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Everyday Your Competitors Are Uping Their Game Are Your Promotions Working As Hard As They Should?
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Case Studies: Learn From The Pros!
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Worried About Paying Too Much? Don’t! We Have The Answers
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This Month’s Hot New Products
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The Trump Effect On The Promotional Products Industry What The New Tarriffs Could Mean To You
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Decorating Your Garments Our Guide to Almost Every Decoration Technique Our First Downloadable Section
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very month we try to examine ways to improve our Buyer’s bottom lines by giving you great ideas about products and promotions. In this issue we’ve created our first “downloadable” reference guide that talks exclusively about Decorating your promotional products.
Learning about the different techniques in Decorating your promotional products is something we believe you should become vested in, primarily because it gives you many different ways to “one-up” your competitors. We discuss what your
We’re pretty sure that most of our Buyers don’t know how many different types of Decoration Techniques there are out there. Most know about screen printing, pad printing, embroidery and engraving. By our count — and we are sure that there are more — we feature 26 different types of Decoration in this issue of IdentityEdge.Promo. Like we said, there are probably more out there, and certainly more in development. We joked around and said that maybe someone developed an imprinting technique that involved atom particles and we then found out that IBM had indeed already done that. Yes, they created the IBM logo out of atoms and took a picture of it. 18 IDENTITYEDGE.PROMO
competitors are doing in the May issue and while it probably doesn’t come as a surprise, most of our Buyers don’t know how really competitively promotional products program are. Believe it…your competition is scoping you out each and every day. We give you some ideas on how to beat the competition. In each Editor’s Notes we like to
provide some thoughtful notion. In this issue we focus on a lot of things but we’d suggest to you look at running co-op programs with socially responsible organizations like the Red Cross, American Cancer Society or local charity. These are great ways to serve your community while really promoting your brand. Your community will get behind you big time when you do stuff like that. There’s so much positive buzz that results when you use your promo dollars to help people. The rewards are always greater than the outlay… when you help someone. Last, in this month’s issue we talk about a lot of HOT PRODUCTS. Some will really surprise you… some are wild… and some are just good old solid ways to promote your business. Thanks for reading IdentityEdge! Have a great May 2018 and see you again next month where we’ll keep you up-to-date on what’s going on in the Promotional Products Industry.
Brian Brown Editor-in-Chief
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small. With a big budget you can overwhelm the market, but with a smaller budget you’ve got to be clever. That and many other factors require you to challenge yourself to developing better promotional marketing programs so that your brand comes out on top. Some questions to ask yourself: Let’s face the truth here. If $40 billion a year is spent on promotional products, which it is, that means, there’s a lot of companies promoting their brand every day. And that can give “them” the edge over you. Many Promotional Products Buyers are not aware that there’s so much competition using promotional products to drive business. We’ve found that even in very small markets the heat is on to make their brand the most widely known.
Your Competition isn’t sitting around. What are they doing? If it’s not obvious, your competitors are trying to win your market share. Adding to that fire, some competitors have really big budgets and others 24 IDENTITYEDGE.PROMO
Do a lot more
• Are you trying to use promotional products that have the highest number of impressions with the longest life?
There’s no better way to integrate your brand in your community than by using community service as the backbone of your promotions. From co-hosting Blood Drives with the American Red Cross to hosting a pink ribbon event or working with your local government on sponsoring clean up drives, there are a ton of ways to make your brand the one that everybody knows and loves. With it comes a ton of community appreciation, people who used “the other guy” will start using your company instead because you helped their community.
As your promotional magazine and advisor we’ve got some great answers for you. We can help find and develop programs that will greatly impact your brand and keep you on top. We’ll insure your brand is the one your community recognizes most. That’s what everybody else is doing and there are many ways you can do that.
Doing Community Service Promotional Programs always wins big accolades. When we ran an article about Blood Drives in the January 2018 issue of IdentityEdge, more than 20 companies on our emailing list told their Distributors to start searching for unique items related to blood drives because they wanted to sponsor some. The
• Are you designing and running promo marketing plans that can be measured by increased return of investment (ROI)? • Are your programs targeted so that you can impact that special part of your business that you need to? • Are you thinking about what will drive business to your company?
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American Red Cross is already set up to do many types of blood drives with you. What do they say, blood is thicker than water? There are hundreds of community service programs you can do, all with extended long-term benefits.
