The Promo Coach

Close your eyes and imagine the hustle and bustle at a large tradeshow. Instead of being an exhibitor, picture yourself as a visitor to the event. With so much to see and do, you probably won’t be able to check out every booth. It’s just not realistic and exhibitors know this. That’s why they’re all vying for your attention. They’ve constructed their exhibit with one goal in mind - high visibility to attract people.

Now open your eyes and come back to reality. You are actually one of those exhibitors, and you’re competing against numerous fellow exhibitors for the attention of the tradeshow attendees. So how are you going to make your booth stand out from the crowd?

Some exhibitors opt for flashy lights and loud music. Some even hire famous people from the past to sign autographs. Sure, people will stop and look; maybe they will even wait in line to have their picture taken with a former cast member of a long ago popular show, but that shouldn’t be the kind of visibility and interest that you’re trying to achieve.

You want attention and prominence that’s backed up by substance. Promotional products are the solution. They have the ability to attract in a way that enables you to engage visitors to your booth and evaluate them as future prospects. They can help you draw in people and start forming a crowd. All you need is something simple, like a keychain or flashlight with cool features, and you’ll have a winner.

That is something wacky stunts and jumping acrobats can’t accomplish. Visitors will stare from afar and move on. But when you have a valuable promotional freebie to hand out, attendees will walk directly to your table. By physically handing over the promotional product, you’re making direct contact with potential customers and keeping your brand in their minds. And isn’t that the main point of going to a tradeshow in the first place?

Savvy business owners have long since been giving out branded promotional items as gifts. However, there can be some hesitation when it comes to getting something for your top clients. You might wonder whether it’s appropriate or whether it will make a good impression. The fact is that not only are these gifts for them appropriate, they’re a necessity!

When you’re thinking about high-end gifts for your best customers, you’ve actually got to think beyond your clients and consider the important connections that they have; these could mean a lot to your business. You want to choose a gift that will not only interest them but will impress their associates as well.

Start by choosing something that your clients are likely to use around other people. Maybe an item they may use when entertaining guests or hosting a dinner party. It’s a positive reflection on your company when a person is willing to display your logo in their home or office.

A nice set of coasters or a fancy wine box can be good branded promotional gifts that your customer could make use of when entertaining. The key is to choose something elegant and decorative that they will want to keep out on display. You can even put your logo on an item that has a prestigious brand name; that way your brand gets an instant boost by association.

Visibility is second only to quality in terms of choosing the right gift. You automatically enhance visibility when you select something that’s meant to be carried from place to place. When your client is carrying around your logo, it’s almost like an endorsement of your business. Your company’s name can be seen by a bunch of important business contacts when your item is taken to meetings or events.

As you can see, a high-end gift with your logo can have a ripple effect. The people who come in contact with your customers will be impressed. Using and displaying your present says that you have their mark of approval. The question isn’t if you should give a top purchaser a gift with your brand on it. The question is, can you afford not to?

If you are having trouble getting callbacks from some hot prospects, it may be time to be craftier in your approach. The hard-to-get clients you’re trying to reach have been ignoring you and you’re wondering what to do. Should you bombard them with emails? Sit in the lobby where they work and hope to get a moment of their time as they rush off to lunch? Beg and plead with their gatekeeper for a meeting? While these tactics may occasionally work, let’s face it – they will annoy most people and waste too much of your precious time.

So is there a better way to get a hot prospect to pick up the phone and return your call? You bet there is! Give out a crafty promotional product and you just may get a callback and even win business from previously elusive clients. Send these prospects a cool product that won’t work until they call you. This strategy can help you woo more business clients and hard-to-get customers. For the promotion, you can send remote control toy cars - without the remotes or chargers. Obviously, without these items the cars are useless.

The cars should come with a hook – send a catchy little card that explains if they arrange a meeting with one of your salespeople, you’ll send along the power for their car, and in return they’ll learn what the power of a strategic alliance can do for them.

Don’t be surprised if the response you get ends up being phenomenal. The car (or a creative idea like this) can also be an icebreaker for the sales callbacks. You really need to experience the great value of two-phased promotions, where recipients have to respond to a salesperson before getting rewarded with a follow-up gift. And remember, promotional toys do have their place in the business world. You may think toys are silly, but people tend to really respond to them!

