Effective Ways to Promote Your Brand

By Dipika Patel

Promotional merchandise offers a fantastic way for you to publicise your company's goods and services to customers. Perhaps one of the reasons why promotional items are so effective is that they can be used time and time again. Unlike digital forms of marketing, like pay per click adverts, email campaigns and social media sites, recipients of promotional merchandise get a tangible benefit from products like pens, mugs, bags and USBs and they can prove invaluable in their everyday lives.

Take personalised pens as an example. Research from the US-based Advertising Specialty Institute reveals that just under two-thirds (63 percent) of Britons have received and kept hold of a promotional pen over a 12-month period.

Research from the British Promotional Merchandise Association indicates that pens are the promotional item two-fifths of consumers would like to be given the most. By providing your customers with promotional pens, you can be sure you'll be providing them with something they find to be valuable and are likely to use for months to come.

Other quantitative evidence highlights the benefits of promotional products like personalised pens. Research conducted in the US indicates that recipients of promotional items have a measurably more favourable impression of the company that provided them with the merchandise. Another study, in relation to direct mail campaigns, indicates that the response rates on direct mail campaigns tend to be higher when the mailing campaign includes promotional items like a personalised pen.

Like pens, promotional umbrellas are a fantastic way of promoting your brand or particular marketing message. As they need to be held above the user's head when it rains, your logo will be advertised to all sorts of passers by! And who hasn't spotted a promotional umbrella when watching an England test match or Wimbledon on TV?

Working in a similar way to a walking billboard, branded umbrellas allow your logo or marketing message to be displayed while the recipient is shielding themselves from the notorious UK weather - whether that's simply walking down the street, at a sports event or enjoying the great outdoors.

If your business regularly attends events such as exhibitions and trade shows, it may be a particularly good idea to use umbrellas as a means of attracting interest in your firm.

Run a direct mail campaign before the show starts to inform attendees that by coming to your stall they'll receive a free umbrella and you could see an influx in visitors, giving you the perfect chance to promote your services and goods to a greater number of people. A free umbrella should be a popular giveaway - even if it isn't raining during the event. Research indicates that umbrellas are kept by recipients longer than most other promotional products.

Promotional umbrellas come in all shapes and sizes - from cost-effective versions that can be used for mass giveaways through to robust golf umbrellas that are sturdy enough to combat the toughest weather conditions. Most printed umbrellas can be ordered from as little as 25 units and many can be printed using up to eight different panels.

With promotional items offering so many different ways for you to increase brand awareness, you are sure to find at least one product that enables you to generate interest among customers. Make sure you incorporate your logo, full contact details and marketing message and you're sure to see a great return on your investment!