Don Sanders June 2020 b

DON

SANDERS

MARKETING

WHAT DOES YOUR MARKETING SAY ABOUT YOU? don@donsandersmarketing.com

sellphone: 214-533-4215

New Promotional Products Help Fight the Virus

Your Logo Here!

Here are some of the promotional products industry’s latest products to help fight the virus.

They range from hair clips to ease the tension on the wearer’s ears from the masks to devices that you’ll carry on your key rings that make for touchless entering of your pin or personal data in public environments.

One innovation we think will be initially overlooked but will have a big impact in keeping your customers safe is a “case to carry one’s mask”.

Keeping one’s mask clean will be a key issue in casinos, theme parks and other places where lots of people will be. For example, people in casinos will be required to wear masks, but when they go eat they will remove them. Clean storage of your client’s mask in a case you provide for them will be extremely well received...and brand your company at the same time.

Carrying Cases for Mask

ks

Touchless Door Openers/Pin Entry Devices for Keyrings

Hairbands for College Markets

Solid Advice for Marketing During the Pandemic While not all of these ideas will fit your business, many will. There’s a multitude of things that need to be planned for and our ideas will help you attain your goals.

Let’s review...these are the topics to overcome between now and 2021:

*Current Market Volativity* *Late Summer Calm, Normalcy Returns* *October/November Resurgence of Virus* *2021 Post Covid Environment*

From the many marketers we’ve spoken to most are setting in place lots of steps to work through the current volativity. At the same time they are preparing for yet another wave of the virus in the last quarter of the year...and then more plans to be at top peak performance for the post-Covid-19 environment. Its probably the biggest challenge any marketer has ever faced.

At the forefront of our discussions have been the ability to observe and predict New Customer Shopping Behaviors. One that is completely evident is that many shoppers are going to continue to buy on-line. This is a habit that will continue to make e-commerce more important than ever.

With all of that being said, once restrictions are lifted people will enjoy shopping outside of their houses, condos or apartments. The freedom of that experience will be so very important...but short lived when the pandemic is predicted to resurface in Q4.

Addressing the Current Market Volativity, if you stop promoting, marketing and advertising you’ll find that’s a sure way to drift down.

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Keep money in your budget for these changes...notice we didn’t say Budget Allocations because so many corporations have “busted their budgets” by not making money the last 90 days.

The budget you put together before the pandemic isn’t worth the paper its written on. Get creative and make sales in ways you never thought possible without spending a ton of money.

When late Summer calms and some sort of normalcy returns things will be on the upswing...but only for a little while. Focusing your marketing efforts on clearing out all of the goods you had in inventory during this time will be critical. And yes, there are fears that you won’t have inventory for the Fall because of manufacturing delays but its a time for buyers to increase their diversification of sources to reduce the risk of not being able to get merchandise to stock their shelves.

Brands that cannot adapt their merchandise portfolio and cannot provide real added value or relevant things to buy will disappear.

The four things you need for a successful rebound are: Boost Your Digital Advertising Adjust Your Product Line Keep Your Brand in the Public Eye Make Sure Your Suppliers are Viable When the pandemic returns in Q4 many of the lessons we learned in Q’s 1&2 will have to be reapplied. Will your store be shut down? There’s a good chance that will happen again if you are not an essential business. So that just goes to show you how important your Digital Advertising and Website are.

Look, you’re are in the fight of your marketing life. You’ll have to take your customer service to the highest level it can be...and treat all of your clients like VIPs. One area we’d greatly encourage you to explore is enhancing your on-line experience to include not only improved services but using promotional products as incentives or as gifts-with-purchase.

Those are tried and proven marketing methods. Last, the post-Covid 2021 environment will be like a gold mine.

Make it to next year this time and your sales will soar.

Back-toBusiness

Checklist GET REOPEN READY! There are so many things to do before you reopen and for many company’s budgets are strained to the limit. But with that being said here’s some ideas that won’t hurt your pocketbook too much and will end up promoting a successful relaunch of your company.

Tell your clients all about how you’ve reinspected your store or office for code compliancy. You’ve checked the filtration systems and made it easier for as much contactless things to happen as possible. You can do this on social media and through using low cost promotional products.

You can promote these kinds of things through wearables with your logo and “cause” printed on them. You can also place lots of signage and that includes some cool looking picture frames that will show off your office and how you are going to fight the pandemic.

Tell your clients that you are using safer business processes. Tout your touch free point of sale system, curbside or in-store pickup and set up digital signatures...while

promoting all of those innovations with custom designed promo products.

