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Identity

January 2020

19

.promo

Edge

20 Jim & Cathy Christopherson jchristopherson@americanbus.com www.americanbus.com 218-600-8682

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2020 PROMO PRODUCT

Tech and Desktop Products

TS

s Rule

Thoughts & Reflections

As We Enter 2020 With the Holiday Season behind us most Promotional Products End Buyers are thinking about what they’ll do to make 2020’s promotional campaigns better than last year...or starting to gear up for 2020 marketing programs and with those plans comes some thoughts and reflections.

Around this time of the year there are so many wonderful promotions you can do to make a huge difference in sales while at the same time reaping a wide and lasting effect on your community, clients and even your employees.

For example, sponsoring community events that raise money, food, clothing, etc. make your company money because you are increasing the visibility of your good will programs at a time in the year when good will is super important. Good will is on a lot of people’s minds around this time of year.

We all know that people talk about your company.

Lots can be said good or bad about you. So getting really great word of mouth referrals is among the most effective ways to get your products/service sold. Getting that buzz started is easy to do using promotional products. You want as many personal recommendations as you can get…and using promotional products in your marketing campaigns makes for the perfect tool. We can get you that personal referral every company seeks!

Personal referrals are the best advertising source! Having someone who knows someone else make a recommendation about your company is pure gold…and you amp that up by using promotional products.

Express-A-Button

ENVELOPES VS 86% of Consumers

Combin

State they pick up their mail at their first opportunity Direct mail has been around a lot longer than the internet and has made zillions of dollars for those companies employing it. What’s interesting now is there are quite a few companies using it to cross channel their marketing investments with promotional products, social media, and other branding efforts.

We know one thing: Direct Mail Marketing is a perennial proven winner for raising funds, building brand equity, and generating leads. And there are thousands of other ways to employ it.

Cross-channel market mail and view it as a c addition to their othe tools. For example, u mail piece in order to great back pack” with ny’s logo on it is one o applications that wo ally well.

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ters use direct cost-effective er marketing using a direct o get that “really h your compaof the marketing orks exception

9%

82% of Millennials

Aged 25-34 found direct mail more trustworthy, according to the US Post Office--than online ads.

The average person spends about an hour reading their mail per week.

Engage them with an event that requires them to obtain your promotional product.

Reasons to use: Makes a one-step sale Generates qualified leads Tell your story in more detail Makes offer that appear personal

their mail on the same day eir first opportunity

ost Office

63%

Looked forward to receiving snail mail

is this “old-fashioned” marketing method making a comeback?

Your Packaging

Should Be As Impressive As What’s In It.

BUILDING SOCIAL MED Everybody is looking for ideas to improve their social media marketing because social media creates a lot of revenue. So here are some thoughts to bring joy to your community at the same time.

Whether you sell a product or service...social media can help you engage your clients, do something great for your community and generate more sales by using promotional products with them. No matter what you’re selling, your brand can benefit from utilizing social media platforms enhanced with products that will personally endorse your product or service. The plan is to create MILLIONS of ad impressions.

It’s critical to know your customers first before engaging them with your brand and service. You cannot target the general marketplace and expect to be successful, althougth we are primed to want to do that.

Your job is to increase your sales and conversions. Being at the right place and targeteing the right people can be more beneficial than anything else. For example, if your company sells beauty products then you cannot target all businessmen and people who don’t have interest in this. Women, girls and all fashion and beauty companies should be your target.

So, understanding the interest of your audience is essential before any other step.

Here’s what else you’ve got to do. A social media executive is responsible for assisting with the planning of marketing strategies to grow online sales and traffic and engagement. Strategies can be wide like posting daily content for continual growth, using images while posting on Facebook, increasing exposure of your communities with social buttons, running a campaign, leveraging social reviews to automate the influencer marketing. Those duties can also include creating micro-content, running a Twitter question and answer, running a Pinterest treasure hunt, experimenting with titles in your blog posts, making it easy for customers to share and pin your products, investing in an infographic, or creating a complimentary board on Pinterest, etc. Dizzying eh?

LET’S GET BUSY! Respond to any mentions over social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and Google+ and engage with the social media users. Assist with the general day-to-day administrative tasks.

Produce a consistent brand message across all the social media channels.

Regularly monitor your competitor social media sites and create an analysis report.

Create and promote your company’s blog on a weekly basis. THEN COORDINATE! Work with other departments to develop social media timelines that coincide with product releases, ad campaigns, and other brand messages. Its super effective to add in connecting promotional products program with products totally targeted at your audience.

