Is Your Promotional Campaign A Two-Way Avenue To Marketing Triumph Or Just A Dead End Giveaway?

The phone rings Thursday morning and it's Angie, a great friend of mine. She's frantically calling to request an order of imprinted pens for an up-coming corporate rebranding event in which they were going to unveil their refreshed and redesigned company logo to all of their employees. I personally promoted their tasty coffee products over the years and knew a bit of their history and vision for the future. So after asking a few specific questions, I determined lenticular thermal Travel Mugs that would show their old logo morphing into the new logo in 3-d would do the trick! This went over very well as it was a big hit amongst all who attended because not only did the mugs convey the goal of the event, its practicality was the ideal fit and had higher perceived value than pens as viewed by the company employees.

Developing superior promotional concepts that are relevant to your audience isn't difficult. It simply takes a minor shift in mindset and an understanding of what you really want to accomplish. The change in mindset becomes evident when you understand the difference between a giveaway and a promotion. All too often, corporations give away some cheap "stuff" thinking it will create goodwill and effectively promote their product or services. They are mindless of the fact that the item is irrelevant to their business or the prospect's immediate need — such as a Coffee giant giving away logo'd pens. The recipient takes the item home and: A) puts it in a round cup on the counter, B) gives it to the pets, C) throws it away. D) perhaps uses the item with no real intention of engaging with the advertiser.

A Giveaway is a one-way street… generally speaking. With giveaways, it's difficult at best to measure your ROI. You gain practically nothing meaningful … certainly nothing you can actively follow up on. And, as far as building business? Few will say, "Wow! They gave me a cheap piece of plastic with their name on it! I'm now eager to do business with them." Now don't get me entirely wrong, pens can be very effective marketing tools if they write in a superior fashion or uniquely tie-in to the campaign theme.

A Promotion on the other hand is a two-way street. You determine what you want your client to do, then you imagine a way to get them to do it. Trade shows are a good example of this. As I said, most companies give away something inexpensive to everyone who stops by. But as a business owner/marketer, you don't care about everyone - nor should you. You should care only about those who are specifically interested in your product or service and have pockets deep enough to qualify.

Being a smart promotional marketer, you should offer something of value to those who first fill out a short need-assessment or questionnaire providing you with their name, email address, other contact information and an idea of their interest level or purchasing calendar. This is how you should qualify your prospects and get meaningful, actionable data. And because you're not giving something to everybody, you can afford to offer promotional product of higher quality and will give your prospect to remember you. For instance, a mortgage company that's giving pens to everyone, would do better to offer an imprinted booklet about Managing Your Finances and given only to those who fill out the short questionnaire. Sure, the promo book costs more than the ball point pens. But, the company obtains information on which they can effectively follow up and further their marketing to. The added bonus is the fact that the return on investment is measurable, and the prospect has a useful item that is relevant to their interest.

Giveaways are best used when donating to goody bags, as prizes for contests or token thank-you gifts. However, when your goal is promotion of your business, secure qualified leads or increase traffic to your trade show booth - an effective promotion beats a cheap giveaway any day.


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An accomplished marketing consultant, Richard Tattoli of TopPro, Inc. is a dynamo in helping businesses grow their bottom line via targeted promotional campains. For more information about our programs & services, especially our current proprietary instant rapport building weapon, see our video => http://www.minds-eyebusinesscards.com