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TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Wellness & Health Promotions

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Quantifying Promotional Campaigns

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HOT Trending Promotional Products for 2018

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CASE STUDIES:

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The Predictive World of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Successful Referral Programs

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CASE STUDIES:

Snow Day Marketing:

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Now that the holidays have passed and

the bathroom scale reveals the frustrating truth; it’s time to reevaluate our personal and Corporate Wellness Programs. We can start by learning the nutritional basics, but simple exercise at home and while working at your desktop/job can be fulfilling. And, as importantly, when you care corporately, your clients will be highly appreciative.

Each Wellness and Health Promotional product you distribute gets your logo in front of

hundreds of people during the year because the exercise products you buy tend to stay around for longer periods of time. From exercise mats to arm straps that hold your phone; squeeze balls; even headphones; 4

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Corporate Wellness Programs will improve your client’s everyday life while reducing the risk for many diseases.

Our suggestion: Start designing a Wellness program that will run for many months, starting in January and remains active months from now. That way you’ll get maximum exposure and the items mentioned above are pretty inexpensive so you can buy more for a wider distribution.

By the way, when you implement your Wellness

Program there are a host of companies that have incorporated it into their dayto-day marketing plans. Well‐known wellness program providers, like Virgin HealthMiles, CIGNA and CVS Caremark push Wellness because of the great benefit it presents, so you’ll be in good company by recommending Wellness Programs to your boss. Their model actively provides insight into how marketers are looking to utilize the “carrot” (positive incentives) to inspire consumers to stay

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so that shows you how dedicated the Red Cross is.

THE PAYOFF IS GREAT FOR EVERYONE Every two seconds there’s a person in the USA that needs blood. To give you an idea of how much blood that is, well, try in excess of 13 million units. Good enough reason to run a Blood Drive for your community? We think so.

The American Red Cross is one of the biggest partners corporations can get to help them run a blood drive.

They sponsor more than 40 percent of the nation’s blood and run blood drive campaigns with more than 58,000 co-sponsors every year. You don’t have to worry about developing a plan, it’s all been done thousands of times before; all you have to do is 6

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input your requirements and the event will go off flawlessly.

We’d like to highlight a story that was featured on Red Cross’s website that described American Airlines Transport Workers Union’s Crew efforts…it was totally admirable what they accomplished.

American Airlines (AA) has managed to involve 5,000 of its employees in their blood drives. They collected blood as late as 2am…

How does American Air promote their blood drives? Well first of all since their employees are giving blood during their work hours they provide shuttles and arrange so that work schedules are not interrupted. AA also provided t-shirts as gifts… and everybody was proud to wear them. The Union has a huge grill on the base and they offered cheeseburgers, bratwursts and other food including steak in the past. By the way, the t-shirts have pockets—a major convenience to those who carry earplugs.

Check with your local Red Cross and make a miracle happen. They will do almost everything for you and all you’ll have to do is provide a little manpower and money for the promotional products gifts you’ll give the donors.

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Editor’s Wishes Our Editors Wish for an Illuminated 2018 Season & an Amazing New Year

So many of us are glad to see 2017 close and be in the bag while others will lament its passing...maybe because we are another year older. With that we’re all hoping that 2018 will usher in one of the best years to come and we wish that on our readers.

As we move into 2018 all of us at IdentityEdge.Promo would like to express our thanks to our Supplier advertisers and Distributors that are emailng Identity Edge to over 700,000 Promotional Products Buyers and companies in the USA. The people on our email list are from Alaska to Hawaii and Canada.

This month we’re featuring quite a few cutting edge articles on issues in the promotional products industry. From sponsoring Wellness Programs to Blood Drives and getting the inside scoop on Quantifying Promotional Products Campaigns, we’re delivering our readers inside information never available before. No other company we know of does what we are doing, and that’s providing the Promotional Products Buyer with solid corporate insider information.

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Thanks for your patronage. Happy New Year!

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QUANTIFYING PROMOTIONAL PRODUCTS PROGRAMS

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ccording to the Harvard Business Review (HBR) big companies spend about 7% of their marketing budgets on analytics and that will increase every year. Brands plan to increase their spending on marketing analytics by a whopping 73%, according to HBR. Duly noted below, almost 30% of companies running promotion strategy campaigns used analytics.

So what can you expect and how can companies get more from their investments in marketing analytics?

