Why Promotional Products Work?

Australian marketers spend more than $1.34billion on promotional products each year …. despite the growth in digital marketing spend.

“69% of advertisers said promotional products increased brand interest and 84% it created more favourable impressions of the brand itself.” Australasian Promotional Products Association.

Why promotional products still work for the marketer?

  • A way to position your brand, more serious, more fun, adventurous, innovation, etc.
  • It helps to grow your brands perceived value, through association, partners, etc.
  • If delivered correctly, you have a captive audience.
  • It can be an inexpensive way of engaging and connecting
  • It demonstrates brand creativity and effort.
  • You go beyond tapping into one of the senses and therefore have a greater opportunity of engaging and creating memory.
  • A lot of promotional products a kept and used by the receiver for years – creating engagement and personal memories with your brand.
  • The creativity used to get a response is the key to increasing profits and promoting your brand.

Why promotional products work for the customer

  • It’s physical. It tactical. People like to hold onto something. Evidence of this is all around us – people with their phones!
  • They provide customers with an added benefit – not just you advertising your brand.
  • If the synergy between customer, brand and promotional product is right, the customer will enjoy the association.
  • Customers feel special when they receive a gift. The acknowledgement of being a valued customer feels good.
  • Their impression of a company is more positive after receiving a promotional product.
  • They are more likely to do business with a company after receiving a proposal product

Not Just Another… USB

You can never have too many USB Flash Drives. It’s the one office product that never gets re-gifted, because you know how valuable it is to your working day.

USB has made our lives so much easier. Particularly given that a big part of life revolves around storage and convenient transferability of information.

They come in a huge range of shapes, sizes, colours, capacity and can be fully customised to your specifications.

The latest flash drives are super cool … you don’t have to stick to the stock standard anymore.

The latest trend is the OTG or On The Go flash drives that provide expanded storage for smartphones and tablets.  An OTG flash drive can be plugged directly into your Android or iOS smart phone to backup files, photos, videos and more without needing to be in front of a computer.  This way you don’t have to miss out on any experiences whilst out and about if you happen to run out of memory on your device.

However, not all USB Flash Drive chips are the same.  At TurnKey Promotions, we have staked our reputation on providing high quality products and only use a reputable technology factory providing A-grade chips sourced out of Japan.  We have had clients come to us after sourcing cheap ones with real issues such as viruses being spread, the memory not being as stated, slow read-write speeds and general dissatisfaction.

USB Flash Drives are a useful branded product that will still be in demand for years to come by your customers, staff and suppliers … providing your brand with continued impressions well into the future.

Not Just Another… Notepad

Every man and his dog is doing or has done notepads. A long standing promotional product, that continues to grow. Year on year the notepad holds a top 10 position in the most popular promotional products. People still love stationery; despite being constantly tied to our phones. The great thing about the notepad is that you can make it work for your brand and your customer. It comes down to the type of notepad, the accessories you team it up with (e.g. pen or pencil), and the design. How and where you position your logo. What message do you want to convey to the audience? Is it a message that inspires and motivations? A message that people want to Instagram?  The target market is wide, so it’s just about finding the right style.

Some considerations:

  • Spiral, Stitched, Stapled
  • Hard Cover, Hard Backing
  • Lines, Blank, Grid
  • With Pen or Pencil
  • Material placeholder
  • Full Colour Print
  • Landscape or Portrait
  • A4, A5, A6, every and any size
  • Leather, Woven, Board

Key Event Days in 2018 – For your Marketing Calendar

This is to help you with your event planning for the year, whether it’s within your business or with your customers. Go low key or go all out. If you need any ideas around for promotional products, don’t hesitate to reach out.

  1. Australia Day: 26th January
  2. Back to school: 30th January
  3. Valentine’s Day: 14th February
  4. Chinese New Year: 16th February
  5. Australian Women’s History month: 1-31st March
  6. Worldwide Wildlife Day: 3rd March
  7. Start of Rugby season 8th March
  8. International Women’s Day: 8th March
  9. St Patrick’s Day: 17th March
  10. Australasian Promotional Products Association Tradeshow: 21st March
  11. Earth Hour 8:30pm: 24th March
  12. Easter: 30th March – 2nd April
  13. Harmony Day: 21st March
  14. National Youth Week: 31st  March-9th  April
  15. Administrative Professionals Day – 4th May
  16. Mother’s Day:13th May
  17. Word Refugee Day: 20th June
  18. End of Financial Year: 30th June
  19. International Youth Day 12th August
  20. World Humanitarian Day: 19th August
  21. Australasian Promotional Products Association Tradeshow: 22nd August
  22. Father’s Day: 2nd September
  23. World Gratitude Day: 21st September
  24. AFL Grand final day: 28th September
  25. World Teachers day: 5th October
  26. World Smile day: 5th October
  27. World Mental Health Day: 11th October
  28. United Nations Day: 24th October
  29. Halloween: 31st October
  30. Melbourne Cup Day: 6th November
  31. International Volunteer Day: 5th December
  32. Christmas: 25th December
  33. New Year’s Eve 31st December

Australia Day Promotions

Australia Day falls on a Friday in 2018. Making for a long weekend … just how we like it!

If you are looking for ideas to celebrate with your staff, clients, business partners, please get in touch with us before Christmas so we can get your order underway, so you don’t miss out.

What always works year on year:

  • Game Sets
  • Stubby Holders
  • Flags
  • Thongs
  • Hats
  • Sunglasses
  • Shirts
  • Pool Toys
  • Sunscreen
  • Towels

Chinese New Year – Year of the Dog

In 2018, Chinese New Year will be celebrated on Friday, February 16.

