Advertising Specialties, Premiums & Sales Promotion
Why do people advertise?
Advertising is a tool used to convey a message. The message could be to announce a new product or service, differentiate between products and services or explain product features and benefits.
What are Advertising Specialties?
Ad Specialties are designed to increase awareness, name recognition, and lead generation. Ad Specialty items are anything that can be imprinted with a name or message. There are over 400,000 different items when averaged have a cost of about $ 3.00 each. Premiums are used as incentives or rewards to improve customer loyalty, employee morale and productivity.
Why are Ad Specialties an important advertising and promotion tool?
It is important to reinforce your Ad message, the average person remembers only half of a message after the first day. In fact even when exposed to four messages in a year remembrance of that message only increases 20%. If you were to spend thousands of dollars on a single Ad it will only be seen by a select audience of readers or viewers who could forget the message as quickly as it takes to turn a page. People remember shapes, tangible items that are visible and usable, not copy. Promotional products deliver a message at a less CPI (Cost Per Impression) than most forms of print advertising. Ad Specialties can be sent to specific targeted markets as a cost effective supplement to other forms of advertising.
Are Ad Specialties effective promotional tools?
Promotional Product Marketing is both effective and practical.
Its Targetable - they convey messages just to the people in which you are interested.
It's Versatile - over 400,000 products.
It's Appreciated - people like to receive gifts / tangible products. An Ad Specialty item can surpass by as much as 52% a thank you letter alone.
It's Budget Flexible - over 15,000 different types of products from $.01 - $100.00.
It's Long Term Exposure - because they are useful they are kept for long period of time Research indicated product were kept 4-6 months by 36% of the recipients, used daily by 31% of the recipients, used at least once per week by 24%.
(CPI) Cost Per Impression is determined by dividing the cost of the item (Ad) by the number of exposures to the Ad. For example:
A Notepad - The recipient of a 50 sheet imprinted notepad has a minimum of 50 exposures. If the notes are passed on, that number could double or triple. At the minimum 50 impressions for a $1.00 note pad the CPI = $ .02.
A Mug - The message on a coffee mug will be seen as often as 10 times in a day for up to 365 days over the course of a year. If the mug lasted 6 months that would be 1825 exposures, for a $5.00 mug the CPI = $.003.
Watches - People on average will look at their watch twice an hour. For a 16 hour day that equals 32 times, over the course of 1-2 years that would equate to as many as 23360 exposures. For a watch that cost $25.00 the CPI = $ .001.
Calenders - The recipient of a calender will be exposed to the message on it 2-3 times per day at home and up to as many as 5-6 times per day at the office. If we use an average of 3 times daily that equals 1095 impressions and for a $3.00 calender the CPI = $.003.
A recent study of 1500 business found that promotional products can greatly improve both sales letter response rates and conversion of leads into sales. Adding a promotional item to a direct mail piece increased the response rate by 50%. Using a promotional product as an incentive to respond generated 4 times as many responses as a letter alone.
Promotional products build customer loyalty.
Research comparing a promotion using a $2.00 coupon verses a $2.00 Ad specialty found that customers receiving Ad Specialties ordered more often and provided more referrals.
Recipients of Ad Specialties remembered or noted the name or message when they used the product 69% of the time and could recall the name or message 68% of the time.