If you are not careful you can expect the unexpected: Botched data. HBR recommended that to be effective marketing analytics require working with decision makers to identify what insights are necessary so the analysis can be better focused. They also said

using simple language, intuitive graphics and speedy delivery.

Next, when data is handed from the business users to the data crunchers, the data can become tainted. That led to ample room for miscommunication, misunderstanding and wasted effort. Companies should hire analytics translators to bridge the gap. You’ll need an Analytics Consultant who can bridge the gap between the analytics professionals and business decision makers.

What should YOU do? Here are five techniques that a small or middle sized company can employ.

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1

Compare the sales and gross margins for the promoted item or customer prior to the promotional period, during the promotional period, and after the promotional period. The best way to do this is to compute the average sales per day for each of these time frames. Did your average sales per day increase during the promotional period?

When

IF YOU’VE GOT THE MONEY, HIRE THE BIG GUNS. WHAT YOU’LL FIND WILL SURPRISE YOU.

comparing the sales per day prior to the promotional period, to the sales per day after the promotional period, did it look like the promotion just pulled in future sales you would have otherwise received at normal margins? Or did the promotion give you a true sales and margin “lift”?

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Compare the overall average order size and the lines per order during the promotion periods to those same metrics during non-promotion periods. Did the promotion increase your average order size or add to your lines per order? Compare these metrics against those of your industry, if available. Do they compare favorably?

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Compare the total sales per day of all items during promotional periods (including the items not promoted), to the total sales per day of all items during non-promotional periods. Does it appear that the promotions impacted your total sales, due to the added buzz that the

promotional activity provided in the marketplace? (Note to consider seasonality, if applicable.)

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Compare the results for the various promotions against each other. Rank which promotions provided the best sales and gross margin lift for your company.

Compare the results against those in prior years to see if the trends are favorable, or if certain promotional activities are getting stale. Pull or revamp those promotions that are becoming less effective.

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If possible, compare the added gross margins generated by each promotion, to the underlying incremental cost of each promotion, to determine the overall net profit generated by each program. Did the

promotion have a net positive impact on earnings?

The above assessments are simple, yet effective indicators of the effectiveness of your promotional activities. However, many small and middle market companies do not perform such assessments due to the laborious effort needed to pull and compile the data. Today’s business intelligence solutions can make the underlying data needed to complete such an assessment more readily available.

We encourage you to assess the effectiveness of your company’s sales promotion activities – you may be surprised by your findings! Regular fine-tuning of such activities is certain to enhance your company’s profitability.

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inding and selecting the right promotional product can be challenging. If you aren’t quite sure of what you want to giveaway, here are some of our top products for 2018.

We wanted you to know that we looked at commercial product markets first. Those markets determine popularity of products. Then that “style” or “fad” then flows down to the promotional products industry, albeit perhaps six months to a year later.

We’re giving you the future now.

Organic and Natural Beauty: In 2018, the organic and natural beauty category is predicted to become a 2 billion-dollar industry. The industry growth can be attributed to the overall consumer shift toward healthier alternatives. Using promotional products that are natural will be a “best bet”.

Pet Promotions: This is a large market in the United States. The pet industry is expected to reach $96 billion in the US in 2020. Pet owners view their pets as family members. Focus on providing high quality products for their furry friends. Natural food and treats, supplements for older pets, and accessories will continue to trend in 2018 and do well in promoting your brand.

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Travel Accessories: As travelling becomes more affordable and accessible, this market will continue to grow. Capture the travel bug’s interest by using travel related promotions, accessories, worldly products and food. With the majority of travelers being tech savvy, focus on digital organizers, luggage scales, WIFI hotspots, chargers/power banks, and GoPro cameras.

Men’s Grooming Products: Projected to be a $43.6 billion market by 2020, this industry will continue to grow as men’s perceptions toward self-care evolves. Using promotional products such as moisturizers, anti-aging creams, and beard oils will get your brand noticed…

Phone Accessories: The phone accessories industry has been growing for years. By 2022, it should reach $107.3 billion in market cap. Phone cases, grips, screen protectors, repair kits, chargers, and earphones have proven to be consistently popular.

Phone accessories have proven to be a product line with reliable and growing demand, with strong signals towards being an evergreen niche like fashion, home decor, and fitness. Look for wi-fi devices of all sorts.