That includes custom labeled hand santizers, mini disinfectant sprays, touchless soap dispensers and other covid fighting promo items.

Ensure adequate supplies to support healthy hygiene practices. Let’s take a moment to think about human nature when it comes to this. If you force people to support hygiene it will fail. If you promote good hygiene and make it a cause then the program will succeed. Belonging to the movement is better than being forced into it. Promotional products as rewards do a great job to motivate your clients and employees.

Training your staff on not doing it the old way will perhaps be one of your greatest hurcles. Once people do their job a certain way they generally don’t want to change because they were good at doing it the old way. Well, retraining will be critical and if you don’t offer them some sort of incentive you’ll have a much tougher time at the conversion. We can help you devise a great incentive program...just let us know and we’ll come up with all sorts of ideas. Promotional Products Work!

Turning the Sign from Closed to OPEN! KEEP YOUR COMMUNITY INFORMED & INVOLVED Update ALL of your digital outlets with info about your new opening hours. That includes your website, social media and google listing. Its great to offer some additional incentive to come back in...so using the right signage--including a-frame signs; in-store banners;widow posters etc. will do the job.

You can easily do your own videos these days if you are a small businiess and larger ones have budgets to handle this media.

Once people start to view your emailed video they watch it until its completion about 80% of the time. Yes, the trick is getting them to open your email in the first place but once you do using video is a great and entertaining ad vehicle.

Encourage trial and repurchase programs.

Print these promotions on signs, posters and banners. Use digital media and start using Loyalty & Appointment Cards.

Don’t overdo it but conduct customer and staff appreciation efforts. Let your customers tell you what’s important to them and reward them with a small promotional gift.

How else can you assure your customers you are a safe haven? Keep up-to-date with CDC guidelines and let your customers know it.

Think about promoting a “virtual re-ribbon cutting event”. And don’t forget to email them but don’t overdo it. Emailing has gotten so popular it can almost backfire on you if you are pounding it too much. Think about it, the number of companies emailing their clients quadrupled from March 3rd to present...there was no other way to stay in contact with your clients. So now they are probably a little more sensitive--and overwhelmed--with ads in their inboxes. One thing that usually gets opened is a good video.

Promo Branding Takes a Punch in the Gut But is Back on the Upswing Branding and Marketing has never taken a plunge like it has for the past two and a half months. Some lucky companies in the “essential business” determinations won big while so many other businesses plunged to the bottom with the Titanic.

But, like we all know with the bad of this pandemic there is also good that arises from it. And that news is with the re-openings companies small, medium and large are starting to get the word out they are back in business. As we’ve said in other articles, this is a virtual restart and companies should kick it off that way.

For the most part before the pandemic things in the promotional products business were heading towards an all time high in terms of sales. 2020 was going to be one the industry’s best years. Lot’s of new products had been designed and more and more promo manufacturers were making products that looked more mainstream. By mainstream we mean more retail styled.

But like everything else that all came to a shrieking halt and promotional products Suppliers and Distributors started selling PPE to companies. Amazing isn’t it? The promotional products industry provided millions of masks, gowns and other products where big companies that sell it directly to hospitals, nursing homes and more, couldn’t deliver.

of how you can hang a one ounce bottle of hand sanitizer on your key ring...the promotional products industry has or is working on some very wonderful products.

Here are some pretty darn good ideas for promoting your brand while protecting your customers.

3M has developed a complete line of anti-covid Post-It Notes. Most all have some sort of message or warning but there quite a few that will help your office and customers realize you’re on top of battling the pandemic. Logoed Floor Mats offers many ways for you to let your customers know you are protecting them in your office. You can put any message on them that you need.

Stickers might seem like they are for kids, but when you place a sticker on your consumer’s bag or product that makes a statment “we’re protecting you”, that goes a long way to build consumer trust. And another simple thing that will make a big difference in your operation...since your employees will most likely be wearing masks for quite a while...it will help build your brand and customer trust by providing really great looking name tags for your employees.

With the opening of many states and cities we are seeing many more requests for promotional products. Interestingly the products being ordered are primarily ones that help fight covid in some way.

From tools that you can put on a key ring that allow you to enter your pin when grocery shopping (and is “touchless”), to really creative masks to every derrivation

Need more ideas? Even though many people have and are returning to work companies across the nation are considering closing offices and encouraging their employees to continue to work from home.

What better way to reach those employees but through direct mail campaigns. You can use coupon cards, send oversized business cards with a call to action limited time offer, reward cards...you can see the options here are endless.

