Wisdom To Choose The Right Greek Tote
We are finally seeing the major manufacturers come around to the idea of providing unique names for each of their products. Prior to 2012 what we repeatedly saw was boring and generic names being used to describe thousands of trinkets. Sadly there are still some suppliers doing this today. We won't mention any names but we will say Logomark!
With that ugliness out of the way I was down in Orlando last week for the ASI show. For the most part there were the usual new product introductions. There was nothing as exciting as the Clean Bottle which some of you may have seen on a popular show tonight. But what we did see is some of the more budget oriented brands releasing items in their range like The Athena Laminated Tote which Bullet was showing proudly. One of the problems with polypro totes that had become the rage just two or three years ago is that they get messy easily. Once soiled they were very hard to clean and ended up in the trash. The lamination process provides a coating that keeps liquids from being absorbed and therefore blocks stains. When a mess is made it can easily be wiped off the material. Better yet the item is fully recyclable and if you are wondering what that term means take a look at the bottom of the bag. There will be a code which matches up with your local recycling facility. When you're done using the bag just dump it in the appropriate bin and you're done.
Watching ABC's hit television show tonight I couldn't help but notice the industry is really lacking that "hot" product like the water bottle that screws off on both ends. Over the last year I have watched that show many a night and noted how many of the products introduced on the program would have a great home in this industry. Unfortunately most are patented and at that point the only way they are going to cross over to the promo products business is via the licensing channel which is a difficult nut to crack. It would be nice to see product development teams at major outfits like Leed's or Norwood actually drive some new products to market versus just copying what others have already produced. Then again with margins still being squeezed and business not at the same pace as this time last year most are probably happy.
Changes in Latitudes and Changes in Totes
New Years Eve has come and gone and the first of the resolutions are already being broken. All over the country gym memberships will begin to lapse in the coming weeks as eager members slowly slump back towards their couches. Soon enough the days will be noticeably longer and another sure sign the next season is upon us is the introduction of new totes from the major promotional products suppliers.
A category that had fallen into disrepair prior to the last economic bust is finally getting needed attention once again. Up through last year suppliers were most focused on providing customers in this hemisphere with goods in a higher price range. That's all ended now as price points are being driven through the floor and with cinch bags having run their course attention goes back to totes. They tend to be more rugged being made from polycanvas and more puncture resistant. Leading the pack is the Hemisphere Meeting Tote from Leed's which was introduced today at the PPAI show in Las Vegas. The tote is made from 600 denier materials making it durable and resistant to punctures from pens and other objects while maintaining light weight and some breath-ability. Like so many other promotional products it is available in a wide variety of colors and Leed's typically releases more colors during the year. In total they now have about 80 totes in the line of which 40 were released after July 2011.
Gemline has followed suit and has released and revamped their entire line over the winter. A quick check of the numbers shows that about 40% of the line has been refreshed. In some cases colors have been the only change but there are over 150 clearance items on their site in addition to about 150 new products. This is a clear indication that the industry had a good year in 2011 and put money into development with a passive acknowledgement to the slowing conditions in 2012. What do we expect to see? Mergers and acquisition activity pick up on the distributor side as a year of haves and have nots bears fruit. Expect a middle of the year price increase from most suppliers with the excuse being higher supply costs and the introduction of new colors and some new products.
The past year has been a good one for many distributors and suppliers but the year sputtered to a close. Honest suppliers are reporting sharp sales drops in the October to December period versus 2010 and the same is expected in 2012. Tighten up the budget and sharpen the pencil because it is going to be a bumpy ride this year.
Lighting the Way Through The Fall
One of the most seasonal of all trade-show giveaways tends to be the flashlight. They are extremely popular from late in August right through early January before they fade back into obscurity by the time the sun gets higher in the sky. Right now is the time to actively get these into the hands of your clients and there are some new offerings coming to the market.
Weight has become a major issue with anything that is metal or heavier plastic. As shipping rates continue to go through the roof suppliers are looking for ways to reduce the overall freight footprint. Sweda has again managed to pull this off while maintaining some sense of style with the Push Button Mini Barrel Flashlight which is a short version of earlier releases. With only about a 2" height they are able to pack 100 per box. A normal sized order may encompass one or two boxes which even if they are spanning multiple zones will only run around $50. That is advantageous to anyone on a budget and can help to make the promotional event a success.
We are noticing this trend continues across the board but Sweda so far seems to be hammering it the hardest. In total they have released about one hundred products since January with size being a major distinguishing factor among the brands. Leed's just released a new catalog with hundreds of new items many of which are going to cost a small fortune to ship including ceramic items which have a high break rate. Others are developing products that will fold down or break apart so that they are easy to ship. To read more about the new products from Sweda you can check out their website which also includes their new holiday gift catalog.