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Backpacks! Again and Again and Again: It seems like backpacks will never die as a must have promotional product. And there’s good reason—they last for a long time. And with time they are getting more sophisticated. From backpacks that have charging ports to ones that have configurable insides, we guesstimate that there are over 10,000 different STYLES of backpacks now being produced.

In 2018, backpacks, women’s bags, men’s bags, wallets, and tote bags are just a small sample of the products you can ALWAYS use as promotional products; they are always in season but keep in mind that peak season is around August when the back-to-school season starts.

This niche is great because you can take it in several directions. Your backpack/bag promotions can be focused on travel, school, fashion, or hundreds of different marketing programs allowing you to offer great variety to your customers.

Portable LED Projectors: The portable projector industry is expected to be worth $3.44 billion USD by 2022.

And they are finally getting cheap enough to be used in the promotional products industry.

Look out for the hot ones; the mini projectors can be attached to your phone making them convenient to carry around. When they get to $30 look out, they will fly off the proverbial promotional shelf.

But there’s more... a bigger opportunity to promote your brand.

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What’s really great using portable projectors - you can make your own promotional video.

Think about that - that’s really big.

Product videos of 30-60-90 seconds long can be made for under $500.

And think about it, once you post those videos on You Tube they can be viewed by a mega huge audience over time. Here’s another big tip: Portable projectors will link through the phone to any website or video or product review in the world.

Personal Beverage Desktop Devices: Personal Beverage Cooling/Heating desktop devices - something new.

Kind of exciting; but as with any other Desktop Promotional Product, it carries a long time big presence for your brand.

Now that’s promotional advertising POWER!

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Athleisure: In fashion, trends are constantly changing. However, athleisure is one fashion trend that's here to stay. Athleisure is active wear worn as an everyday look rather than for athletic purposes like going to the gym. Within this category you can use everything from sweatshirts, sweatpants, leggings, sports bras, tank tops, headbands, capris, and shoes, all in countless colors and styles to promote your product/brand.

This is hot; remember wearables are one of your biggest brand advertising billboards and a when someone wears your brand, it's a huge personal endorsement of your company.

Minimalist watches: Around 1.2 billion watches are sold globally each year. And the number keeps rising.

While minimalist watches are trending upward, the reality is there’s a diverse range of watches that are also being used promotionally. Men’s watches, women’s watches, and smartwatches are also showing increasing volume promotionally over time.

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Makeup brush cleaners — not new... but new — if you are addressing the women's personal market: About 61% of women clean their makeup brushes less than once a month. The biggest challenges are that they take too long to clean, they don't know how to clean them, or they don't know that they need to. Fortunately, there are now makeup brush cleaners that simplify the cleaning process allowing women to clean their makeup brushes more regularly, and they take a very nice imprint for your promotional branding purposes.

Virtual Reality — A Fabulous Place to Promote Your Brand: Right now, virtual reality is a pretty isolating experience. You put on a headset and immerse yourself in a world that only you inhabit.

Going forward, says frog visual designer Seth Mach, VR (and its cousin, augmented reality, or AR) will allow people to explore untold worlds together.

They'll get to play, work, and explore communally — in alternate realities.

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"Soon, instead of being lone travelers on our augmented and virtual journeys, we'll have friends along for the ride," he wrote.

So where does all of that fit in the Promotional Products Industry? Right before your eyes — branding ON the physical VR Visor and messaging the VR visuals is the place to get an amazing amount of brand visibility.

Price will come down; but make sure the VR Visor is feature rich as you can afford.

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Credit Union’s

on-Campus

marketing success

A credit union needed a promotion to hand out at a college campus to offer student loans. The Credit Union’s management decided that product had to have several functions. First, it was something that would be useful to students. Second it would stay with them wherever they went. Third, it had to be relatively upscale looking and durable. They chose a Rubberized

How Was It Distribted?

The lights were handed out on campus during the credit union’s

visit. Students were invited to come

LED Flashlite with key ring clip. This

to the credit union’s table and hear

key ring would provide ongoing

a quick pitch about student loans,

visibility, and flashlights could be

followed by a free flashlight key tag

useful for students who find

gift with the credit union’s branding.

themselves out at night more often.

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Over 1,000 flashlites were distributed which resulted in about 150 loans being generated.

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healthy rather than the “stick” (punishment).

