Is Your Promotional Campaign A Two-way Street To Marketing Success Or Just A Dead End Giveaway?

The phone rings Friday morning and it's Angela, a great client of mine. She's frantically calling to place an order of imprinted pens for an up-coming corporate rebranding event in which they were going to unveil their revamped company logo to all of their employees. I personally helped promote their tasty coffee products in the past and knew a bit of their history and vision for the future. So after asking a few specific questions, I recommended lenticular thermal Travel Mugs that would display their old logo transitioning into the new logo in 3-d would do the trick! This went over fantastic as it was a big hit amongst all who attended because not only did the mugs convey the goal of the event, its practicality was the ideal fit and had higher perceived value than pens as viewed by the company employees.

Developing great promotional ideas that are relevant to your audience isn't that hard. It just requires a subtle shift in how we think and an understanding of what you really want to accomplish. The shift in mindset becomes evident when you understand the distinction between a giveaway and a promotion. Far too often, corporations give away some cheap "doo-dads" thinking it will create goodwill and effectively promote their product or services. They are clueless of the fact that the item is irrelevant to their business or the prospect's immediate need — such as a Coffee giant giving away an imprinted pen. The recipient takes the item home and: A) puts it in a drawer, B) gives it to the kids, C) toss it in the trash. D) perhaps uses the item with no real intention of engaging with the advertiser.

A Giveaway is a one-way street… generally speaking. With giveaways, it's difficult at best to measure your ROI. You gain practically nothing meaningful … certainly nothing you can actively follow up on. And, as far as building business? Few will say, "Wow! They gave me a cheap piece of plastic with their name on it! I've really got to do business with them." Now don't get me entirely wrong, pens can be very effective marketing tools if they write in a superior fashion or uniquely tie-in to the campaign theme.

A Promotion on the other hand is a two-way street. You first decide what you want your client to do, then you figure out a way to get them to do it. Trade shows are an excellent example of this. As I said, most companies give away something cheap to everyone who has apulse. But as a business owner/marketer, you don't care about everyone - at least you shouldn't. You should care only about those who are specifically interested in your product or service and can afford to pay for it.

Being a savvy promotional marketer, you should offer something of value to those who first fill out a short need-assessment or questionnaire providing you with their name, email address, other contact information and an idea of their level of interest or purchasing time frame. This is how you should qualify your prospects and get meaningful, actionable data. And because you're not giving something to everybody, you can afford to offer promotional product that costs a bit more and will prompt your prospect to remember you. For instance, a mortgage company that's giving pens to everyone, would do better to offer an imprinted booklet about Managing Your Finances and given only to those who fill out a short questionnaire. Sure, the promo book costs more than the pens. But, the company obtains information on which they can effectively follow up and further their marketing to. The added bonus is the fact that the return on investment is easily measured, and the prospect has a practical item that is targeted to their interest.

Giveaways are best used when donating to goody bags, as prizes for contests or token thank-you gifts. However, when your goal is to promote your business, secure qualified leads or increase traffic to your trade show booth - an effective promotion beats a cheap giveaway any day.