Ever considered personalised promotional products?

There are currently over 750,000 different types of promotional products in the marketplace with thousands of items being imprinted and handed out every week. So, in such a busy market, how can you stand out from the crowd and cut yourself a slice of the revenue pie? Jimmy Lamb, manager of education and communications at Sawgrass, explains.

A key marketing concept for a promotional product is that it’s seen by multiple people.  Each view is referred to as an ‘impression’.

A good quality item gets hundreds of impressions over its lifetime. To ensure that happens, the product should be a usable item that is also visual, otherwise it might get relegated to a desk drawer, a dusty closet, or even worse – the dreaded bin!

In reality, the market is flooded with promotional products that get very few impressions. For example, the ever-popular ink pen. Think about it, the imaging is small and it gets hidden in someone’s hand when being used. No one else really sees it. And over time the image rubs off and when the ink pen runs dry it gets discarded. What makes it so popular? The cost.

Blinded by cost

The tragic thing is that people get blinded by cost, instead of thinking through what they actually get for their money… or not. This is a great example of the concept of ROI (return on investment) and it’s something that should be discussed in every sales presentation.

But what if you could create promotional products that not only your customer is attached to, but that their customer (or potential customer) would also be attached to?

Enter personalised promotional products.

First thoughts

First thoughts might be that these products are expensive to create and beyond most customer’s budget. But with its low equipment and production cost, sublimation is an affordable solution for any promotional products business. And it’s versatile enough to produce hundreds of high margin items, yet simple enough to setup and start printing within an hour.  With image costs averaging less than £0.01 per square cm, sublimation is a very economical process with lots of room for higher margins and there’s no extra cost for creating unique, personalised versions of a product.

Just think about it; if an organisation gives a client a mug with their logo, there is a good chance that person will drink from the mug in front of other people, thereby generating more impressions, but it’s not guaranteed. To maximise visibility you want the end-user to not only use the product but use it routinely. In the office, in meetings, in the break room, walking down the hallway, etc.

The best way to make that happen is to add the end-user’s name to the logo. Now instead of a commodity, the mug is a special product that was created specifically for its user. That raises the value of the item in their eyes and thus it will typically become the only mug they use.  Because of this, a personalised mug has more value to the company whose logo is on it, and thus you can charge more for this added benefit, even though it costs you almost nothing in media costs to add a name.

Hot new trend

Personalised promotional products are a hot new trend, but few decoration companies are offering them because they aren’t setup to produce single pieces. Again, sublimation fits the bill nicely, and it’s not limited to coffee mugs.

In 2020, the public is demanding more meaningful climate action from brands. That’s why sustainable promotional products – like reusable drink bottles – are essential. Transportable coffee cups and metal thermal bottles are hot favourites and a trend that looks set to continue. Offer personalised versions of these drinks bottles and you’ll be on to a winner.

And, instead of offering just pens and pencils with logos on, why not offer notebooks that can be personalised too? Not only are they useful, but they also show a higher level of investment in your audience. And that’s bound to leave a stronger impression. Personalising them using sublimation also increases the chances that your promotional product, with their name on will be used for months to come.

Ultimately, a good quality promotional product will generate far more money than it costs, and there is no doubt that the best results come from products that have a clear message and include personalisation!