Closely identify what your competitors are doing promotionally.
same time they will also be honest and tell you what your competitors do better. Ask open ended questions and be prepared to be a good listener and not defend your brand. Rather, listen, listen and listen for SUGGESTIONS to improve your business. Most businesses don’t do that regularly and they should. The information that your clients give you is, well, priceless.
Checking out your competition is not only allowed, but they are doing the same thing to you. If you’re not, you’re missing out on a trove of ideas. Just think, your competitor may help you come up with the next great promotion and the one you develop from seeing what they are doing ends up being bigger by far than anything they’ve done. Check out your competitors on a regular basis, it’ll tell you what promos they are doing and how to respond. Again, this isn’t dirty pool, they are doing the same thing to you, rest assured.
Avoid Short Shelf Life
Using Call-to-Action; Limited Time Offers.
Communicate with your customers. Your customers will tell you a lot about what makes your service better than your competitors. While at the 26 IDENTITYEDGE.PROMO
up with your business! While that’s a very simple version of how to employ promotional products to help you one-up your brand, here’s a few other thoughts. Use more promotions with a Limited Time Offer. When your customers see a valued offer about to expire they will act.
Promotional products will always make your company more visible but including a strategically placed Call-to-Action in order to engage potential customers will elevate the success of your brand. For example, a promotional notepad can include your business name and logo, as well as a call to action to “CALL FOR A FREE CONSULTATION”. This makes it more likely that a few weeks or months after receiving your promotional item, people will follow
Select items that will be around for a long time. In other words, instead of just an imprinted pad of sticky notes, go for a sticky note holder that can be used repeatedly, requires refills, and will remain on your client’s desk. (Go for that desktop!) One exception to the short shelf life rule is food. At certain times of the year – major holidays – a promotional gift of food is welcome and appreciated. You can consider using a promotional container so once the food is gone, the container will stick around. Another area in which a logoed item works well is when someone has given you a referral. Reward the referral with the company brand and they will feel as if they are special.
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Choice of more than one item would be best.
Here are some other thoughts… Are my products relevant to my target demographic?
If you don’t really think this one through, you are wasting your money. Products must be relevant and its best to spend some time closely evaluating your customer base. There are lots of consumer stats to be had to help make this analysis. Find them and use them!
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from all walks of life and providing them with a product that they will all keep and use is tough, but we, as your promotional products Distributor can help you with that. OK so as the smoke settles and you’re duking it out over territory, customers and which promo programs work the best, what else can you do to create more business by branding? It’s simple, consult with your promotional products Distributor. We know what’s going on in the market. Trust us, because it’s the only thing we do each and every day. We’re great at creating really clever programs that offer some very sophisticated promotional marketing events to win you new customers. To us, logoed products are not just a t-shirt or clever item. To us we know it’s a marketing tool that can grow your brand for less money than you’d spend advertising on TV or Radio. From really small companies to Fortune 500 organizations, we can design
marketing programs that will get huge amounts of attention driving business to you while making your clients feel good about it. Remember the game is about impressions. The more impressions you get will result in more business. Advertising, no matter what type, is based on the number of impressions you get for what you spend to get them. Generally, promotional products win.
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LEARN FROM THE PROS! Marvel Hides Free Movie Tickets Behind ‘Avengers’ Promotional Posters & Their Fans Tear them Down!
Can it be true? Marvel encouraged Australian fans to tear down posters for their new movie: Avenger: Infinity War”. Yes they did and the reward was finding free movie tickets hidden behind the posters. That certainly is an unusual way to get people looking for your advertising isn’t it! And most of us would think that having people walking down the streets tearing down movie posters would be counterproductive or fall in the “vandals” realm of things. Apparently not…because this caused thousands of people to go on the hunt. 34 IDENTITYEDGE.PROMO
Clever idea... A Reddit user in Melbourne posted that he found tickets at a bus stop behind a poster that read “Do You Dare Remove Thanos?” We think this a bit of genius… even if there was some risk involved. Imagine if one of the people ripping the poster got arrested? Twitter Ads info and privacy OH well, this worked…Disney, the studio that produced this version of the Avengers, commented that there were two high tiers of prizes: A pair of double passes for “money-can’t buy exclusive” advanced screenings in Sydney/Melbourne and tickets in 40 posters.
