To kick off this Happy New Year the Hotline team brainstormed a number of issues facing marketeers and of course promoters, with an aim to providing some advice that would be really useful at the start of a new year. We’ve found that a lot of companies are looking to spend the rest of their budgets and many are establishing new ones, so no matter which role you play in the business we’ll have hopefully included something that might inspire your business and creative heads.
We also discovered that many marketeers are planning new year strategies in January, not necessarily the end of the financial year, so we’ve covered a few subjects that should appeal to you guys too. On that note, we’ll dive right into the key trends for promoting in 2015 – thanks for reading!
1. The rise of branded gadgets (about time, right?!)
There are thousands of gadgets out there, but while it’s actually quite hard to find ones that are genuinely useful (smartphones and tablets aside of course) it’s pretty obvious that digital gizmos are a part of daily life now. We have selected a range of techie products that are now available to customise on Hotline, but rather than buying every gadget under the sun, we’ve decided to slowly expand our range starting with a couple of products that we feel are a) Useful b) Look good and c) Are a good investment.
This year we expect to see a whole new range of promotional products that suit a digitally ‘savvy’ customer so be sure to sign-up to our Newsletter so we can keep you in the loop with the latest brandable products.
The printed Powerbank is geeky, but actually quite useful…
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If you’re in the market for a high-end powerbank, check out our engraved version…
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They’ve been around for a while now, but they’re genuinely useful and really cost effective…
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2. Uber promoting & personalisation
As you probably already know, Hotline is all about personalisation! Everything we sell can be printed or etched with your logo and most of our products come in so many colours you won’t have trouble matching them to your brand. So what’s Uber Promoting? We all know how hard it is to get the attention of a customer, especially in the fragmented world we now live in so we view Uber Promoting as that bit extra. The bit that shows you really do care, the bit that says ‘I know what you’d like’. That’s the difference between being a ‘sure thing’ rather than a ‘consideration’.
So what is ‘that bit’ then? It could be something foodie to go alongside your regular promotions – a branded mug, with branded biscuits perhaps? Or it could be a personalised card, with your customer’s logo, not yours. Uber promoters know how to combine different companies products in order to make more impact. So once you’ve chosen a core promotional product, take a few moments to consider what would complement your choice, whether your customer would really like this item and what would make them say “Wow, they know me too well!”.
WE RECOMMEND The Biscuiteers
WE RECOMMEND Lola’s Cup Cakes
WE LIKE MoonPig
3. Digital Marketing & Promoting will become friends!
Okay, they are probably friends already, but this year it’s official. There is so much synergy between what we do online and what we do offline that the ways we interact with brands are becoming conscious. It doesn’t matter if it’s physical or digital, the customer doesn’t care. It’s the experience that matters, that’s it! So, what does this mean for Digital Marketing? Digital marketeers can start to integrate physical giveaways more affordably, they can track everything (like a sign-up) and they can even link customer details to their online customer database and begin to answer questions like “When we sent Mrs Jones a branded pen did it increase her spending with us?”.
On the flip side, Promoters should start taking a leaf out of DMs book and use mobile devices to track giveaways, use analytic software to record more data and use goals (or triggers) to automatically send promotional items as rewards. Whatever your brand’s goal is, talk to your digital team before you do something physical… and vice versa. This year, it will give you another edge to your arrow.
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4.Bundling with products & enhancing the opening experience
Traditionally, promoting has been seen as one of those things you do to get NEW customers at events. However, recently, we’ve seen companies using promotional products as more than just a ‘giveaway’ or awareness generator. Brands are using our promotional products to make new and existing customers EXTRA, EXTRA happy. Thanks to the great choice and quality some companies are including our branded items as part of their own product i.e. an essential part of their customers opening experience.
Why? Because a lot of retail happens online, a place where it’s difficult to give EXTRA and even harder to WOW customers – simply due to the fact that there are often no emotional/human interactions and not much to compare companies by. We believe retailers will be looking to get the advantage by ‘bundling’ more often. It’s a memorable experience to receive unexpected extra gifts, so before you make a final call on your promo’ budget next year, take a few moments to consider your product experience first. More is always more.
Obvious idea: Coffee with a free Mug
Fashionable idea: Clothes with a free Lanyard
Boozy idea: Bottled beer with a free Bottle opener
5. Crowd-funded promoting (say what?)
Okay, we have to be honest, it looks like we have an ulterior motive for sharing this advice with you. But don’t get us wrong, this is a trend, it’s just very convenient that we’ve just launched a business in the exact same sector which we will definitely NOT be able to resist plugging. Anyway, getting back to the point, Crowd-funding is essentially a method of raising capital (money) where a lot of people chip in a small amount of money because they all believe in the same thing. In most cases, a large group of people will all chip-in to help a company launch a new product or start-up with preferential rewards given to those who contribute, however, we discovered another avenue where we feel it’s possible to do some good – we call it tboom.
tboom is the new, fun way to raise funds online for anything you’re passionate about and the great thing is it’s 100% risk free.
Why not check out our video below to see how it works…
Where did we get this intel?
We used our own in-house research and customer order data alongside 3rd party resources as listed within the post.