With a growing Chinese community in the past few years, Chinese New Year is becoming a more and more prevalent celebration of culture and tradition in Australia. Families gather and festivities are held in the Asian communities to welcome the new year in.

With the upcoming Year of the Dog, which signifies fortune, career, health, and love prospects,  this is what we can expect to see as we have seen in the past few decades.

  • Lots of red.
  • Street festivals and markets are bustling with people and noise and displays of food, art and entertainment.
  • The exchange of well wishes and chattering can be heard above the beating of the drums and the cymbals clashing for the lion dances.
  • Occasional firecrackers exploding in the distance.
  • A trade of red pockets/envelopes (which also happens in both a physical and digital environment) and blessings occur between the elders and the young at home
  • A delicious feast is prepared and eaten before families visit the temples to pray for a prosperous future.

So why not join in the celebration by participating or gifting? To the Chinese, gifting is seen as a nice gesture and effort made that shows your level of  involvement. And the key thing to know here is that the Chinese LOVE their red. Anything red will capture their eye and will be kept as a symbol of luck. At Turnkey this is one our favourite times of the year, so we are more than happy to help you with this.

Not Just Another… Beach Towel

Who knew we could change the way we relax at a beach? The rectangle beach towel seems only made for one person use. And then here comes the Round Beach Towel. What’s so good about a beach towel being round? Why has it become a envied beach accessory?

  • More beach coverage – which is good when you find yourself at a packed beach.
  • One towel can suffice two people
  • Enough space to manage fish and chips, computer, bag, beach ball
  • Visibility – for your brand.

It’s the ideal promotional product of the season especially when the Australian Summer means that we have plenty of opportunity to soak up some rays in this heat. On top of that, it is highly Instagrammable when the design aesthetic is captivating and therefore more likely to be included in that beach photo where others can see and will want one for themselves.

A nice alignment with a brand that speaks summer time – fresh, summer, beach, family & friends, enjoyment, carefree.

Not Just Another… Coffee Mug

A great all year round promotional product, hands down. And anyone and everyone loves a coffee mug.

Whilst there’s nothing wrong with a coffee mug with your logo proudly displayed, there are other creative ways you can decorate your mug, ensuring the user will love it.

Coffee mugs can come to life that your customers/clients/staff will love with a little bit of creativity. Things to consider:

  1. Size and weight of the mug
  2. Texture – shiny matte
  3. Material – ceramic, porcelain, china
  4. Number of colours to be printed
  5. Design
  6. Message
  7. Brand presence
  8. Print quality
  9. Price
  10. Delivery Date
  11. How will you deliver it to the receiver?
  12. Can you personalise it?
  13. Quantity and lead-time, with larger quantities custom designs can be produced offshore
  14. Decoration position, consider a lip imprint, decoration on the base or on the inside to reveal your message

Also think about the packaging. How will the gift be received? A bit part of opening anything is the anticipation. Also when working with breakables, plan for the rough handling, so you protect the product as much as possible.

With the increase in digital decoration, there are more options to print coffee mugs with full colour and personalisation … your staff will always be able to find their mug in the staff kitchen cupboard and who doesn’t love receiving a gift with their name on it!

Branding Appears Magically

A thermochromic coffee mug with a unique thermochromic coating, allowing the dishwasher safe wrap, around branding to appear ‘magically’ when hot liquid is added, and then disappear again as it cools. A bit of fun. And it is nicely presented in a black gift box.

Not Just Another….. Bag

Tote bags are a dime a dozen. If your brand doesn’t have a tote bag, there’s a good chance you have had discussions about it, or it’s on the to do list. And for good reason – it stops us using plastic bags. Good for the shopping, good for carrying your laptop in, good for the beach, good to take to events.

A good idea made better when the design or the intended usage matches up well with your brand positioning.

What we are liking are clear tote bags. A nice opportunity for brands that want to target people at events, as clear bags have become mandatory at a lot of big venues for security reasons.

So why not tap into this opportunity and leverage your brand engagement in a meaningful and useful way for your audience.

Eco-Friendly Brands

A brand for the future is a brand that concerns itself with sustainability. On the contrary, promotional items can help your business to become more eco-friendly. More sustainable. It’s about discovering the opportunity from investing in a promotional item. The opportunity in what can be gained, for example, what it will replace or improve, so you both you and the environment can benefit in the long-term.

The Oxfam Trailwalker had a target of reducing waste by $18K this year. One of the initiatives at this years event, was the sale of ‘KeepCups’ in replacement of paper coffee cups (that unfortunately cannot be put in the recycle bins). A great example of an organisation putting sustainability at the forefront of what they do – not just in the communities they help but in how they themselves behave.

The Environment is one area of sustainability, but there is also safety in the workplace and at work events. There are different requirements for different businesses, but using re-useable apparel (hi vis workgear) or apparel that has been produced with minimal, if any impact, to the environment and to the communities it is produced in, is a great step forward.

The thinking about leading or nurturing your brands sustainability, ties back to clarifying what your brand stands for? If your brand or business is looking for different ways to increase sustainability for both the business itself and the wider community, then I encourage you to request promotional items that can continue your commitment in this area. Don’t hold back in asking your supplier the questions around manufacturing, shipping, disposing, etc. This is what brings the value to the complete product.

If you are interested in finding out more about Eco-Friendly Promotional Products email: info@turnkeypromotions.com.au

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