With more than 21 years' experience, Listawood are offering start-up packages for new distributors which include unbranded product catalogues to use as their own, sales presentation kits for all product ranges, access to an unbranded website, e-mail shots and full product training and support.

Distributors will have access to more than 300 promotional products without having to spend hours searching on the internet for a reliable supplier or investing precious time and money manufacturing the products themselves.

Listawood believe that there is an enormous potential market, as yet unrealised within the local economies of every town in the UK.

The size of the UK Promotional gift market is currently estimated at some £900 million but it has the potential to be much larger as more companies become aware of the marketing effectiveness of business gifts as opposed to the more traditional methods of advertising. According to Listawood, some small to medium sized companies fail to realise that for the cost of classified advertisement in their local newspaper (which might only be seen once), you can produce around 500 personalised mouse mats which will stay on the target audiences' desk for months if not years and be seen daily.

At present, this is more widely understood in the US, where the market is proportionally much larger.

In the UK, the main users of promotional merchandise are large blue chip companies, whereas in the US many smaller companies realise how effective promotional merchandise can be; this presents businesses in the UK with a great opportunity to grow sales by selling business gifts to their existing customer base.

Taxi firms for example, often give a card to their customers after a journey in the hope that they will keep it, and call them the next time they need a cab. Instead, they could supply a fridge magnet branded with their logo and phone number, which is much less likely to be discarded; indeed it is likely to be placed on the fridge door - one of the most prominent positions in the household.

The same product also provides an excellent means for local fast food chains to promote their business. They don't realise this at the moment, but could easily be persuaded by their contracted signmaker or the printer they trust to produce their menus, business cards and other sales literature.

Many print and engraving businesses are already involved in the supply of promotional products having invested in heat presses and dye sublimation transfer systems. Although excellent for the production of very short runs, equipment of this kind cannot practically be used to produce larger runs, cost effectively and they are limited in the range of items they can produce.

It is not possible, for example, to produce enormously popular promotional products like pens, paper pads or USB flashdrives. Access to Listawood's wider product range and substantial production capabilities will supplement the offering of these companies; extending their product lines, without increasing their sales costs and enabling them to fulfil much larger order sizes quickly and easily.

Crowes of Norwich have been working with Listawood for the past year selling business gifts. As one of East Anglia's leading commercial colour print specialists with over 200 years' experience in the printing industry, Crowes have built up an established customer base and saw an opportunity to grow their business by selling business gifts.

"Listawood provided us with the necessary literature, samples, training and presentation kits to get up and running selling business gifts," said commercial manager, Steven Pyke.

"We started to get enquiries and orders as soon as we showed our customers the range of promotional merchandise on offer. These orders were not instead of our standard offering but used to complement other promotional material being purchased from us. Selling promotional merchandise has lead to an increase in our turnover during the past year," added Steven.

In a recent survey carried out by the BPMA (British Promotional Merchandise Association) 92% of respondents said that they believe branded promotional merchandise increases company and brand awareness. Some 76% of the people surveyed said that they could name a brand or company featured on promotional merchandise on their desk without having to look for confirmation and over half had purchased from companies branded on promotional merchandise on their desk.

So how does it work?

The focus of the distributor is to secure orders for the promotional products from their customers. To make this as straight forward as possible Listawood have produced professional sales sample kits, product catalogues, skin websites and recommended product price lists.

Listawood customer service teams are also on hand to help with enquiries and orders. Once the order is placed, Listawood take care of every aspect of production - from proof preparation to delivery of the finished goods into the end user. Distributors are able to monitor order progress either via their dedicated customer service team at Listawood, or online 24 hours a day, seven days a week using their web-based sales order tracking system.

"The fact that we only sell through distributors works incredibly well. We take care of the manufacturing side, while our distributors manage the relationship with the end user company and secure the sales," commented Listawood's managing director, Alex Turner.

"Our business model is designed to make it as easy as possible for distributors to make very healthy profits by selling our products to the end user."

Listawood's 70,000 square foot factory in Norfolk is equipped with a wide array of printing and finishing equipment enabling them to retain complete control of the production process.

For more information, call 01485 529100 or email marketing@listawood.co.uk

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