DIA PROMOTIONS D oing g o od work for your communitywill not g o unnoticed & buildS your brand

KEY ELEMENTS

BRING JOY TO YOUR COMMUNITY RUN YOUR SOCIAL MEDIA CAMPAIGNS WITH PROMO PRODUCTS Coordinate social media messages with advertising departments, the brand management team, and annual company goals.

Analysing social media campaigns with tracking systems to determine areas for social media campaign improvement and to gather visitor’s data. Your core role as a social media executive is to support the team, working proactively to meet

your deadlines and to work as an organized multi-tasker. You need a lot of passion, outside and inside the box, a creative thinking and strategic mind to be smooth in this particular role.

Contents January 2020

IdentityEdge.Promo is published to provide marketing and sales ideas for Promotional Products End Buyers.

Provided free of charge by your Promotional Products Distributor you’ll find inside are interesting and informative articles on marketing and sales using promotional products.

We’d like to wish you a very Happy and proserous New Year!

8 Thoughts & Reflections 2019 to 2020

12

Envelopes & Postcards Marketing Antiques?

18

Building Social Promotions

24

Marketing Strategies & Tactics

52

Special Report-Tribe’s and Social Media Marketing

70

In’s & Out’s of the Tariff Effects on Promo Products

STOCK SHAPES

73% of people use Promotional Products at least once a week.

Strategies Some Concrete Ideas for Your Promotions

Tacti &

Showcase Your Offerings On Facebook

Lure Customers with Mystery Envelopes

One of the best ways to promote a business at the beginning of the New Year is through paid advertising on social media. Restaurants (and other businesses) find it really useful to show case their events/menus on Facebook. But don’t forget to seal the deal and entice your customers with the right promotional product once you get them in your front door.

Here’s a great promotion idea that actually targets sales in February but begins in January: Mystery Envelopes! We’ll help you come up with a list of prizes and will print these prizes on cards with corresponding envelopes with stickers to seal the envelopes.

Facebook, in particular, offers incredible targeting options which will allow you to really zero in on your desired demographics. Facebook ads versus Google Adwords can work better because they are visually more appealing.

Facebook ads only allow 20% text, which means there’s a ton of space to grab your audience’s attention while motivating them to click through or buy.

When you add in a promotional product to this style of marketing the results are higher. You’ll end up with many more impressions and an updated Facebook page!

How does the program work?

Customers get an envelope every time they visit your company. They must open the envelope in front of staff. Put an expiration date on it to create a sense of urgency and allow one envelope to be redeemed per customer. Whatever the prize is, they get it on the spot--instant gratification. But as you can see this promotion draws in people to your business. Its simple and easy to run.

We suggest giving away about 1,500 “mystery envelope gifts” and the return has been about 20% on new business while at the same time creating many more in-person impressions than other promotions can create.

Leverage Your

Email marketing still of a bang for your ad you combine it with p ducts it works BETTER especially when you’ diligently saved your and made notes abou We hope so.

Because when you en ers with loyalty progr campaigns and prom you’re sure to hit a ho tion these programs

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produces one heck dvertising buck when promotional proR. And why not... ’ve successfully and r customer’s emails ut them right?

ngage your customrams using email motional products ome run. No queswork!

Host a 12 Day Giveaway This promotion will get some of your non-paying consumers that you want to convert to buy or work with you.

You start off by offering to try out samples of your products or services (along with getting other fun promo goodies). The result of this will be to increase daily traffic to your site/store because users will want to see what’s offered each day of the promotion.

You can promote any theme related to the “12 Days of Your Any Event”. And it’s critical to support your program across all social media accounts and newsletters.

What are the expected results?

This program works because it engages customers and creates tons of impressions in a really short time. Traffic can be expected to increase by about 20-30% on your website and social media. Some days you will see your visitor amounts double for the day and sales should spike dramatically on the days where the products or samples you offered as incentives were hot. Pay attention to those days for future use. If you have some low days...don’t worry.

Offered sales can be low during the event (most likely caused by people waiting and seeing if there would be more cool products on another day). After the event, sales should remain steady going into the next month and beyond.

Match Your Promotions to Your Content & Social Strategy Businesses ALWAYS have so much going on...it doesn’t matter if it’s during the holidays or in the heat of the Summer. We all have overwhelming schedules where we multi-task...and as a result its pretty easy to let one’s guard down and forget to run concurrent Content & Social Strategy Campaigns.

Make sure that you tie your Content & Social Strategy Campaigns all together.

