Revels gained the business approximately
two years ago, when the company operated one home. Now it runs four facilities,
and Revels likes to think he played a role in the growth. The variety of
promotional products he supplies reinforces the images of the homes and aids
their marketing campaigns. "At first, they did really basic products--pencils, key chains and other trinket-type items," Revels says. But the customer now purchases high-end ad specialties and ones geared toward its industry.
Some items are designed as giveaways for prospective tenants. For example, Revels recently supplied 144 travel coffee mugs. The silver and black mugs were imprinted with the retirement homes' slogan and 2-color logo (yellow and blue). The mugs also listed the addresses and phone numbers for the four facilities. Another giveaway is a white plastic pill box. Divided into seven sections, tenants place medication into compartments labeled for each day of the week. The pill boxes also are imprinted with the retirement homes' logo.
Other promotional products are designed for employees. The homes recently ordered collar shirts for staff members. The 100-percent cotton shirts, made by the clothing company Outer Banks, include the homes' logo on the left side of the chest. The client ordered two versions of the shirt: one is gray and white with the yellow and blue logo, and the other is solid black with a white version of the logo.
Striking a Chord
The promotional products market grossed $16.6 billion in 2001, according to Promotional Products Association International (PPAI). Companies use promotional items such as crystal desk clocks, electronics, pens with flashing LED lights, sporting goods, stress balls with sound and more to promote themselves or their ideas, thank customers for their business and reward employees for hard work.
Wearables such as T-shirts, aprons, fishing jackets, blazers, baseball caps, socks and jackets grossed more than $4.8 billion in 2001, according to PPAI. With the increasing popularity of business casual days in offices, more companies also are purchasing denim, golf and Polo shirts sporting their logos. Promotional wearables help companies improve their images among customers and prospects and can help boost employee morale and camaraderie.
Promotional office supplies and desk accessories, including pens, paper cubes, desk calendars and mouse pads, are other big moneymakers, grossing an estimated $4.7 billion in 2001, according to PPAI. In fact, a national poll conducted by PPAI showed that 95 percent of business executives receive an item with the name, logo or message of another firm or organization.
Prime ad specialties prospects include financial institutions, performers, insurance companies, real estate firms, cable TV companies, hotels, athletic associations, schools, trade associations, hospitals, the funeral industry, and nursing home and medical facilities. Within these companies, marketing, public relations, human resources and other departments concerned with showcasing their companies are the best targets for sales.
Singing the Blues
"There are so many things you can sell," Revels says. "Trying to figure out what your potential customer base needs can be hard." Arrowhead Graphics offers customers more than 300,000 products, including T-shirts, caps, mugs, pencils, pens, umbrellas and tote bags.
Some distributors are surprised to learn ad specialties often require more turnaround time than other products because the orders often are brand new. If a customer orders 1,000 pens, it's unlikely they'll reorder the same pens soon.
Also, promotional products distributorships often face tight time constraints, which are intensified by artwork problems. Companies sometimes have difficulty providing logos in formats that can be duplicated.
Another stumbling block can be finding a healthy client base. Current clients can offer lucrative sales opportunities, though many end users aren't aware that their forms distributors can handle ad specialties.
* Proactively market promos.
Arrowhead Graphics Inc., a Greensboro, N.C., distributorship, has been in business for more than 20 years, but it started selling ad specialties only five years ago. To promote this sect of business, the distributorship sends mailings to customers and prospects approximately once every two months. The mailings typically tie in with limited-offer discounts extended by promotional product vendors. For example, if a vendor offers a special on key chains, Arrowhead Graphics will create and mail 2-color fliers to clients and prospects with coupons for key chains.
* Educate customers.
Inform clients how they can use ad specialties to increase their business, says Bill Revels, manager of Arrowhead Graphics. For example, an emergency medical facility might not benefit from personalized key chains. A more effective ad specialty item might be a custom self-adhesive note pad and plastic holder. People could place the holders next to their phones for easy message-taking. Simultaneously, information about the emergency facility would be available next to the phone during an emergency.
* Sell items ripe for repeat sales.
Supplies for company picnics, holiday parties and other annual events offer repeat sales opportunities. Revels provided a bank with orange, plastic trick-or-treat bags for Halloween. The bags, which were imprinted with the bank's name and address, were filled with giveaway items, such as key chains and T-shirts. Children of bank customers used the bags, spreading the bank's marketing message. Revels says the bags were such a success that the bank's headquarters ordered them the following year for all of its North Carolina locations.
* Now is the time.
In the current climate of economic uncertainty, some companies may be reluctant to put money toward ad specialties. But the best time to market is during those times, marketing experts say.
* Keep samples on hand.
Sometimes products may look better in a catalog than
they do in the palm of your hand. Consider setting up a sample room in your
office where customers can examine all possibilities before laying money
on the table.
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