Fitness does not just improve your everyday life, but it reduces your risk for many diseases. According to the Mayo Clinic, The Department of Health and Human Services recommends all healthy adults include aerobic exercise

The first place you can look in developing a Wellness Program is to see what your fellow employees are doing. Ask them what they do for Wellness, they will have a lot of ideas and will be willing to contribute. Then put the plan into place. Your local promotional products Distributor will have many more ideas but the ones we’ve suggested run in the top 10 pretty consistently.

Make a difference...

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and strength training in their fitness programs. When designing your fitness program, think of physical activities your client’s will enjoy.

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THE PREDICTIVE WORLD OF AI IN PROMOTIONS HAS YET TO REALLY BEGIN…BUT WILL AI Predictions in promotional marketing have yet to be used to any extent, however, similar types of AI predictive services are becoming more commonplace for marketers.

Here’s what one promotional products company is doing on a very grand scale.

Under Armour is one of the many companies to have worked with IBM’s Watson and also sells its products in the promotional products industry. For anyone that doesn’t know what Watson is, its IBM’s AI venture that has done some very remarkable things. For example, Watson beat the best Jeopardy contests (that’s no small feat). Watson is also doing medical research, diagnosis and in the near future surgery.

Watson continuously learns, gaining

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in value and knowledge over time, from previous interactions. With the help of Watson, organizations are harnessing the power of cognitive computing to transform industries, help professionals do their jobs better, and solve important challenges.

Under Armour is a sports apparel company that sells its products in the promotional products industry as well as in many other retail outlets. They decided to use Watson to combine user data to develop a Cognitive Coaching System that serves as a personal

is not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. With predictive AI you’ll be able to know how a customer would use, keep and for whatever reason retain a promotional product; that’s obviously valuable information and that’s something Watson can do.

Watson can analyze thousands of factors which allows for the matching of broad patterns of customer behavior to those of individual members.

Promotional Targeting Andrew Ng, Chief Scientist at Baidu Research said, “Deep learning [is] able to handle more signal for better detection of trends in user behavior than other more traditional forms of marketing research.

health consultant, fitness trainer and assists by providing athletes with timely, evidence-based coaching around your sleep, fitness, activity and nutrition. The program is so complex it even includes outcomes achieved based on others “like you.”

The result is the ability for the brand to offer up relevant (personalized) training and lifecycle advice based on aggregated wisdom.

Soon they could do the same for large promotional campaigns as well…and will soon.

Predictive Promotional Campaigns—Getting the Answers As a promotional products marketer you should have an idea of what works, for what reasons and what success rates you can expect from using “that product” to promote your company.

For the most part, you can’t do that now.

But using AI you’ll be able to do those predictions, but be prepared to spend a lot of money—Watson

What does that gobbly-gook mean? It means that you’ll be able to get better information on what products you run promotionally by using AI. AI will effect almost every part of your life in the near future… from driving your car to predicting what promotional products work and why.

The question is, “are you ready for all this technology?”

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FITNESS INDUSTRY CHALLENGE

Finding For the Right Product Exercise Chain a National A nationwide gym chain was looking for 1,000’s of items to give away with the purchase of annual memberships.

They had promoted their business with gym towels and drawstring backpacks in the past and were interested in a fresh idea.

They chose the running belt as it provided their members with a lightweight, stylish option to hold essentials like phones, earbuds, locker keys, etc. while working out.

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Running Belt Fanny Pack

The gym handed out the Fanny Pack with each new premium membership sold.

Due to the popularity, they also made them available for purchase to current members at the front counter of each branch.

ROI: The new gym members appreciated the extra perk given to them and the belts are spotted being used around the club daily and in public.

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Graduation is in 135 days!

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SUCCESSFUL CUSTOMER REFERRAL PROGRAMS COMPLEMENTED WITH PROMOTIONAL PRODUCTS, THEY ARE A HOME RUN Here are the five essential giving them a favor—a promotional Nielsen data suggests that “Ninetyingredients to a smokin’ hot product—you are promoting your two percent of consumers trust customer referral program. While brand and will get referrals. Creating referrals from people they know.” some ingredients are more important that little bit of good will go a long Combine that fact with the way than others, you really need all five of way in getting your customers to do startup-world unicorns Uber, Airbnb these to get cooking. you a favor. and others have used incentivized referrals to drive their viral growth 1. Warm up your customer relationships Prep is all important in running a and it’s easy to see why businesses successful referral program, just like it Referrals are all about relationships. are adopting customer referral is in making a delicious meal.