There was major news today out of Prime in Conneticut as they announced that they would be carrying another retail brand. We will have more to follow on that in the days ahead. So far retail branding has been at bet hit or miss in the promo products industry. It remains to be seen how well this whole situation will work out.
Great Expectations: Defining and Reaching Your Marketing Objectives
We have all seen these types of grandiose plans play. A new manager comes in with all of the best ideas and thinks that everything can be change dto meet their new expectation. Rarely do those managers end up succeeding but before we get to that let's take a look at the scenarios that are most often seen.
Scenario #1: We want no less than one
billion new customers, a revenue increase of $3 gazillian bajillion dollars and
media hits on the front page of the New York Times, the Washington Post and the
Wall Street Journal. A major industry player has done it with the Aura Ceramic Mug which although it looks great with the earth tone on tone look will never fully succeed because it is already doomed to low stock. This same company has run into this a bunch of times with other items and they don't seem to ever learn.
Scenario #2: We only have a $100/month
budget for advertising and marketing.
Scenario #3: It's been three months and
we haven't seen any results. What are you doing wrong?
These are three scenarios that marketers frequently experience under the umbrella of one client: visions of too much grandeur with too little budget and an unrealistic timeline. And this can all be avoided.
AdAge.com's recent article, "Your Ad Agency's First Task: Educate Your Clients" urges agencies to approach new clients and their projects with honesty - especially when it comes to what can be done within a set budget and, feasibly, what the results should be. I would like to expand this suggestion beyond the agency, though. Not every business uses an agency for it's marketing needs. Not every business uses a freelancer, even. What every business does do, though, is market itself, and whether you use an agency, a freelancer or your own internal team of specialists, you should be aware of a few things:
1. Set great - yet realistic! -
expectations. If you use an agency, they should be honest about whether or not they can reach the goals you have set, or at least educate you as to what they believe they will be able to achieve. A freelancer should do the same.
If you are managing your own marketing activities, do some research. By how much should website traffic increase with a pay-per-click campaign? With a search engine optimized foundation of titles, meta-tags and keywords? What is the typical return on a direct mail piece? Or a mass email broadcast? While every industry generates a different return on
different media channels, at least you'll have a ballpark figure of what you'd like to accomplish.
You will also want to talk to other business owners or marketing directors in your industry to see what trends they have identified in their own results.
2. You gotta spend money to make money. You don't gotta spend A LOT of money, per se, but you do gotta spend some. And you gotta spend it right.
The-bigger-the-budget-the-bigger-the-return is often true...but not always true. It's more like the-smarter-the-budget-the-bigger-the-return. Maybe you have a big budget that you want to pour into print advertising. But is print advertising the right channel for your brand and its message? What can a print ad accomplish anyway? Is is what you are hoping to accomplish? Aligning your budget and media spend with your objectives is key to generating a positive financial return.
Understand your media channels and what they are best used for. Understand your target audience and where they are physically located (i.e. online, outside, etc.). Your ad agency or freelancer will (or at least should!) do this for you. It is a complicated component of setting up a marketing plan - but an important component that the success of your marketing plan hinges on.
3. You must give it time! Three-months, six-months, sometimes even a year is not enough time to start generating the results you want. It takes time for your outreach to gain traction, and even longer for it to make magic.
Yes, individual activities will generate immediate results. An email broadcast, for example, will always be opened by a percentage of its recipients. A smaller percentage of those recipients will click-through the email to your website or landing page. And an even smaller percentage will act based on the email, whether "acting" is making a purchase or signing up for a free consultation or downloading a White Paper.
But the way these rates grow and change over the course of three-, six or 12 months is what's really important. No one outreach effort will have results indicative of the overall results of your entire integrated marketing plan.
Statistics on each of your marketing activities are valuable if you know how to see the forest from the trees, for lack of a better cliche. Use them to "tweak" your marketing plan as needed. Don't be discouraged if, in the first few months, you're not seeing impressive results. Be discouraged if you're not seeing them after a year or longer.
When your business is educated about what expectations are realistic within its budget and how long it should take to achieve them, you'll be more satisfied with your agency, freelancer, or in-house team.
Bundling Will Be Key To Moving Product in Q3 and Q4
There can be no doubt after the release of one important data point of economic data after another. The economy of the United States and many other countries has slipped either back into a recession or are right on the brink. Consumer spending declined for the first time since the end of the last recession in June and manufacturing is hitting lows not seen since the tail end of the last downturn. Consumers and manufacturing account for about 82% of the GDP and when they are both on the decline so will the larger metric follow in later periods.