For example, if you’re running a health club, write a blog on how to stay stress free, then let your customers know you’re sponsoring discounted gym memberships on instagram with a free gift for joining. Make sure you top off your efforts with a targeted product to be the most effective.

83% of consumers could recall an advertiser using Promotional Products... while a mere 7% of consumers recalled the name of an advertiser after viewing a commercial on TV.

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Editors Page Niche marketing may be on the outs...and it’s time to consider thinking about TribalMarketing instead. The concept of Tribes has been around since the beginning of mankind but its being honed by social media in a way no one ever saw coming.

Do your research...Tribal Marketing isn’t a new buzz word, rather its really what’s happening marketing wise in today’s social media environment.

Tribes are in general a grouping of people with a common cause...one that’s makes them so deeply connected they will do almost anything to maintain their tribe.

That could mean rallying together for both good and bad things. And most tribes are forming on social media...because that’s exactly what it was designed to do even if the founders of Facebook or Twitter didn’t foresee that.

Many people we’ve talked to about the concept of “tribes” are initially a little befuddled. What does a tribe have to do with any marketing plan? Well, when you dig a little deeper into the concept of tribes in concert with social media you’ll start to see why this can make such a big difference in how you think about marketing to your clients. That’s why we advocate leaving niche marketing concepts.

From neo Nazi groups to Dallas Cowboys football fans there are all sorts of Tribes out there. Tribes are people that have an urgent need to belong to a group with like feelings, attitudes and values...and its members will do just about anything their Tribe requires. You need to look no further than the Republicans and Democrats in our legislature. It’s so obvious that both parties are so cemented in their Tribe they’ve forgotten their real Tribe is the word “America”.

Almost everybody has some sort of tribe affiliation. A tribe is a group of people gathered around a common mindset, or a common set of goals. They are people travelling in the same direction at the same speed. Although they may be many, they act as a singular entity and can be described in the singular.

The most well known example we can think of is many Jewish people talk about their religion as a “tribe”, but it also goes a lot further...into politics, religion, race, sex and almost every facet of our lives. And its being fueled by social media.

Brand communities, consumer tribes and tribal marketing, should be your focus along with social media these days. Yet to you fully understand the phenomenon behind the buzz you’ve got to do some research on your own. This article will just introduce you to the concept. Once you’ve read up on it you will become facinated by it.

To successfully adapt Tribal Marketing strategies you first need to understand what tribes you are selling to and how

Wha

at is Tribal Marketing?

Continued next page

Tribal Marketing...No Longer their rise in social media has changed the way we connect and consume.

It was in 1996 that Michel Maffesoli‘s book “The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society” set the basis for an evolving research stream on tribalism in consumer studies. The concept of neo-tribes is best described as a return to social micro-groups, building belonging through shared rituals, emotions, beliefs or consumption practices. In marketing theory the idea of tribes entails a change of focus from individuals to micro-social levels as unit of analysis.

Why are behaviors superseding demographics when it comes to understanding customers? Several reasons. One, the internet and increasing global connectivity speeds the spread of information. A result of this is increased brand familiarity – the rise of global brand recognition. It also means that a trend or fad that starts in one country or region can rapidly spread anywhere else. Two, with that global reach of brands, there is greater ability for individual consumers to experiment with a larger variety brands. Alongside that experimentation there comes a greater influence of different cultures around the world, and with it is a greater variety (and acceptance) of “norms” or conventions.

Its Important to Segment...

By segmenting the tribe, you are able to focus on cross over aspects.

Segmentation of a tribe is very useful as it gives us more focused content opportunities. Most segments will overlap with other tribes and it’s useful to pick out those who overlap with many tribes, thus increasing the potential of the content produced.

Overlapping into your sector can also occur. If you sell sporting goods, sports fashion…etc. you would find it useful to create content that serves both your tribe and other related tribes. Even so called boring industries such as insurance and credit can have an overlap. Each tribe has a potential to overlap with the subject you are working on.

When you segment a tribe, you are looking for opportunities for cross-over content.

By identifying tribes who have a natural overlap with your publishing goals, it gives you a ready make target market which you can publish to.

If you were niche marketing you would be focusing on the keywords which people would be searching for, rather than the people themselves. After you have found the keywords, you still have to find the people and most niche strategies have poor processes for identifying, communication and then influencing the tribe.

To be able to communicate and influence the tribe you must adopt a lot of the aspects which defines them as members.

You must learn to talk their language and

r a Page in Sociology Books ...It’s Emergence is Due to Social Media walk among them. You do this by reading what they read, listening to the same podcasts, watching the same Youtube clips.