Humanity Not Emails...

Use Promo Products When the pandemic shut things down most marketers turned to using emails to stay ih touch with their customers because emails cost so little. For some consumers it felt like they were being assaulted and there’s a lot of truth behind that.

There are really several sides to this story.

One, there’s the need for your company to stay in business and the pandemic certainly did its best to close you down. Then, there’s your consumer who you were desperately trying to stay in touch with to keep your sales going. What happened for many companies will surprise you...especially the ones that over used emails.

When companies did what they did by sending way too many email campaigns they reeked of opportunism and that struck the wrong tone for many consumers. And it actually hurt some businesses because people already know they can shop online.

We suspect that retailers and brands all across the country were freaking out and facing widespread closures and sales declines that can get worse...so they stepped up their email campaigns as a way to market to their consumers.

They did stupid stuff like pitching pyjamas to wear while working from home...instead of making a statement about how their company was helping the world fight the virus. Seriously, people were looking for real information such as how to avoid getting sick, or finding new ways to streamline their work from home situation, or how to stay out of depression from being locked in for so long.

Then CEO’s from so many companies decided to send their messages seemingly sympathetic but not really hitting the mark of fighting the virus...some even stated that it was important to continue supporting their brand when people didn’t have the money.

Geeze, millions of people were laid off...we wonder where they got their advice.

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Brands that are keeping the message that they truly care about something greater than their business are the ones succeeding! That is what is resonating with clients...

BRANDING

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WELCOME BACK IDEAS

Totally Custom...One Piece Minimum...Amazing Results

BEST

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Back-toBusiness

Checklist GET REOPEN READY! There are so many things to do before you reopen and for many company’s budgets are strained to the limit. But with that being said here’s some ideas that won’t hurt your pocketbook too much and will end up promoting a successful relaunch of your company.

Tell your clients all about how you’ve reinspected your store or office for code compliancy. You’ve checked the filtration systems and made it easier for as much contactless things to happen as possible. You can do this on social media and through using low cost promotional products.

You can promote these kinds of things through wearables with your logo and “cause” printed on them. You can also place lots of signage and that includes some cool looking picture frames that will show off your office and how you are going to fight the pandemic.

Tell your clients that you are using safer business processes. Tout your touch free point of sale system, curbside or in-store pickup and set up digital signatures...while

promoting all of those innovations with custom designed promo products.

That includes custom labeled hand santizers, mini disinfectant sprays, touchless soap dispensers and other covid fighting promo items.

Ensure adequate supplies to support healthy hygiene practices. Let’s take a moment to think about human nature when it comes to this. If you force people to support hygiene it will fail. If you promote good hygiene and make it a cause then the program will succeed. Belonging to the movement is better than being forced into it. Promotional products as rewards do a great job to motivate your clients and employees.

Training your staff on not doing it the old way will perhaps be one of your greatest hurcles. Once people do their job a certain way they generally don’t want to change because they were good at doing it the old way. Well, retraining will be critical and if you don’t offer them some sort of incentive you’ll have a much tougher time at the conversion. We can help you devise a great incentive program...just let us know and we’ll come up with all sorts of ideas. Promotional Products Work!

Turning the Sign from Closed to OPEN! KEEP YOUR COMMUNITY INFORMED & INVOLVED Update ALL of your digital outlets with info about your new opening hours. That includes your website, social media and google listing. Its great to offer some additional incentive to come back in...so using the right signage--including a-frame signs; in-store banners;widow posters etc. will do the job.

You can easily do your own videos these days if you are a small businiess and larger ones have budgets to handle this media.

Once people start to view your emailed video they watch it until its completion about 80% of the time. Yes, the trick is getting them to open your email in the first place but once you do using video is a great and entertaining ad vehicle.

Encourage trial and repurchase programs.

Print these promotions on signs, posters and banners. Use digital media and start using Loyalty & Appointment Cards.

Don’t overdo it but conduct customer and staff appreciation efforts. Let your customers tell you what’s important to them and reward them with a small promotional gift.

How else can you assure your customers you are a safe haven? Keep up-to-date with CDC guidelines and let your customers know it.

Think about promoting a “virtual re-ribbon cutting event”. And don’t forget to email them but don’t overdo it. Emailing has gotten so popular it can almost backfire on you if you are pounding it too much. Think about it, the number of companies emailing their clients quadrupled from March 3rd to present...there was no other way to stay in contact with your clients. So now they are probably a little more sensitive--and overwhelmed--with ads in their inboxes. One thing that usually gets opened is a good video.

