveaways getting the best return on your marketing investment means finding products that will give you more ad impressions for your marketing dollar. To find these kinds of promotional products you will first need to understand what characteristics to look for in a product while developing your promotional idea. I like to view these kind of promotional products as billboards because they not only promote your brand and products or services to the recipients but also promote and advertise to others who read your company's message on the promotional product.
With this understanding in mind you should adjust your thinking when budgeting for a promotional product. Make sure your focus remains on investment return and not just on price or quantity. You will get more from a promotion choosing a promotional product billboard, as I call them, even if it means scaling down the number of promotional items you purchase. This approach is superior to using a one dimensional product like say bottled water with a custom label which will only be seen by the recipient as once it is consumed it won't be giving off any ad impressions unless of course the garbage man sees the bottle. I know I gave you an extreme example but I did this to illustrate to you the importance of seeking out these promotional product billboards.
There are many types of promotional products that I would classify as billboards. Some of the important categories I would include are: customized umbrellas, custom screen printed or embroidered apparel, yard signs, banners, customized bags, bumper stickers, inflatable products, and custom imprinted car shades to name just a few. Certainly at the top of this list would be products like custom screen printed apparel like t-shirts and embroidered hats which are everywhere in our society with people walking around advertising one brand or another acting as human billboards promoting all kinds of businesses and organizations. People love to get these products as they seem more than happy to promote your business in exchange for a casual article of clothing that they can use. This kind of practical promotional gift along with things like umbrellas are especially effective during bad economic times when these products actually help out the recipient in a small way by giving them something they can use on a regular basis in their lives. Bags are great billboards for promoting your business.
There are many products and applications that you can promote your business with using bags: from retail shopping bags to tote bags to backpacks and gym bags. There are custom promotional bags for virtually every kind of business and budget. The great part about this kind of advertising and brand promotion is that the recipient carries your promotional message around for everyone to see. You simply can't beat that in any promotion getting unpaid helpers to promote your business. It is so good it almost sounds illegal. Some of the more classic types of billboard promotional products actually resemble smaller versions of the real thing like: signs, yard signs, and banners. These are relatively inexpensive means of advertising and promoting your business and even though they don't come complete with a recipient to carry them around with like the bag category they are very effective in that one product can be viewed by many potential customers in much the way a billboard works. Inflatable products work in a similar way bringing attention and often traffic to a business. For those of you unfamiliar with the term inflatable products these are large balloons you often see on the roofs and out front of retail stores designed to get consumers attention as they drive by in their cars.
One often overlooked billboard promotional product is the car sunshade that people down south in particular utilize everyday when parking their car to keep the searing heat and sunshine from their car interiors. This is a great promotional tool that is in my opinion under utilized. It provides a large imprint area and can be viewed by many people who pass by the parked car it is displayed in throughout the year. Again this is one of those products with the recipient providing the free labor to set up the shade and drive it to locations all around town promoting your business every time they park their car. Moreover, people love this as a promotional gift and will use it for years to come. Whatever product you choose to do for your next promotion make sure to try incorporate one of these promotional product billboards into your campaign and reap the benefits from some of the best return on your marketing dollar to be found anywhere.