Web forums are a good jumping off place for a lot of this research as forums tend to be used by the hard core or the inner circle of the tribe.

If you combine the concepts of a “tribe”- a group of like-minded individuals who make up a community - and marketing, you create a powerful tool that deeply connects with your customer base and transcends your brand.

However, the tribal marketing approach is more of an art than a science. Here are four top tips for delivering relatable services to appeal to your chosen audience.

Identify and conquer Before you can identify with a tribe, you must first classify and define your brand position. This helps you understand who your audience is, their values and how you’re most likely to get their attention.

Get engaged Once you’ve identified your tribes, you need to work out how best to engage them.

Research from the University of Royal Holloway revealed tribes on Twitter have their

own language, so studying online interaction will enable you to tailor brand messages, making them relevant and native to your audience.

Market your message To achieve this, set up a brief, to-the-point survey and distribute it to the groups, where you’d like to achieve maximum engagement. Your primary question should be: “Which social networking site (Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.) do you use the most?” You can include other relevant questions to help you understand their social media behaviours.

Evolve with your tribes It’s important to remember no tribe is ‘stagnant’. People’s views and opinions are constantly changing and it’s likely the original tribe you began targeting, may split into smaller ‘micro-tribes’.

You need to be aware of these possibilities and evaluate what the future consumer landscape will resemble and how consumers’ fundamental needs will change over time.

Analyze trends related to demographics, lifestyle and economic factors. Then zero in and use metrics to capture these trends with concrete data.

Stain Imaging

All Over Print

creative packaging beautifully designed

available through your promotional products distributor

The In’s & Out’s of the US Chin The tariffs have taken a big toll on the promotional products industry. Many Supplier/Manufacturers of promo products reported much higher sales for 2019 but their profits were not reflecting it because they wanted to hold 2019 prices.

So use of promotional products was up in 2019 inspite of the tariffs but promo makers reported much smaller profits.

But there looks like an election year is coming to save the day.

Trump officials acknowledged reaching a phase two agreement and have turned down the heat by announcing that China would buy more agricultural products from the US...about $16 billion more than they previously did. The 86 page report, which has not been made public yet, is supposed to detail some new rules on intellectual property which has been a sticking point.

China has stolen billions of dollars in intellectual property which includes movies, trademarked items and more. Rightly so the USA should get tough on this openly and brazen type of theft but it came to the American public with a big price tag. No one has an exact number but it looks like close to a trillion dollars in tariffs were passed along to the American public. All of that money went to the US Treasury as taxes.

And for the record many Republican “free trade” Congressman and Senators oppose the tariffs.

Some, but not all, tariffs will be reduced.

The President said he won’t impose a 15 percent tariff on about $160 billion in Chinese imports, including consumer goods like smartphones and laptops that he had threatened to levy.

The United States will also cut duties imposed in September 2019 on a list of Chinese imports valued at about $120 billion.

The rates will fall from 15 percent to 7.5 percent for items like jackets, gloves, footwear and flat panel electronic displays...many of those items are used in the promotional products industry!

Tariffs will stay at 25 percent tariff on $250 billion worth of imports. That will be leverage for extracting concessions from China in a second phase of talks, the president said.

Trump’s decision to cut the tariff rate was taken as a “gesture of goodwill,” outside adviser and China experts said. But politicians on this side of the world said the elections would drive the tariffs down even more as November 2020 approaches.

The U.S. also agreed to increase the number of tariff exceptions it will grant Chinese imports that are still subject to duties, said Liao Min, China’s vice minister of finance. Liao said that China will also consider cancelled another round of retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products that was set for December 15.

na Trade Deal What we know about promises to farmers: China will commit to buy at least $40 billion a year in U.S. agricultural goods.

In 2018, China bought about $24 billion in farm products. That amount would provide a baseline, so the pledge would translate to a 66 percent increase or about $16 billion.

Finally--as we learned--efforts to establish punitive damages; both civil and criminal for violations, are on the table.

The truth is for years China has been enhancing its protection of intellectual property while stealing US propertities.

China has committed to increase purchases of U.S. goods and services by about $200 billion within two years. That would help Trump’s goal to whittle down the $420 billion trade deficit the U.S. has with China.

The U.S. said it has promises to fix nettlesome business protections issues this time around. China said it agreed to enhance protection of intellectual property, like protecting of trade secrets, extending drug patents, combating piracy and counterfeiting on e-commerce platforms, and cracking down on bad-faith registration of trademarks.

Are we there yet on these matters? You decide.

CONTACT YOUR PROMOTIONAL PRODUCTS DISTRIBUTOR FOR QUOTES