Promo Branding Takes a Punch in the Gut But is Back on the Upswing Branding and Marketing has never taken a plunge like it has for the past two and a half months. Some lucky companies in the “essential business” determinations won big while so many other businesses plunged to the bottom with the Titanic.

But, like we all know with the bad of this pandemic there is also good that arises from it. And that news is with the re-openings companies small, medium and large are starting to get the word out they are back in business. As we’ve said in other articles, this is a virtual restart and companies should kick it off that way.

For the most part before the pandemic things in the promotional products business were heading towards an all time high in terms of sales. 2020 was going to be one the industry’s best years. Lot’s of new products had been designed and more and more promo manufacturers were making products that looked more mainstream. By mainstream we mean more retail styled.

But like everything else that all came to a shrieking halt and promotional products Suppliers and Distributors started selling PPE to companies. Amazing isn’t it? The promotional products industry provided millions of masks, gowns and other products where big companies that sell it directly to hospitals, nursing homes and more, couldn’t deliver.

of how you can hang a one ounce bottle of hand sanitizer on your key ring...the promotional products industry has or is working on some very wonderful products.

Here are some pretty darn good ideas for promoting your brand while protecting your customers.

3M has developed a complete line of anti-covid Post-It Notes. Most all have some sort of message or warning but there quite a few that will help your office and customers realize you’re on top of battling the pandemic. Logoed Floor Mats offers many ways for you to let your customers know you are protecting them in your office. You can put any message on them that you need.

Stickers might seem like they are for kids, but when you place a sticker on your consumer’s bag or product that makes a statment “we’re protecting you”, that goes a long way to build consumer trust. And another simple thing that will make a big difference in your operation...since your employees will most likely be wearing masks for quite a while...it will help build your brand and customer trust by providing really great looking name tags for your employees.

With the opening of many states and cities we are seeing many more requests for promotional products. Interestingly the products being ordered are primarily ones that help fight covid in some way.

From tools that you can put on a key ring that allow you to enter your pin when grocery shopping (and is “touchless”), to really creative masks to every derrivation

Need more ideas? Even though many people have and are returning to work companies across the nation are considering closing offices and encouraging their employees to continue to work from home.

What better way to reach those employees but through direct mail campaigns. You can use coupon cards, send oversized business cards with a call to action limited time offer, reward cards...you can see the options here are endless.

How Marketing Leaders Manage Both the Pandemic & Plan for the Future Imagine this day one year ago. We were all happy Americans getting ready to start summer time pleasures without a care in the world. Fast forward to March 3rd, 2020 and the world changed in an instant. And with that change comes some very significant observations we’d like to make with regard to planning while the pandemic is overwhelming us.

Here’s our thoughts. Consumer sentiment and behaviors have basically and fundamentally veered off the course we were on a year ago. There are entirely new realities and US consumer optimism and the economy is declining in concert with the pandemic. According to McKinsey, 75 percent of US consumers feel their finances will be impacted for more than two months by the pandemic.

As a result, new spending patterns are emerging and they are unsuprising. They are almost exactly what you’d think they’d be...and that is consumers purchased “must have” products while virtually shutting off ALL other product purchases. The must have products included groceries, household products, and home entertainment items. Travel, anything OUT OF HOME, and even discretionary products like wearables have dropped to unheard of lows.

During this time we all know many if not all of your clients shifted to buying on line.

Jeff Bezos was rich before, but now he’s the richest man in the world by far because of the increased sales at Amazon. And unfortunately online shopping is becoming the channel of choice and we think this new trend will endure for some time to come. It all points to resizing up how you do business and how much more important the promotional products industry has become to help you make sales. That personal endorsement you get when your clients are wearing your logo is one of the strongest marketing tools at your disposal.

Marketing at this very moment as compared to a year ago is entirely different. We

forcasted in the coming year or two MASKS will be the number one promotional product worn by more people than any previous wearable--even the almighty t-shirt. Masks will have to comply with being fashionable, creative in their design and protect the wearer.

They will be worn at shopping centers, sporting events, and almost everywhere on the streets and in the office. Getting your logo on as many as you can is a goal we’d say is pretty darn important. Remember creativity counts big here...and the more stylish your mask is while protecting the wearer (and allowing them to breathe normally) has to be a major part of your marketing now and in the future.

There’s a ground swell of marketing executives that are putting together dedicated crisis teams who are only looking at the things that will generate money now.

Short term everyone needs cash, especially those who were not considered essential businesses.

