Custom-branded swag? We’ve got custom-branded swag!
It’s undeniable that custom-branded swag should be an important piece of your marketing strategy, especially if your company serves a handful of high-value customers directly. Or, even if you do a lot of business with key individuals who hold influence over customers in your target niche, custom-branded swag can still be worth the investment.
Unfortunately, if you’re new to your field, it’s unlikely that potential customers or promoters are going to remember any of your emails or even the details of your website without you first needing to invest in a ton of repeated outreach.
Between the flux of social media and other digital distractions, even the largest brands are embroiled in a battle to maintain their customers’ attention. However, by placing a nifty promotional item with your company’s name and logo on it directly into your customers’ hands, they now have a physical object — one that they might see and use every single day — that has your company’s name, logo, and branding on it.
Custom-branded swag is worth investing in for a number of reasons. By investing in this swag to give out to potential customers and high-value promoters, you can gain the following benefits.
The ‘Cool’ Factor of Custom Swag
By presenting a physical item to customers and potential customers, you have a real opportunity to turn your company into a household name. If you succeed in giving your customers something that they think is cool and unique, you’ll effortlessly boost your brand’s recognition and recall.
When you make your recipient go “Wow, that’s really cool!†they thereby associate your company with cleverness and ingenuity; in fact, it’s much likelier that you’ll be the first one they look up when they’re searching for the services or goods that you provide.
Think about how your customer lives day in and day out. What’s cool to them? By placing your promotional item directly in the spot where they get the most utility, you will continuously make yourself known at no additional cost!
Best of all, if they already associate your name with a reliable product, they’re going to trust you much more than somebody that they haven’t seen and heard of. Imagine receiving an email from a representative at Apple. That’s probably a name that you know very well at this point through repeated association.
Apple is associated with the ‘cool’ factor of Apple computers, but you can achieve your own sense of ‘cool’ through great promotional products that make your customers associate you favorably.
A few examples include:
- A brewery that provides stylish custom mugs
- A video game company that provides custom game-themed apparel
- a spa that provides a custom arrangement of essential oils
- a law firm that provides custom pens and writing pads
The good news is that Social Imprints can help you put together a custom package of cool products your customers will love. Get in touch with us today and learn more about how we can make your branding efforts easier than ever!
Custom Branded Swag Provides Additional Promotion
If your custom swag is an item that your customers like to bring out to social events and show off, like custom drinkware or custom apparel, then they’re essentially providing free advertising for your company that you might benefit from several times over, especially if they use your promotional item often.
If you offer a great loyalty program attached to your custom swag, such as a reward system that incentivizes your customers to promote your products further in exchange for even more swag, then you can push that positive net promotion effect to even greater heights. Word of mouth is more time-proven and effective than you might think, especially given the world’s deliberate shift toward trackable digital advertising and display ads.
And it’s always likely that your customers are friends with other people with highly tailored and similar interests who can also become your customers. By providing customers and promoters with cool stuff that they want to show off, your company’s name will naturally land in front of far more people who might have never heard of you otherwise, or who don’t trust traditional advertising channels.
And then those people can become promoters in turn, furthering the cycle without you ever needing to invest more than the price of buying promotional items in bulk.
The best part about custom-branded swag is that you’ll finally reach those advertising curmudgeons – people who compulsively tune advertisements out, who you never would have reached through traditional or digital ads but still find value in daily goods like yours!
Promotional Items Can Save Money
Custom swag can cost anything between $1 (or less) to $50 per person, but you need to tailor this around the value of your customer. Compared to the cost of ad clicks in your niche, it’s likely that you’re saving a ton of money by going with promotional swag. Especially if the same item is seen and appreciated by more than one person.
Ad clicks dissolve the second that they’re used up, but the permanence of a physical item means that it has the potential to continue existing and being shown off, well after you’ve accounted for the cost of the promotional goods.
Imagine customers posing in selfies with your custom-branded swag and then uploading those images to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, or Reddit – how much engagement do you think they’re going to give you for practically no additional cost on your part?
Not only are you spending less per customer than you would otherwise, but you might end up breaking into sections of your own market that you’d have never been able to touch with a pure digital marketing strategy.
Swag Lets Your Creativity Shine
Remember that your custom swag can be virtually any item or household good. This is an opportunity for your brand to show its colors with items that convey the spirit of what you provide to your customers.
Great swag can make your customers feel like they’ve come into possession of treasure – something that is simultaneously useful, aesthetically pleasing, and memorable in its novelty. But it’s up to you to tailor that around your company!
Finally, you should figure out how to fit custom swag into events that are frequented by your customers and the top promoters in your industry. Make it timely; base it around the excitement of the event itself, and make your swag part of the great memories that event attendees walk away with after it’s over.
Social Imprints is a San Francisco-based eco-friendly merchandise, promotional products, and swag company. Our social mission is in the very DNA of who we are — we’re committed to being an employer for at-risk adults. To get in touch about your company’s next promotional project, contact us today!