As you dig deeper inside the world of promotional gifts, you will discover a lot of things to think about. Even if you have determined who your customers are, the things they would like, and the gifts you plan to use for your marketing campaign, you still have a lot of work to do.

First of all, you have to purchase the items without going over your budget. Find out what fits with your company’s image and how you can get the items into the hands of your customers. Of course you can’t just buy items and store them in your stock room. The most important part of your campaign is distributing these products to your customers! You can give them not just to your existing clients, but to prospective customers as well. After all, the key objective for your campaign should be to raise awareness about your brand and get your name and logo out there.

There are many ways to achieve this. You could create activities that will target many people. Conferences and exhibitions are perfect for distribution of promotional items. There will surely be masses of people walking around. What’s best in these events is that the types of people you meet usually belong to your target market.

If you only have a small enterprise or if you have a tight budget, you can get some students or your family and friends to distribute them to your customers. Also bear in mind that your customers have other relatives and friends too. So if you give a few gifts to them, they might give these out to others. Thus, your giveaways spread out even without your help.

Using these gift-giving techniques in the long run will be the key factor to increasing revenue, profits, and turnover. It goes without saying that a vital component of your campaign is to reach your target market. And the most low-cost and effective way for you to do that is through distributing gifts.

Motivating your sales staff can be done in many different ways. One method is to use incentive gifts to motivate your direct sales team. This can be done by having contests, where they compete against each other, or on an individual basis, where they get rewards for reaching certain goals. You can conquer your goal of higher sales by understanding how incentives work to motivate your direct sales team.

Know that the first step in motivating your sales staff needs to come from you. It is up to you to make their success possible. Some examples of this are communicating goals clearly, empowering them to make decisions, and removing any roadblocks that are preventing them from achieving their goals. Unless this is first achieved, most won’t be motivated by incentives and gifts.

Decide if you want to have your sales staff compete against one another for a period of time to win a certain gift, or whether your type of selling lends itself more to the staff striving to attain or surpass their own previously met goals. Another way to organize an incentive program is to have the sales staff work in teams. This way they are responsible to someone other than themselves to reach a goal so that the whole team benefits.

Make their goals achievable. Setting the bar so high that it’s virtually impossible to reach won’t motivate your sales staff; in fact it will probably discourage and dishearten them. So encourage them to flex their sales muscles a little, but with goals that are feasible.

Consider a lifestyle reward, in the form of extra paid vacation, trips to exotic locations, or dinner out to a nice restaurant. Most sales people are accustomed to being motivated by money to work harder, so rewarding them with something they would probably never spend money on themselves is a great motivator. Just make sure the reward is enough for the winner to take along a spouse or a friend!

In the today’s modern world, competition in the business industry is increasingly getting tougher. For companies, building brand awareness in their markets (whether it is online or offline) has become so important that they are spending tons of money on brand campaigns.

Using personalized corporate gifts to build up a brand is one of the oldest and most direct ways that many corporations utilize. With the right gifts, you are on track to create and achieve greater loyalty from your consumers and to build better brand connections with them.

Usually the end of the year is the hottest time for companies to give out gifts. But for those who are planning on using personalized gifts to build their brand, they will need to select them carefully and make sure to take into consideration the interests and hobbies of the recipients. Personalized gifts can also be used to show that employees are valued, by giving a gift when someone gets married, has a baby, or reaches a difficult goal. This encourages employee loyalty and strengthens team bonds and relationships.

Putting your company logo on gifts is a great way of advertising, especially if they will be used on a regular or daily basis. But one important thing to think about when establishing a brand is that quality is very important. Don’t give something that has low or bad quality even though it will cost you less. By giving away personalized, high quality gifts to your consumers or employees, you will be able to establish a positive and long lasting impression in their minds. Low quality items can represent your company in a negative way, and this can be quite damaging to your brand and image. Therefore, it’s smart to create a realistic budget before ordering and choose your gifts wisely.

Personalized corporate gifts are great for showing and expressing your sincerity to your recipients. And by giving away quality gifts, you will get quality results in return!

Business gifts are one of the best strategies that a company can have to build their brand awareness and to promote feelings of goodwill between buyers and suppliers. When it comes to business gifts, you shouldn’t take any chances! Your gift should be perfect and complete, in appearance as well as in the purpose it serves.