Businesses will have to operate remotely and remain agile focusing almost exclusively on short term business health issues like cash flow and sales targets. Yet when all is considered the long-term has to be folded in there too. Think of how fast things changed with the pandemic...so having some sort of long-term plan for growth is critical.

Your company’s long-term playbook will wildly vary. It will depend on what category your business is in. Businesses with high demand products are doing fine while big ticket sales demand have dropped off the face of the earth. Given what is in line for the foreseeable future, your company’s success will depend on how agile it is when it comes to testing,

learning and adapting to a moving target type playbook thats going to be constantly re-written.

We’d advise you to be resilient and have resolve on how to manage the here and now. This is formulated on four actions: Continued Next Page

Considering the scale of this epidemic, number one priority should be to supp your employees, customers and suppli We’d like to doubly emphasize that you employee health and wellness should b the highest on that totem pole. If your employees show up sick, your business get shut down.

Next, develop empathic programs that understand your customers current ne Immediately study your customer’s ne because today they are one thing while tomorrow those needs will be complet different. You should be questioning everything you believed to be true abo your customers. Things are so radicall different now that developing insights “what’s next” could be a make or break scenario.

Build up cash. And with that statemen most company execs will respond: Ho after two months of little or no revenu can we do that? Its going to be tough b doing an immediate re-evaluation of media performance--channel by channel--to totally understand where your a money is going as compared to making sales is essential. Ditch all the non-pro making ad channels; have no sentimen about it. We’re sure you’ll find that pro tional products carry one of the best R in advertising.

Increase and drive your revenue respo We all know that consumers are spend less which makes it critical for advertis to really narrow their media plans. Loo ONLY for the channels making your mo now...and track each and every metric see what’s working. You don’t want to

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Companies with stores should immediately reach out to their existing client base with an offer to shift the delivery of BOPUS, (By online, pick up in store) or any other sales avenue you can provide ON-LINE. Promoting these services with promotional products so greatly enhances your customer’s experience. Instead of just selling them what they ordered giving them a thank you incentive in the form of a promotional product has been proven to drive business and its one that is working today...in this new environment.

Its also going to be important to refocus your brand to the consumer’s new buying behaviors. Think “crisis; covid, pandemic”, and how your brand can help fight that stuff. That connection will be a super powerful one. People will support your copmany just because you are doing something to fight the virus.

Be inspiring...find that little niche of how you can impact your clients/communities and make their existence through this pandemic better for them. For example, placing 4th of July ads will probably fall on deaf ears...but placing 4th of July ads that are fighting the virus will win customers.

Covid and the virus is our world right now and joining together into this fighting covid club will send the right message to your clients.

Without a doubt this is super important.

Right now sell the product that is most relevant to your company...and don’t focus

on the ones you have to get rid of because they are in inventory...screaming to be sold.

Instead prioritize the most pressing categories.

You’ve got to be “all-in-agile”...and yes there are definitions of “agile marketing”. Agile marketing works on two week sprints versus normal working speed. But we see even that might be way too slow for the world we live in. Remember on April 20th we were worried about the virus but on March 3rd the country started to shut down? Develop rapid testing, check your stats, adapt to your customer’s need and experience.

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And in a few days you’ll have a custom sample at your oďŹƒce. Limit one per customer.

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Now is the time to begin planning membership recognition and renewals. Our five year tag option is included in the price of each plaque offers an affordable way to raise membership awareness and thank your organization’s valued supporters.

A Mask that Kills University oF Kentucky and University of Alberta researchers are close to developing a mask that kills Covid-19 on contact!

CNN has reported that Professor Bhattacharyya from the University of Kentucky is leading a team developing a mask that can kill the virus on contact.

Its pretty exciting...and life saving.

The mask has a thin design and the antiviral membrane mask would attach to the spikes of the coronavirus, separating the spikes and killing the virus on contact.

"You can breathe very easily," Bhattacharyya told WLEX-TV. The National Science Foundation is giving a $150,000 grant to create the masks.

In Canada similar eorts are underway with a team from the University of Alberta. There Dr. Choi of the Chemicals and Engineering department has isolated a way to treat masks with salt crystals that deactivate the virus.

Apparently after the Covid-19 droplets evaporate, the virus suers fatal physical damage when the salt returns to its crystalized state. The question is, will the promotional products industry be able to put company logos on it?

Click here to see the video: blob:https://www.wdsu.com/ 1f8b8f8c-157b-4432-8710-91 f8b6fdc50a