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Are Promotional Items Necessary for Online Retailers?

author-img By Mashum Mollah 5 Mins Read May 8, 2018 Last Updated on: September 19th, 2024

Promotional Items for Online Retailers

Everybody loves company swag giveaways and promotional gifts. Even if it’s just pedestrian stuff like paperweights or t-shirts. Over 26,000 promotional companies are supplying branded ‘swag’ products.

Promotional marketing is an often underrated strategy for increasing brand perception. When it comes to the digital online space, promotional giveaways can get engagements with a wider range of demographics. Everyone loves free or discounted stuff, consider setting aside your marketing budget for promos.

Need more convincing as to how promotional marketing can help your business? Read this mini-guide for more examples!

Reaching Higher ROI :

At some point, every online e-commerce startup will reach a bit of a ‘glass ceiling’ on advertising ROI. Banner ads, backlinks, and social promos can do a lot of legwork for brand awareness. If you are already doing all of these things, however, you’ll need to create a promo campaign.

Promotional gifts solidify brand familiarity in a subtle, but effective way. In fact, only twenty percent of customers actually recall branded ads in traditional mediums. The most expensive ads, placed in print, TV, and radio aren’t anywhere near as effective as they used to be.

Meanwhile, a random passerby who picked up that comfortable hoodie with your logo on the sleeve has it memorized. Not to mention all the eyeballs who have seen it in public. Don’t want to create an entire apparel line for your brand? Try using custom name patches–look more here for those.

Creating Excitement Around Promos :

Promotional gifts can be utilized a number of different ways. You can distribute it around trade shows, tie it in with purchases, or raffle them off. What you shouldn’t do is denote these gifts to the bottom of a conference swag bag, unless it’s exceptional.

Influence an Influencer :

Is your brand a good match for millennials and digital spaces? If you’re struggling to reach your target audience, you should consider an Influencer. What is an Influencer, you say?

Well, to put it simply, these are social media faces with a lot of followers or fans. No need to ask why they are famous or what they do specifically. Social media platforms like Snapchat and Instagram often elude traditional marketers.

You shouldn’t overlook Influencers if your brand is needing more exposure. The idea of paying someone with no industry ties may seem absurd, sure. If you’re confident in your product, this is the best way to get tens of thousands of impressions and excitement.

Influencer ROI numbers speak for themselves. You can find anywhere from six to ten times the return on investment for every dollar spent. Nielsen research has word-of-mouth advertising influencing purchases at nearly twice the rate from traditional.

Targeting Mobile Shoppers :

No marketing campaign should leave mobile shoppers as an afterthought. This should be your primary platform for advertising. Mobile shopping is the ideal space for quick promotional gifts and discounts.

Fast purchases are the best purchases, as more buying is done when it is most convenient. Buyer’s who love the lifestyle of shopping will gravitate towards your store if it is mobile-friendly.

Personalized Shopping Experience :

Your promotional campaign should be aimed at making the customer feel lucky or catered towards. What this means is creating promotional gifts that complement individual buyers’ needs and habits. You can do this one of two ways.

Create a promotional gift giveaway for customers who purchase a product related to your gift. They may not have needed the base product, but now the deal is sweetened.

The other method for personalizing the buyer experience is offering a promo gift for a recent purchase. This gift can be related to their buying habits or just as a way to reel them back in. If your promo gift is of moderate value, it could be a great way to pull buyers back to view new releases.

Advertising Premium/Superior Quality :

It can be difficult to demonstrate the value of your brand when you have a large field of competitors. This can be overcome by utilizing promotional gifts of clearly higher value. Brands that need to get their products into customer’s hands to realize value should offer promo gifts.

You don’t actually need to make these promotional giveaways about the product you want to demonstrate. Just tie them into products that are selling better in your store. People will try these gifts out without devaluing the brand.

This is how you get spontaneous, genuine product reviews on your pages. Social media shares of outright advertisements are few and far between. A social media post that a customer is raving about your product? Advertising gold.

Appropriate Use of Gifts :

All retail stores offer discounts and BOGO deals at some point. The key is to time these deals so that it doesn’t look transparent. Customers will sniff out an inventory liquidation a mile away.

A well-timed promo gift strategy will keep a constant stream of interest and advertising flowing your way. You should also think about what to gift and what is trending, of course.

If you’re in office or electronics, think about seasonal hot spots. Your pre-Cyber Mondays and post-Christmas sales do wonders for electronics. Fitness gadgets throughout the new years and during the summer.

It’s all about getting the best bang for your buck, of course. That’s why it is also important to record your campaign numbers. Promo campaigns don’t behave the same as traditional marketing launches.

You will need to think about the long-term impact of promotional items, too. A thousand pens with your logo on it isn’t going to suddenly spike your site traffic. You can try using QR codes or surveys to keep track of engagements with promo items, though.

Marketing Promotional Gifts :

Hey, we know it’s not always easy to tackle marketing campaigns by yourself. Marketing promo gifts aren’t the same as other tactics. That’s okay, we have plenty more helpful tips and guides to share.

You can browse our marketing blog for information on marketing trends, business news, and resources. It’s updated regularly and contributed by experts of various industries. If you have any questions about this post or any others, you can contact us anytime.

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Mashum Mollah

Mashum Mollah is an entrepreneur, founder and CEO at Viacon, a digital marketing agency that drive visibility, engagement, and proven results. He blogs at MashumMollah.com.

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