This is bad news in the promotional products industry as we had just started to see a decent bump in the last 10 months. That bump became more of a wild ride in the last 2 months as sales have begun to slide very quickly. A majority of suppliers that anonymously responded to a recent survey indicated they are trimming sales growth plans for the remained of the year. While not a bad idea for distributors a key to success will be bundling. Leeds is providing a perfect opportunity by releasing the Rotate Memory Gift Set 8GB which includes everything needed for a proper executive gift. The pen is solid brass construction, the card holder is made from aluminum and the drive itself is one of the normal rotate versions that have been around for five or more years. All three are put into a box for ease of gifting. Thinking ahead Leeds has made the 4 and 8GB versions available already while eliminating the less sought after 512mb size. If purchased as individual pieces the client would pay almost 40% more versus the set. By combining the three biggest holiday gift items in one package they may have hit the ball clean out of the park so long as they can keep inventory in stock.
For those running on a slightly tighter budget or shipping over long distances they have another package for you. By removing the aluminum business card holder they reduce the weight while decreasing the size of the box. They also added a pen available in 4 colors set against a single colored - stainless steel- USB drive. The result is the Rockford Memory Gift Set 1GB which as you would expect includes the drive and a pen. For well under $9 a distributor can give away a pen and USB drive with laser engraving all in a convenient gift box. With color options that would make Rockford himself happy this set comes in at the value price point.
Can't find what you want bundled by your supplier? Make your own bundle kits by sourcing locally. If you like a Leeds padfolio but don't want to pay the premium for their pens pick one up from Hub Pen or Senator and do the insert yourself. In some cases they may even be obliged to do the inserting for you if the order is extremely large and profitable. Worst case you can factor in the cost of insertion locally as well as the increase in shipping costs to and from the location. You will often find customers will pay a premium just so they don't have to do the work on their end.
Weather Backtracking and Backpacking the Economy
At one point a week ago about 65% of the United States was blanketed in snow. Parts of Florida have had snow and Dallas had serious issues with ice and snow prior to the game this weekend. Another big storm is on tap for the lower Great Plains and while this is interesting it does have a very negative net effect on the economy. If these storms were occurring around the holiday buying season it would have been enough to seriously hurt sales.
Luckily it is occuring at one of the slower times of the year for both retail and regular B2B commerce. We are just before the busy tax season where people are anxious to go spend their refunds, about a month ahead of the Spring buying season when retailers shift over clothes and at least a couple of months before most major companies devise their new year budgets. But the damage has been done and I have already noticed a downturn in inquiries. Last week I got to see the Discovery Sport Backpack for the first time. A customer was looking to order 8,000 pieces with imprint. They had an event scheduled for the school vacation week in April. The order went to our normal promotional distributor and artwork was submitted. We got back the proof and it was approved. Today the order was cancelled. April vacations are being cancelled all over the country because of all the snow days and in this case 50% of their intended audience had cancelled on the seminar. The net loss for our distributor is probably about 7k, and a few k for us. All for snow and ice significant enough to have schools cancelled in some cases for up to two weeks.
We are working to try to save the order by including some auto safety items in the backpack and having them mailed to registrants that have decided not to go. The fee is non-refundable so they are paying for it either way. We figured it would be a good gesture to put a safety blanket, flares and a few other things into the promotional backpacks and then drop send them to all the individual players. That way attendees still get something for their money and in the end everyone is happy. The problem is shipping costs can add up quickly and the organizer fully expects quite a few attendees are going to ask for refunds regardless.
We have found over the years that backpacks are probably the most durable of all promotional gifts. As we wrote about packing a backpack as a new spin on an old idea a few months ago we continue to find new and creative ways to package less expensive items in the backpacks. Over the years we have written many hundreds of articles introducing new and exciting products and expect that we will write at least one column daily at this point as we head into the heart of the new year. With the economy on the mend we expect to see the largest selection of middle of the year introductions since 2005.
When Shockwaves Make Marketing Impact
It has been a little too long since the last entry and we fully expect the pace to pick up this week. 2010 closed on a very favorable note for most promotional products suppliers and distributors and so far the new year has been strong. Companies are spending again but governments and educational institutions still are not spending at previous levels for promotional gifts. In time that will change but for now focusing on new products is the way to go.
When the economy was slow suppliers released very few good new products. Instead they added a few colors to existing lines. That has changed now that most see a rebound in the works. Leeds released over 400 new items though many are color changes. The Shockwave Messenger is part of a design focus that closely mirrors what is going on in the retail space. By adding features such as the bungee cord they have greatly increased versatility. Redundancy in design is also important which is why they use both velcro and zippers to secure the front pocket. Up until this year Leeds had always made a point to produce simple designs which in some lines like their coolers always hurt the look of the product. Now with a new design team their promotional Leeds backpacks have some flare, are well thought out and most of all functional.