Vegas Golden Knights Promo Items Are Selling for Big Money Online No one thought the Vegas Golden Knights—one of the new franchises in the National Hockey League—had any chance for any success. There are 31 NHL teams that took to the ice this most recent regular season, and everybody felt they’d finish dead last. New franchises have had little chance of competing against established Western Conference
foes, even on the promotional level. EVERY team has a ton of promotional products to help promote their franchise. Well the Golden Knights began downing teams at an alarming pace…setting numerous records and then claimed the Pacific Division title. Their success—for their fans-has garnered them much sought after team-affiliated promo items. In fact these promo items are so sought after that it’s become comparable to scoring playoff seats.
What’s causing this mad rush for promotional items? Ebay--using posters--promoted hockey pucks with their logo and “Chance the Mascot Bobbleheads” are the primary source for the madness. As of this writing, eBay lists more than 9,000 products pertaining to the Golden Knights, an amazing haul for the squad that finished with the league’s fifth-best record. Along with the eBay-based success The Knights have also won the thumbs up from Fanatics.com which had the Golden Knights beating the other 30 league teams as the top merchandise mover in nearly 90 countries.
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Don’t believe this success was all accomplished because the team performed a million times better than expected; DO believe that they had a great promo department that knew what they were doing and did it excessively well.
on rafters, colorful signs and mock street signs. But the coolest part of the promotion is the series of designer Metrocards that feature his life and art. They are fast becoming collector’s items and are available for subway riders.
Get Your David Bowie Inspired Promo Metrocards from NYC Transit Authority
What a great way to support the Museum and celebrate Bowie’s career. Many people know that Bowie lived in Soho. Using Metrocards for promotional campaigns is not new to the NYC MTA. They’ve done many of them with huge success over many years.
If you stop at the Soho Subway Station at Broadway in NYC you’ll note it’s full of David Bowie memorabilia. Bowie, who died in January 2016, is currently being featured at an exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum. The promotion is being in part sponsored by the MTA. The MTA— wanting to co-op the promotional program with the
World Series Ring Replica Giveaway So Successful the Team Is Doing It Again The first 10,000 Houston Astros fans attending the game against the San Diego Padres last April were lucky enough to receive an awesome sports giveaway: A replica World Series ring! Talk about drawing a crowd! The rings were gone almost instantly…and there was so much buzz about the promotion the Astros decided to do it again in June! (But their fans cannot line up to get the rings prior to 8am!)
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This is very clever marketing for sure. Giving away something— even a replica—of something so treasured…so hard to get…that most people never see…made this
the most incredible promotion we’ve seen in a long time. Congrats to the Astros for pulling it off hitting a grand slam with Coke footing the tab.
STAPLES CREATED SPIRIT WITHIN THEIR EMPLOYEE BASE TO DRIVE LOYALTY AND SALES OPPORTUNITIES Shira Goodman, Staples CEO, encouraged all employees to join her in solidarity and commitment to the organization by wearing red shirts on Friday’s.
THE CHALLENGE The idea was that everyone— including Shira—would wear red on Fridays. Her Associates were excited about wearing red on Fridays, but a large number of them wanted to take it one step further and wear a red apparel item with the Staples logo featured prominently. Adding that Staples logo would help differentiate the apparel from just a plain red t-shirt to an item with a specific purpose. But finding red apparel items with the Staples logo on it wasn’t easy. With a variety of locations as well
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Within days of announcing the Wear Red program, the team launched the Book & Run site and promoted it to Staples employees. The platform featured more than 14 items that were exclusively selected by the Staples Promotional Products merchandising team based on trends and seasonality. The Book & Run was scheduled to accept orders for 2 weeks, then orders were processed and products that met the minimum quantity would be decorated and delivered within a month of processing. as off-site employees, there wasn’t a one-stop for associates to buy a variety of items. Staples Promotional Products had always offered associates branded merchandise, but with this uptick in requests it became apparent the offering needed to be expanded.
THE SOLUTION To provide the most preferred items to associates, the Staples Promotional Products team found that a Book & Run was the best solution. Book & Run is a Staples exclusive program, perfect for seasonal and campaign initiatives that feature 1-5 items for a limited period of time.
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For the Wear Red campaign, this platform automated order entries, eliminated any need for inventory commitment, and allowed items to drop ship from various points across the country for faster delivery.
THE RESULT The Book & Run was a huge success for the first “Staples Wear Red” campaign. Despite the short notice and falling during the December holidays, there were well over 1,000 qualified orders placed. The initiative has continued since its launch with a new offering released in April to feature a spring collection for associates. This event saw another great response from associates with more than $25 thousand in sales.
