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.
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.
Australia Day: 26th January
Back to school: 30th January
Valentine’s Day: 14th February
Chinese New Year: 16th February
Australian Women’s History month: 1-31st March
Worldwide Wildlife Day: 3rd March
Start of Rugby season 8th March
International Women’s Day: 8th March
St Patrick’s Day: 17th March
Australasian Promotional Products Association Tradeshow: 21st March
Earth Hour 8:30pm: 24th March
Easter: 30th March – 2nd April
Harmony Day: 21st March
National Youth Week: 31st March-9th April
Administrative Professionals Day – 4th May
Mother’s Day:13th May
Word Refugee Day: 20th June
End of Financial Year: 30th June
International Youth Day 12th August
World Humanitarian Day: 19th August
Australasian Promotional Products Association Tradeshow: 22nd August
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.
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.
Whether you work on a financial year or calendar year, the start of a new year brings a new vitality and refreshed mindset. It’s a good time to review both current and future performance in respect to activity, results and investment/spend.
Healthy marketing practices to bring in the new year:
Where did you enjoy your best results? How can you not just replicate, but do this better? The wheel doesn’t always need to be reinvented. A slight change on a good performer – whether it’s a product or campaign can be very effective.
Reach out to your finance team. Have a bit of healthy sparring session with them. They thinking differently to the marketing team and the collaboration of thinking can bring new ways of managing your marketing dollars.
If things are a little tight, and you didn’t achieve the results you were after, instead of cost cutting as being your first point of call, shift the thinking to what would we do if we doubled our expenditure expenditure budget. What this does is change your mindset to think a lot wider and deeper, beyond where you currently are. This helps prompt more strategic solutions that can deliver higher returns.
Think quality over quantity. What content is resonating, impacting, cutting through with your audience? Keep doing this. The content that is not having any impact, ask yourself if it’s worth continuing?
Evaluate the correlation between marketing projects and business goals. Are they aligned? Have conversations with other departments. Are you all aligned on the business direction. How can you work even better together in 2018?
Is there an opportunity to enrich your marketing activity – both in respect to content depth and results by collaborating with new partners? Who do you share a similar audience with? Can you mutually benefit from working together through adding value to them?
Spend some time with your current business partners. What are they doing in 2018 to improve their business. What do they think you should be doing in 2018 to improve your? An opportunity for reflection and authentic relationship building.
How, as a marketing team, can you bring an elevated energy level to 2018? More enthusiasm, leads to better ideas, working relationships and results.
Include the key actions from the list above to your weekly marketing meetings, so they don’t become a ‘conversation I remember once having’, but they lead to actionable outcomes that drive marketing and business improvement.
A number of large companies love to celebrate back to school, so there is a lot of noise around this time, which makes it even more important to be creative and stand out from the crowd if you want to cut-through. Your products and services may not be specifically targeted to school age students, however, imagine the exposure of your logo to mums, dads, teachers and the future generation. Consider the following questions and perhaps you too could run your own back to school campaign.
Who is your customer – Mums, Dads, Children, Teachers, School Suppliers?
Why would they want to hear from you?
How can your product make their life better?
What is your message?
What channel would you use to get your message across?
How can you reach them?
Who would you close the loop, so they continue their engagement with you?
What will the customer feel about your brand after this experience?
A promotional product is a great way to get your message out there, especially if you do it in
a way that’s unique to your brand and is purposeful for the user.
If you go to any office with a cake you are instantly the most loved person in the room. Particularly around 10.30am or 3.30pm. When people typically are thinking about food. It’s not time for lunch yet, but they want a distraction of some sort, and they are feeling food could help on both a physical and emotional level. Unfortunately driving around delivering cakes is not something we can do every day.
A hamper could be the way to go. Yes, there are a lot of daggy hampers out there, but there is also plenty of beautiful gourmet Hampers to choose from. Recently we produced a box of Truffles for a client. And for Christmas, you cannot go past a beautifully wrapped Christmas Pudding.
Whichever way you go, just give some thought to your customers and your business – finding that sweet spot between giving them something they want and something that reflects the type of business you are.
We are pleased to be awarded Finalist in the 2017 APPA Awards for Promotional Excellence. We attribute this award to our partners at StreetWork, for the opportunity to work with them in maximising the effectiveness of promotional products to help achieve their business and brand objectives.
The key to the campaign’s success was working with StreetWork with a long term vision, versus a short term project approach. This proved both beneficial for the results they achieved and for our ability to source and align products to meet their objectives.
StreetWork is a boutique charity that aims to help teens troubled by destructive influences and behaviour to turn their lives around through one-on-one mentoring. To read more about the fantastic work StreetWork does, visit their web-site http://www.streetwork.org.au/
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
Create impact at your next business event and ensure your organisation is remembered long after the conference or event has ended.
Events are the perfect opportunity to invest in branded apparel and promotional products for staff and customers. Promotional products are a necessity if you’re exhibiting at a conference or expo and you want to attract attention and also keep your company top of mind.
Over 37 million people attended more than 412,000 business events across Australia in 2013-14. These numbers have climbed in the years since, with meetings and conventions forming the largest component of the industry in terms of events, delegate numbers, expenditure and value add. With this in mind, it’s a good way to capitalise on your next business event, whether it be a conference or large scale trade show, with branded products and gifts that put you top of mind with potential clients and help develop strong business relationships and future opportunities.
5 things to consider before your event:
1. Have a clear objective or goal: What do you want to achieve with this event? Do you want to create exposure of a theme or simply your brand with attendees? Whatever your objective, consider having promotional items such as tote bags as they act as billboards with repeated exposure of your logo throughout the event and after.
2. Timing and Budget: A lot of the time you know exactly what you want, however, may settle for less as you run out of time. Once you have confirmation of the event date, use your promotional product consultant or let us know; what you want to achieve, your budget and you’ll be provided with a range of concepts to help you achieve your goals. We have worked with a number of clients that have finalised everything for the event and when asked by management ‘What are we giving out?’ only have a week or two to turn around the perfect promotional product for the event … with limited and uninspiring options available in short lead times.
3. Remember Before, During and After: Don’t only think about handing out promotional products during an event. For an even better impact, you could consider promotions before and after the event as well. Some ideas before the event might be an invitation with a creative product or a teaser to encourage the attendee to visit your stand and receive another gift. You could reward those that attended your event with another item to remind them of your organisation and keep the enthusiasm going.
4. Target Audience: The key to getting your branded products kept and taken back to the office or home, is to provide useful products that suit the target audience! It shows you have done your research and will ensure you stand out in an already crowded advertising arena with give-aways that make guests want to visit your stand to get the item.
5. Size Matters: If attendees have travelled interstate or internationally for the event ensure the product is suitable for travel. In this situation, sometimes smaller more thoughtful items can have more impact than larger items like water bottles that can take up too much space in carry-on luggage or breakable items such as glassware or coffee mugs.
For creative ideas to help you with your next meeting, conference, trade show or business event, we’re here to help.
Enjoy,
Diana
Diana O’Cobhthaigh, is the owner of Turnkey Promotions, boutique agency specialising in promotional merchandise and product development. Turnkey Promotions provides a helpful and consultative experience that is tailored towards our clients’ Branding, Values and Vision. Diana and Turnkey Promotions are focused on a partnership that delivers precision in planning, quality products and timely delivery.
Create impact at your next business event and ensure your organisation is remembered long after the conference or event has ended.