Ordering Custom Promotional Products: Essential Tips for Business Success

As we enter the last quarter of the year, custom promotional products continue to play an important role for marketing initiatives for businesses across Canada and the United States. Updating your approach to designing custom branded products for your business and understanding how and which products to customize is essential for maximizing the impact it can have.

Why Custom Promotional Products Are Critical for Marketing Strategies in 2024 & Beyond

Custom promotional products and print marketing and advertising strategies continue to be important for business applications in today’s more digital age. By investing in custom printed products, you will gain positive outcomes such as improved brand awareness and visibility, makes in person impressions more memorable and complements your overall marketing strategy.

Let’s look at a few of these benefits:

Boosts Brand Awareness

Custom promotional products such as branded pens, tote bags, custom t shirts and others have a big ROI for its investment due to its longevity in brand exposure. Unlike digital marketing methods which tends to have a shorter and more limited lifespan, custom products tend to be kept by clients, customer or employees for months or years.

They’re also much more effective at creating memorable impressions as custom products tend to be functional and can be used often. Every day the items get used are opportunities for your brand to make a lasting impression.

Furthermore, custom products also lead to repeated exposure to your brand and improves the chances that your brand gets remembered.

Increases Customer Loyalty

Businesses can boost customer loyalty, engagement and satisfaction through custom products. This is because they help create more positive connections, boosts word of mouth marketing and if done carefully, it should be aligned with current consumer trends.

For example, custom corporate gifts can be used as a great way to form an emotional connection with your brand and customers typically will appreciate this gesture. Custom branded products are also great at sparking meaningful conversations, leading to an increase in word-of-mouth referrals. You can maintain your relevance of your brand

Cost effective Marketing Channel

Custom printed products are incredibly cost-effective and accessible marketing method when compared to more traditional options such as billboards and traditional ads. The initial investment needed is significantly lower and more affordable  and the positive impact it has on your brand tend to last much longer.

 

Key Considerations When Ordering Custom  Promotional Products in 2024

Designing and planning your custom products is an exciting moment and your business should keep in mind current trends and issues and ensure consumer preferences align with your promotional products.

Is your custom product aligned with your branding?

You should check that your promotional products you create engage your audience and helps make emotional connections with them. This is done by making efficient and consistent use of your branding elements such as colors, fonts and graphics.

All these visual elements and even the fabric material should reflect your brand values and culture. For example, if sustainability is important for your brand, you should be opting for more eco-friendly fabrics and ideally look for print shops that do their best to minimize their environmental impact.

The use of your promotional custom items should also comp0lement your overall marketing effort.

Is your custom product sustainable and eco-friendly?

If your client base or audience is leaning more towards a sustainability minded group, you may want to match their consumer expectations as they may prefer to partner with brands that prioritize sustainability. Ideas to satisfy an eco-minded audience could include items such as reusable shopping totes and recycled  products. If your print partner lacks these options, you may want to bring in your own items to customize if this is an option offered. By ensuring you keep your audience top of mind, you can ensure its long-term effectiveness

Did You Plan for Order Quantities and Lead Times?

You should create a strategy or a plan for designing and creating your custom printed products.  You should ensure that you have enough supply of your products to ensure you meet your print marketing goals.

You must also think about the lead time your local print shop may need to produce your items and get them delivered. If your product involves a very detailed and complex design, it may take a bit more time to produce than a shirt that is simply sporting your logo.

You should always work ahead of time and ensure you have enough wiggle room and flexibility in case you run into any obstacles or delays.

How to Maximize the Impact of Your Promotional Products?

Picking the right products is only a part of the pie. To ensure maximum positive impact and success of your custom products, you should ensure that your print marketing strategy is implemented and effectively distributed.

Keep your target audience in mind

You must keep your audiences’ preferences and needs in mind to maximize the chances of it resonating with them. You can do this by prioritizing things like functionality and usability, in relation to their lifestyle so it gets used as often as possible. The more practical the items are, the more likely they’ll be used for the long term. By keeping your users in mind, you will form deeper connections with your audience.

Using your custom products in various marketing campaigns

You should be using promotional products as a complementary approach to your pre-existing marketing strategies. By including both custom printed products, traditional and newer, digital approaches, you can boost your brand awareness and recognition.   By doing so you will also reach more of your audience.

Track the success of your marketing campaigns

Track the success of your print marketing campaigns by paying attention to KPI’s that matter for your marketing objectives. It can include things like engagement, customer retention and conversions. You should also follow up with your audience, after an event, for example  to get some insights on how they felt and better understand the perceptions they have when using your customized products. By incorporating these measurements and feedback, you can improve future iterations and designs for your promotional product strategy.

 

The importance of aligning custom promotional items with more current and modern marketing initiatives, such as sustainability and cross channel integrations, you can ensure that your audience will connect with your brand. By harnessing the power of these promotional products and aligning them with your audience, you can ensure that you get sustained success of your custom printed promotional items and boost brand loyalty.

Visit our website to design your custom branded products today!