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e, your Promo Distributors, have access to over 700,000 products 24/7 everyday. Most at the touch of a fingertip. But just the same, what makes you sure you’re getting the best price? We have several services that only Distributors can use allowing us to provide a wide range of price points for each and every one of your promotions. That’s one of the big advantages to working with us. We know WHO has the BEST PRICE and will deliver on-time and to specifications. But just as important to you is our creativity, passion, knowledge 40 IDENTITYEDGE.PROMO 40
and always wanting to take that extra step to make your brand just a little more famous and well known. We are experts at branding. We are experts at recommending products for your branding programs. We are experts at decorating… just take a look at our review on the most relevant decorating techniques that are featured in this issue of IdentityEdge. Click here to see our Decorating Guide — a resource that every Promotional Products Buyer needs. Thanks for reading IdentityEdge and downloading our Decorators Guide.
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This month we switched gears a little and decided to focus on Hot Product Trends instead of just Hot Products. Within each trend there are hundreds of Hot Products and we reveal quite a few. In this and almost ever y issue of IdentityEdge we do our best to dig up relevant products that will increase your branding impressions.
Trend #1: Using Brand Name Products is More Attractive than Ever Retail brands continue to capture attention in the promo product world, because those brands are recognized for their outstanding quality. Organizations will always want to align themselves with these well-respected brands by using their products promotionally. Retail brands leverage the power of social media to tell their stories in a compelling way. And with social media’s ever-increasing ability to influence consumers, brand recognition is becoming more and more noticeable, especially in promotional products. We’ve said this before in other issues of IdentityEdge…when looking to purchase promotional products in 2018, pay attention to retail trends. Both the features of the product AND the brand are highly important. There’s no better example of this right now than insulated drinkware. Upscale and drinkware brands such as Camelbak and Yeti have raised people’s expectations to a certain level of quality from water bottles and travel mugs. Consumers know that these high-quality products are out there and anything that doesn’t meet those standards is immediately thought of as lesser—and is much less likely to be appreciated by the recipient. If you have the budget, don’t use a travel mug that can only keep your drink hot for half an hour when you know other mugs will keep it hot for four hours! The four hour versions do cost more. But if your budget doesn’t allow, there are plenty of “lookalike” products with nearly the exact same features and level of quality you’re looking for. We—as your promotional products Distributor know that many of the non-branded products are actually made by the same companies that make the name brand ones! Remember, it’s the design, quality, and performance of these retail brands that attracts people. In 2018, select promotional items based on the quality of their features to stay on-trend. 48 IDENTITYEDGE.PROMO 40
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Trend #2: Shifts from Buying the Ordinary to the Extraordinary This trend illustrates where traditional promotional items and giveaways are taking a backseat to unique, innovative, and useful products is happening because the key decision-makers at organizations are getting younger. Yes…Millennials! Why is this happening? The buying power is shifting to those Millennials as they are hired into the workforces and they start making the decisions on what to buy…remember their environment is constantly surrounded by the social media influences described above. This is causing a major shift in the types of promotional items organizations are purchasing. Millennials will not buy cheap nonfunctioning items.
Trend #3: No Value, No Success More than ever, it’s important that the promotional items and gifts your organization gives out are useful, desirable, and high quality. High quality doesn’t always have to be expensive, but you really want something with long term staying power. Always start by thinking about who your recipients will be and what they might need or want. Retail-inspired promotional items with impressive features are showing more promise than some of the older more standard promo products. YOU MUST focus on packaging and presentation to make each item feel more like a gift. Use of multifeatured products or gift sets that serve more than one purpose is another trend. Our strategy: Make it look as nice as possible. 50 IDENTITYEDGE.PROMO
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Trend #4: Wellness Products Are Increasing in Popularity LOTS of companies are promoting a healthy lifestyle—both to their employees and customers. Doesn’t everyone like knowing that their company cares about their health and wellbeing? You bet ya. And promotional items are a fantastic way to demonstrate that, especially in the larger landscapes of health, wellness, and personal care products. ALL of those products have seen an exponential uptick in recent years. You should leverage the popularity of Wellness by using these health product trends as giveaways, employee rewards, and corporate gifts. Choosing products that help recipients on their wellness journey, such as fitness trackers, water bottles, and even salad bowl sets, can greatly inspire healthy eating habits AND keep your brand in front of your clients every day.
Trend #5: Decoration Styles, Materials, Textures/Colors Are More Exciting than Ever Every year in the promotional products industry our Suppliers rush to introduce the next great product. But we are finding that there’s a continuing theme of retail inspiration and 2018 is seeing promotional items that are well-designed and visually appealing to match your consumer/client needs.
