How To Use Corporate Gifts To Promote Your Business

The marketing mix or marketing promotional mix includes a wide variety of both on-line and off-line promotional activities that can be used to promote a business.

Traditional methods include advertising, public relations, road shows, trade shows, seminars and conferences. One method that should be included within the marketing mix is corporate gifts (also known as promotional gifts).

Corporate gifts have the added advantage over other promotional marketing techniques in that they have longevity and can elicit a fare more favourable response to a business and/or brand than say an advertisement or piece of editorial. Corporate gifts like promotional pens, personalised pencils, branded mugs and promotional mouse mats also tend to be seen by more than the original recipient and this only adds further to their promotional value.

As a ‘free’ gift, corporate gifts are often well received. They can be used throughout the year to provide 365 days of business promotion to existing clients, potential clients, employees, suppliers and other business stakeholders. As well as being branded themselves, their packaging can also be used as part of a promotion and even more so when combined with a direct mail or direct marketing campaign.

When selecting corporate gifts for a promotion it is important to get the basics right. Look at your logo and what you want to put onto the corporate gift. Make sure there is enough area for the imprint, decided on the colours to be used and the colour of the background products. It also makes sense to order samples and perhaps ‘mock-up’ potential layouts and then test them with colleagues.

So having chosen the right corporate gift and had it branded with your imprint, how do you go about getting them distributed and into the right hands? This very much depends on whether they have been purchased for a particular marketing campaign or as part of stock to be drawn upon as required. We always recommend that you allocate a percentage of your promotional corporate gifts stock for general distribution – gift stock to be handed out as promotional giveaways to as many people as possible.

The benefits of widely distributing corporate gifts is that it increases the chances for serendipity to take effect. This can lead to those wonderful ‘lucky breaks’ that can often make a small business and help it to grow to the next level.