People give us referrals because programs in larger and larger they like and trust us. That’s why the Here are the essential customer numbers. most successful customer referral referral program ingredients.

Don’t take this personally, but programs are based on existing With any recipe, if you don’t have if your company is like most strong relationships. These customers the right ingredients from the outset, organizations, it’s taking a haphazard know firsthand the value your your concoction won’t satisfy the approach to referral marketing. company delivers. tastebuds. The same is true of Most companies keep their fingers So how do you get your hands your customer referral crossed that the majority of their on this ingredient? Joanne program. customer referral programs work and Black, referral sales expert will recommend the company, out and founder of No More of the blue, to someone in their Cold Calling advises doing networks. s the following: “Start by es busin r u o reaching out to current You wouldn’t treat any wy p gro l e h clients, especially if you other critical area of your to sking a e e r c business this way, so why take s. ua l. haven’t talked to them ien TS le yo r product xper likely fai p N e o E e I e t ca st in a while. It’s amazing such a passive approach to ep ou ED advo will mo s--th any or y p n INGR i u h f s p m referrals? It’s really a big part ion om and gra , then what happens when Relat u, your c easy erral pro d , e g e e n l n o p o you start to have those of your business…and using ref im ou • Str ust like y m a s lex, your hat y a w r g m m he conversations.” promotional products can do the mp l pro -tell t lp ferra cult or co e s e h r n r o o t u job very well. tati Re-establishing it diffi ke yo me in xpec o c e s s t t • Ma you make c e . s u n t d a more personal if Don’t: You may suddenly feel gai tha pro tion ld them a onal a i t c i o n u to om relationship with compelled to email every last one re pr comm hat you e r h a e w l w your customers, will of your customers and ask them to at’s • C ll them s--th d te r a ew prime them to help you refer you to everyone in their contact and r ferrals. ng. i n h t o i o t i e out, especially if you give them list. But don’t do it! Customers are got n cogn s of r u’ve • Re u get lot o y a promotional product. (But you still used to asking you for favors, not the em yo ut th o h t i w aren’t ready to ask for a referral yet.) other way around. And requesting a ates— c o v d A referral is a big thing to ask for…so by •

R l a r r e f e

e p i ec

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2. Here’s a great way to ask for referrals First, devise an easy and enjoyable way for customers to submit referrals…and to gently remind them to refer without barraging them with email requests.

Create an exclusive hub for your happiest customers—for internal purposes label it the Advocate Promotion Program.

Thru the program, you’ll provide your customers with access to useful resources, fun content and challenges. Devise the program to have opportunities to advocate for your brand (like submitting referrals).

Every time customers are drawn into your program, they’ll be delighted— and subtly reminded to refer their peers to your awesome brand…

Bo Bandy, Director of Marketing at Ready Talk created an advocate marketing program where the brand’s best customers could share their experiences and receive rewards for doing so. In just the first 10 weeks of launching, the program generated 183 referrals. “All we had to do to get customer referrals was (1) ask customers and (2) make it easy for them,” says Bo. “They want to share the awesome experience that they’ve had with ReadyTalk.”

3. Bold type makes reading the menu or recipe a lot easier When it comes to referrals, your customers need to know what’s on the menu before they put in an order; and menus with really small type are hard to read. Take the approach, be transparent, and tell them exactly what to expect at each stage of the referral process—

from the moment someone from your company reaches out to their referral lead, to the moment that lead (hopefully!) becomes a customer. This will make your customers feel more comfortable about recommending you to friends.

You’ll also want to make sure your customers understand the kind of referral leads you’re looking to collect.

Explain your ideal referral persona, including information like: • The type of company or industry they work in • Their role or level • Their biggest challenges or values This will help to ensure that every referral lead you receive is highquality—increasing the likeliness of that lead becoming a customer.

4. Now it’s dessert time, let’s doll out the rewards Rewards and recognition—really promotional products--are the best way to let customers know that they are valued and inspire them to refer again and again.

Promotional products don’t have the break the bank, in fact, something that’s useful and fits your program is a reward that money can’t buy.

Offering customers a very special promotional product that’s linked to special perks like access to your Advocate Promotion Program or VIP treatment at your next event, will show them that you really care.