The great question that remains for the remainder of this year is whether or not spending will ease from what are very robust early levels. Will sales continue to be as strong? ASI and PPAI have done multiple surveys that show most distributors seem to think sales will increase but not at a significant rate. Suppliers feel even more optimistic with many reporting double digit growth already this year. Oil prices that may be driven higher by unrest in the Middle East have the potential to put a serious crimp on strong growth. I expect to see steady but erratic growth as businesses only slowly rehire people for positions that have remained unfilled for a couple of years.
TSA Friendly Bags are Good News for Everyone
Someone that doesn't travel won't understand what I mean in the title. Those that travel will immediately understand after getting caught behind the guy unloading his giant laptop that is strapped seven ways to Sunday in a mega backpack. The difference in price is now pretty minimal so there is no real reason to go with the old school bags.
A year ago it was almost unheard of that promotional products suppliers were releasing real TSA friendly bags. At the time nobody really knew what that meant and there was a lot of confusion. As standards got set Leeds among others released checkpoint friendly backpacks that were designed to expedite the owner through security. Now they are stepping it up a notch with products that bring even more utility like the elleven wheeled TSA Compu-Backpack which has all the advantages of a regular backpack but also has wheels. So now instead of having to carry a wheeled duffel and then a backpack that holds your laptop you can put everything together in one. For a day trip on an airplane this is perfect as there is just enough room for a change of basic clothes while also leaving plenty of room for padding. The elleven series from Leeds has been a tremendous hit already as it mimics a lot of the finer qualities found in much more expensive bags right down to the texture of the material. Gradually as travel habits have changed so have the products being offered but overall there has been little change in the promotional backpack area. Gemline and Leeds continue to design, test and produce their own unique designs while others buy brand names and relabel.
Over the past twelve months we have covered a lot of topics on this page. As we head into the new year we expect that we will be firing out nearly daily updates to reveal new products, new brands and ideas to keep you informed. In the meantime take a look through the hundreds of previous articles to see if there is anything you would like us to write about in more detail.
When Deception Is Good – Biodegradable Cups
All over the country there has been news of plastic bags being banned from use or of taxes being placed on those types of goods. The reasons are simple really plastic bags that you carry from the store and then throw away are incredibly wasteful. They use up precious resources and then fill up landfills. They are not readily recycled and in fact I don't know of any place that does recycle them. The same goes for paper cups that the coffee shops give out when you buy a large cappuccino in the morning. You use them once and they get disposed of in the trash.
Now that isn't neccessarily a bad thing if they are already made from recycled paper products like newspapers. The thought is that you are reusing a product but in reality a lot of resources are spent to produce a cup, transport it to and from the retailer and into your hands. Why not try a reusable promotional cup that looks just like the paper counterpart? Gordon Sinclair based out of New York has brought two great products to market starting with the Not a Venti Cup which looks exactly like a large Starbucks coffee cup. From a distance you cannot tell the difference between the two but the benefit of the Venti Cup is that it is made from biodegradable materials and is fully reusable. It is top rack dishwasher safe and even if you only use it for a year it will save hundreds of paper cups and all the costs associated with producing them. At 20 ounces it holds a lot of coffee, enough to keep even a barrister happy.
The only thing about a cup that large is that it may not fit in regular corporate coffee machines. The large size will probably cause it to get jammed in the machine which is why the I'm Not a Paper Cup does very well in that niche. Similar to a small size that you would see at Dunkin Donuts it fits and is easily dispensed from almost all automated coffee machines. That makes it a great fit for a corporate campaign towards reusable goods. Biodegradable plastic will generally break down within three to five years in a landfill. That reduces the footprint left behind when the product has expired. As a new twist Gordon is offering inks that are also biodegradable which means they are made without toxic chemicals. As an added bonus both items are BPA free which greatly increases the safety especially for younger people that are prone to use giveaway tumblers.
Delivery can be expensive in promotional drinkware. About a year ago I ordered 500 pieces of a stainless tumbler and got a bill that was well north of $500. What buyers need to be aware of is dimensional weight which is how UPS and Fedex calculate shipping charges on larger boxes. They do not go by weight alone, if a package is above the standard size they use length and width as part of a formula that will greatly increase shipping costs. Always make sure you check with your promotional products vendor and ask for a quote that includes delivery. That way there can be no surprises and you are assured of seeing the bottom line up front and are not left holding the bag at the end. While you are at it ask your provider about charges for additional items shipped. In most cases you are agreeing to pay for up to 10% more goods than you ordered. By spelling it all out up front you reduce the risks to your budget and your reputation.