One of the most effective ways to employ promotional items is as part of a coordinated marketing campaign. Choosing a set of coordinating promotional gifts for prospective customers, employees or loyal, continuing clients is a great way to build business relationships that keep growing. Here are five steps to building a coordinated promotional giving campaign that will pay off in increased sales and good will.

Plan your campaign in advance. Start by deciding the purpose of your marketing campaign. Some specific purposes that lend themselves to promotional items include

- introducing a new product or business – building a continuing relationship with a new customer – increasing good will with loyal customers – wooing customers away from competitors – offering incentives to your employees – publicizing and solidifying your name brand awareness

Choose gifts that make sense for your business. The promotional items that you choose should be easily identifiable with your business and company, and targeted at your specific market. Do you supply products for gyms and health clubs? Then your campaign for building relationships with new customers might include promotional items like water bottles, imprinted towels and kit bags with your company’s logo on them.

Create the campaign, then choose the promotional items to match. Are you planning a grand opening for your new business? Try a tactic used by many businesses to bring customers in for special events. Send out a mass mailing to prospective customers that includes part of a promotional duo and invite them to come in to redeem the rest of the gift. One idea might be to send out uninflated balloons in different colors along with a flyer inviting the recipient to bring the balloon in to be inflated and redeem a color-coded free gift to match the balloon.

Work with a professional promotions planner or supplier. One way to make sure that your promotional campaign is effective is to work with a professional who has experience. This is especially helpful if you’ve never planned a promotion before. A professional promotions supplier can offer suggestions and ideas that will wow your prospective customers.

Plan the major events that will trigger promotional giving. Creating a coordinated promotional gifts campaign can cement budding business relationships. There are certain points in your business relationship where giving a gift makes sense – introducing your company, a thank you gift for the first order, a special thank you when they exceed a predetermined landmark (£500 in sales, the tenth order), holiday gifts and special anniversaries or promotions.

Scale the gifts to the event being commemorated. Corporate holiday gifts should obviously be on a different scale than “thanks for your business” gifts, and the reward for completing thirty days of work without an absence considerably smaller than that for being the top seller in a division.

Branded apparel is an excellent choice as employee incentives. A range of apparel imprinted with the company logo lends itself beautifully to an employee incentive program. It scales, it’s memorable and it gives the employee a sense of belonging and identity with the company.

No matter what your reason for embarking on a marketing campaign using promotional giveaways, you’ll find the gifts that you’re looking for at Ideasbynet, where there are thousands of promotional items in all price ranges and types to choose from.

About the Author

Gareth Parkin is the co-founder of Ideasbynet, the UK’s leading online promotional gifts and promotional items company based in the north of England.