5. Finally, the gourmet 5-star experience, advocates!

So let’s move on to that secret

ingredient: Your advocates!

Remember those strong customer relationships and advocate marketing programs we mentioned before?

The point of connecting with your customers and delivering an awesome experience through your program is to gradually turn your customers into enthusiastic advocates who have no trouble spreading their love for your company.

The key is to start by asking them for smaller favors, such as sharing your content on social media or giving product feedback, before moving onto bigger requests, like writing reviews and submitting referrals. Each time they do something try and reward them with a promotional product. This way you can figure out which customers are ready to confidently refer their peers to your brand. Nurture your customers to think of it your referral program as a responsibility to help you.

Finally, keep in mind that all the referral program magic in the world won’t help if your customers don’t like your company enough to send their networks your way.

Customers will tell you if they’re happy, in the form of ratings, public reviews and direct messages. If they aren’t telling you that, you’ve got bigger problems to face than how to repair a failing customer referral system.

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Case Study

By Joining Forces

ALL Gained

Great Exposure

A Community Bank in a small town of 45,000 people wanted to do a product that would give them good exposure, have some good shelf-life and be distributed in a very efficient way throughout the community.

The bank had run many promotional campaigns from its office in the past and found that “inside counter traffic" distribution was slow and not very efficient. Often times the promotion would be over before they had used all of their product.

The Promotional Products Distributor working on idea for the community bank suggested sunglasses, which seem like a pretty mundane product but here’s where the rest of the idea hit a home run.

If the bank would agree to put their name on one arm of the glasses and the school name and mascot on the other, the high school's Booster Club would hand out the glasses at the Home Coming Game. Since the Booster Club has a merchandise table at all the high school football games, they would be able to give just about everyone a pair of the sunglasses. The bank lost on this part, the glasses would be in the school color which was not a big tradeoff and ultimately made perfect sense. The attendance at games was around 5,000 people, with the students comprising at least 1,500 of the attendees.

The bank was pretty happy with the prospect of getting almost everybody to wear their logo at the Home Coming Game. With thousands of people wearing them in the stands they got their advertising money’s worth. Plus the Booster Club had an intense amount of foot traffic. In the end, everybody involved won! Fans got a free product, the bank got their wish and the Booster Club sold a lot more than they normally would.

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Connect

with your community

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SNOW DAY MARKETING

GAINING MARKET SHARE WHILE WINTER SLOWS YOUR BUSINESS Every year some storm in our nation shuts everything down.

Whether it’s a day, a week or more, those storms reek havoc on your bottom line.

Hasn’t your businesses been faced with the decision in harsh winter weather to either close or ask their employees to work remotely (provided they have power and internet access)? Many employees who are unaccustomed to working from home may scratch their heads wondering how they can be productive in such an alien work environment—their home.

But snow days can actually be highly productive, especially for promotional marketers and those who want to develop bigger, better business.

Assuming you have power—and internet--you can begin to advance your marketing strategy and business development efforts with these five promo tips while the bad weather has you trapped.

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1. Enhance Your Promotional Calendar If you are passionate about promotional marketing, you’ll likely utilize several different distribution channels to communicate your upcoming promotions. You can blog about them. You send out email newsletters talking about your next promotion. You can engage in social media where you talk about what’s new promotionally. You can host webinars which covers a lot of bases with your promotional content.

To keep all of your promotional marketing campaigns straight, you should probably have a Promotional Calendar that lays out each of your marketing campaigns.

Yes, a snow day is the perfect time to delve deep into your promotional campaigns, focusing on ways you can maximize your product buys, campaign content, determining when you will need to develop additional content, and customizing your promotions per channel and/ or target market. If you don’t already have a Promotional Calendar, being snowed in provides the advantage of fewer interruptions and distractions so that you can draft one.

Why is it important to maintain a detailed Promotional Calendar?

It is an essential component of promotional marketing because helps you: • Think beyond today and tomorrow • Focus on your promotional targets needs • Connect with the right promotional market audience • Give brand value to your audience • Integrate and coordinate across different promotional products and mediums • Streamline resources • Drive internal teamwork • Fuel innovation and inspire creativity

2. Take the Chill Out of the Air! Warm Up Prospects & Reach Out to Cold Connections “Welcome Promotions”, used to lure and gain new customers, are frequently enacted and then forgotten. We don’t go back to them unless something changes or we have a new target market or segment. Now is a great time to go in and take a good look

at your Welcome Promotions.