By giving gifts to your clients and business associates, you’ll be able to make a good impression in their minds and they’ll appreciate that you are taking extra effort to gift them with something nice. When one of them becomes sick or ill, you should send them a gift to wish them well. This will maintain a good relationship with them and they’ll definitely feel special.

There are some important marketing reasons as to why you should consider using corporate gifts in your marketing plan. They are great for building your company brand. Branding is crucial for businesses since it makes the consumers associate a specific service or product with your company. A gift is a great way to build brand awareness since branding is all about making associations.

Personalized gifts enable you to have a successful branding campaign, since your brand needs to be personal enough for consumers to identify and create a relationship with it. By matching gifts to your company’s characteristics, you’ll be able to successfully promote your brand and hit the right chord with consumers.

Gifts preserve the connections and affiliations between a company and its consumers. Usually, after a marketing campaign consumers tend to associate and interact with the company through its advertising message, which is intangible. But with corporate gifts, they will be able to actually feel the representation of your company. This will leave your marketing message deep in their minds and can lead to better results. With the right budget, campaign, and gifts you will be able to successfully fulfill your marketing mission and create brand awareness for your company!

Corporate gift baskets are extremely popular, as they boost the corporate image and create goodwill. They are also a great and effective way to reward hard-working employees. It may be difficult to decide what to put in the gift basket, but there are some key considerations to take into account, including the budget for the baskets and the purpose of the gifts. The chief elements of an appropriate gift are its uniqueness and usability.

The gift baskets range from inexpensive to very expensive. While selecting the right gift, keep in mind that it should enhance the company’s image and be suitable for the nature of the gifting occasion. Make sure to look for quality in each individual basket rather than settling on a good price for a larger quantity of baskets.

A wide variety of gift baskets are available in the market. There are so many options to choose from. You can go with themed baskets or select the generic baskets that don’t have a special them and just concentrate on the actual gifts inside. You can include wine boxes, savory food, fruit, business related items, flowers, wine stoppers, and desktop accessories.

Personalized corporate gift baskets are also a good idea. The personalized items in the basket show that the company cares for the recipient. If you include just one personalized item, then place it at the top of the basket. This helps the receiver see it quickly and perceive it as an act of goodwill. That way you will maintain a better relationship with employees.

Food baskets filled with gourmet food make nice gifts as well. These baskets can contain assorted chocolates, chocolate covered fruits, cookies, nuts, or candies. Fruit baskets, cookie baskets, or organic baskets can also serve the business gift purpose. Cheese gift baskets are another good gift. No matter how you fill your baskets, choose something that your employees will enjoy. Your presents will be well-received, appreciated, and will harbor goodwill and loyalty!

Compensation is linked to security and safety. Most people won’t feel safe unless they are sufficiently compensated to meet their needs. Recognition, on the other hand, appeals to social and self-esteem needs. People have a self-sustaining motivation that thrives on continually improving their work and its end results. Even though the distinction between compensation and recognition is clear in theory, many companies continue to confuse them in practice. This happens because most organizations develop incentive and performance strategies without determining whether they want to compensate employees or recognize them.

There certainly is no debate that cash is the best form of compensation. Any employee will vow to the fact that what they want most in return for their work is money. Try taking cash away entirely and replacing it with tangible awards and you’ll quickly experience a revolt!

However, recognition is a trickier issue. Money is rarely accepted as a means of recognition. It is true that winners of awards in sports, business, or science usually receive cash awards, but when they attend an awards dinner they get merchandise, trophies, and public expressions of gratitude. Likewise, most companies don’t give cash to express thanks. Instead they use tangible expressions of gratitude, such as corporate gifts. These are more personal and meaningful.

This distinction can help clarify the confusion between cash and tangible awards. If you want to compensate people for extra performance, then gift them with cash. But if you’d like to show gratitude, recognition, and express your thanks for good performance, consider something tangible that has staying power.

Just make sure not to fall into the trap of bribing employees to achieve goals. If you want self-motivated employees, the best approach is to emphasize the need for continuous improvement at all times. Put less emphasis on the compensation or recognition received for it. Whatever your goal is, your program will become addictive if you put too much emphasis on the award. So focus on the inner satisfaction that employees should experience with accomplishment, and you’ll be on a good path to success.