Trend #6: Go Digital, Go Digital More and more promotional products Buyers are using digital products like USB drives, phone chargers and the like to promote their brands. The reason is those brands are constantly carried around displaying their logo AND they have a very long life. Look at it this way… almost everyone has a cell phone. Everyone carries their cell phone and with that you get a tremendous amount of branding. To really illustrate what an amazing market this is…there are roughly 326 million people in the USA and 271 million smartphone users. Almost everybody we know uses some sort of ancillary cell phone device. Why isn’t YOUR logo on them! 52 IDENTITYEDGE.PROMO
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The Trump Effect on the Promotional Products Industry
Will it be good for you?
We’re pretty sure most people in America know about Trump’s proposed tariffs so when Treasury Secretary Mnuchin goes to Beijing in early May, few expect them to defuse the trade conflict with China. Instead, the outcome is more likely to be:
A delay in the series of damaging import tariffs the two nations have threatened to impose on each other’s goods. That would be great. Let’s not start a trade war, both sides have much to lose.
We think that the two world’s largest economies are set to work this out, but it will take much longer to resolve. Both the US and China are playing hard ball because there’s a downside for both countries. There’s a lot at stake here. At issue are the rules that will determine which countries and their companies will dominate industries like tech, pharma and transportation. The impact could be far reaching for sure. So the issue is that a prolonged trade war could suppress growth and when that happens American jobs will start to disappear. For now, the two sides seem far apart but that’s just the precursor to the dance. Both sides will be taking tango lessons because this dance is a
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very complicated one. The objective for the US is to get China to conform to basic fundamental trade rules so US companies can be represented in China without having to sacrifice their proprietary tech know how. At this moment China requires that any company working there has to share the data. Smart move for them but not for US companies. Trade experts we’re researched report that the dueling rhetoric by
both the United States and China is the beginning of the tango. Both sides want to avoid the damage that would result from the tariffs. But here’s one of the toughest parts of this: China sees it as a violation of its sovereignty for the United States to try to curb its economic ambitions. So even if the May talks forestall a broader conflict, they risk hardening the fundamental gaps between the countries. “China’s logic is that it is totally unfair for the U.S. to initiate a trade war,” said Song Lifang, professor
at School of Economics, Renmin University. “The more pressure the U.S. is trying to exert on China, the more unyielding the Chinese government will become.» What will happen short term, say in the next six months, to costs for exporting promotional products from China? Not much. Business as usual. Prices might tick up a bit but for the most part nothing will change. However, if the tariff negotiations break down and it looks like things are going to tank, watch out.
Stay tuned to
IdentityEdge for more info on this and how it will effect the promotional products industry.
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When it comes to branding, don’t ever settle--select. That’s why it’s so important for Promotional Products Buyers to know about all available decorating techniques. There are many more than you think…or probably ever heard of. OK, so let’s begin on this sometimes confusing journey to define and talk about the many different
Choosing the right decoration technique is where we--your Promotional Products Distributor--are experts. Think about this for a moment: You have a really cool graphic that you want to print on a t-shirt and as part of your marketing program, but you also want to put it on a leather bag? Good luck with that; it’s not going to happen. Many times designs, sizes and techniques don’t translate between materials. We know these things…because we live, eat and breathe them every day for our customers. To begin, here’s a list of the most commonly used decorating techniques.
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decorating techniques. This will be the longest article that’s appeared in IdentityEdge and will serve to be a great resource for you in the future. You can print it out by downloading IdentityEdge or just save the file for later viewing on your computer. You can do that by clicking here and just the article will download—not the entire issue of IdentityEdge. Save it for reference.
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• Screen Printing & Embroidery Heat Transfer Etching Engraving Pad Printing
These are the less well known techniques (but really good ones with the right application!).
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Bling Digital Printing Dye Sublimation Dye-diffusion Trapunto Debossing
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Embossing Laser Applique Cut Vinyl Decorating Direct to Garment Printing Reverse Applique Tackle Twill Decal Transfer Die-Casting Die-striking Embedments Hot Stamping Offset Lithography Laser etching on Garments and Fleece Woven Threads Puff Printing Puff Embroidery Combination Embroidery & Screen Printing PVC Flexible Labels
Or MAKE UP YOUR OWN DECORATING TECHNIQUE by combining some of the above styles. For example combine screen printing and embroidery to make your logo have some depth.
CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD IdentityEdge’s Decorating Guide
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