How welcoming are they? How engaging? How creative? How well do they promote your brand?

If you would not fall in love with it, then take a few moments to update yours. You want your prospects to love your promotions.

Speaking of love, don’t let your love for existing clients be lost.

Often, when we’re stuck in the daily mire of deadlines and tasks, we often let our base go unattended and out in the cold. A snow day is an opportunity to take a few minutes to reach out to those contacts.

Here are some suggestions for warming up those cold leads and reestablishing relationships while you (or they) are snowed in: • Send a thoughtful message through LinkedIn letting them know of an impending promotion…and where to get it • Thank your top 20 clients with a special individualized promotional product • Nurture your warmest leads with a simple Call to Action, Limited time Offer Promotion

3. Get Your Promotions Organized What better time to clean up and organize your files, promotion action plans and upcoming event tasks than on a day when you have no commute, no pop-in-the-door interruptions, and no ringing-offthe-hook calls? Organizing your promotional marketing campaigns will help increase your productivity, be more accurate in achieving your

intended results.

Here are a few things you can do from your kitchen table while the storm blusters outside: • Empty out your inbox • Create specific subfolders for messages you need to keep and refer back to in the future • Respond to messages that have just been sitting there • Delete garbage that merely serves as visual and mental clutter • Your goal: Zero emails in your inbox and to keep it that way • Organize your promotional campaigns • Like with your inbox, create subfolders, reorganize and rename your work files • Delete stuff you no longer need • Use dates and other key terms to make it easier to find important files going forward

4. Write a Promotional Blog Post A well-managed and thoughtful promotional blog helps you engage current clients and extend your online reach using promotional products. Yet, so many of us complain that we do not have enough time to write enough (quality) blog posts. What better day to bring out your inner blogstar (blogging rockstar) than on this weathery day?

Here are some suggestions to inspire you should you encounter blogger’s block: • Tell a story about your upcoming promotions • Piggy-back your promotions onto one of the day’s major headlines • Use a new perspective to reinvigorate a common topic (do you remember the promotion we did; well check out this new one?)

5. How to Stretch Your Promotional Wings (and Dollars) On bad weather days many people will be flocking to social media today, using their smart phones to connect with other human beings while they remain temporary prisoners in their residential igloos. Work on your company’s Facebook page strategy to include promotional products. If you’re giving away something of value people are much more likely to visit your Facebook page than without. Update your cover image, and draft some posts about your Promotional Calendar’s upcoming events.

YOUR Bottom Line Don’t let bad weather freeze your promotional campaign momentum. Take advantage of your bad weather day to spark your promotional strategies.

Do you have some more tips for productive snow day marketing?

Share your comments with us at:

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Wellness The Hamilton Elementary Staff Get Active

Works

School staff and teachers at Hamilton Elementary School in Chicago get active together by setting up circuits, yoga classes, and more, Led by the school’s wellness team. Faculty members on the school’s wellness team, including preschool teacher Nichole Moos, physical education teacher Steve Skweres and 1st grade teacher Liz Busch, launched an event: “Hustle Up Hamilton”, to motivate their colleagues to get active and set an example for the students.

Hustle Up Hamilton is an event where staff members come together to walk or run a set course throughout the facilities, up the stairs, around the gym, and back down the stairs. Staff members complete as many circuits as they desire in a half-hour time limit with a fun, energetic playlist to pump them up.

Everyone agreed that the first Hustle Up Hamilton event was a success. Staff members at all levels of fitness participated in the event and many students chose to come out and watch, too. T-shirts were given out to support the event. Courtesy: Kaiser Permenente

Call to Action Establish school physical activity opportunities with staff input as a routine part of school practices.

Invite students, parents, and community members to join in.

Hold short physical activity breaks during long staff meetings and during class.

Provide incentives for staff that walk, bike, or use public transportation to get to work

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February The

month of

Coming Attractions

25 Insane Facts About Promotional Products Top Ten Products for College Campuses Cost Effectiveness of Promotional Products

Ten Tips on Using Promotional Products in Your Business The Surprising Power of Promotional Products Eco Evolution: Sunglasses Made From Plastic Waste Giving Swag? Upscale Promotions Can Get BIG Results

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