Another great promotional product!

Luggage Tags for Susan Rutan of Cruise Planners

Last week I posted the Post-It pads we did for Susan Rutan at Cruise Planners (www.apassion4travel.com). This week, I’m featuring the luggage tags we did for her. Now you may think that luggage tags are just good promotional products for companies in the travel industry, but there are several other great ways to use luggage tags as a promotion. 1) If you have an organization (school, senior group, Chamber of Commerce, church group, etc…) that is planning a group trip/tour, use luggage tags as one way to identify the luggage of people in the group. It’s a great visual aid for airport porters and hotel bell staff. If you have an annual trip, then doing a different shape or color each year also makes these collectible mementos. 2) Luggage stores can use these as a gift with purchase and/or as an at the register retail purchase item. 3) Businesses who have personnel that travel on a regular basis can use this to increase brand awareness for their company. 4) If you are attending a regional, national or international trade show as an exhibitor, these can be used as a pre-show promotion for attendees who are travelling to the show. Do you have a way to use luggage tags as a creative promotional product? Please leave it as a comment here. I look forward to reading your ideas.

Semi-Sticky Marketing!

I am inviting my clients to send me a photo of their completed promotional products so that I get to see the finished item – no, my vendors don’t generally send me a sample – and so I can share what we’ve done with others.

Truly, the best part of any promotional product is learning what the end results are once they’ve been distributed. I invite anyone who’d like to share their results (comments, ROI, statistics, etc…) of a promotional program we’ve designed for you to send me a photo and the information you’d like to share and I’ll post it on our social media sites and here on my blog.

Today, I’m sharing this Post-It notepad that we did for Susan Rutan at Cruise Planners (www.apassion4travel.com):  

Post-It pads are one of my favorite promotional product staples that are great if you’re marketing to people who work at a desk, students, moms, and more. We all still need the occasional (or, in my case frequent) place to jot down a note and put it somewhere where it will be seen. Post-It pads are the way to go. They’re economical and useful. And, you get to put your brand on something that’s got a familiar brand name right on the back of the pad!

Hey, you can even put them in an envelope with a thank you card or a letter and you won’t pay any additional postage! Not many things can make that claim anymore.

Are Food Gifts a Good Idea? – More Holiday Business Gift Tips

Business gifts of food are, without a doubt, popular; maybe even the most popular, holiday gift item. The question remains, “As a business gift, do I get the desired marketing results with a food gift that doesn’t last longer than it takes to eat it?” The answer depends on a number of things:

1) Does your gift have the “wow” factor? Are you choosing a gift basket from the same big box store that four other people will pick out to send to your recipients? If so, then the only “wow” factor will go to the company that gets their basket there first.

2) Did you choose a food gift that has a permanent component to it? A container (basket, bowl, tin, mug, etc…) will stay around after the food has been enjoyed. When your recipients look at that container, they will remember the delicious gifts that were inside and the company/person who sent it. If you can imprint the container, you have additional options to make your gift stand out.

3) Are you choosing quality food products to send? If the fruit arrives spoiled, the effect of the gift is spoiled. If no one wants to eat your food gift, then you will either not be remembered, or worse, be remembered in a bad light. Choose products that you would want to receive and to eat. But, if you’re like that guy on the Travel Channel that eats bizarre foods, keep it more mainstream. Finally, remember, there are some good fruit cakes out there, but most people do not appreciate receiving one.

Need ideas to make this year’s business gift giving so successful that your recipients will work for your continued success because they will be looking forward to what you come up with next year? Give us a call at 619-697-2045 or send an e-mail to info@levpromotions.com to set an appointment with a Marketing Solutions Specialist, or click to see a  sampling of our Holiday Food Gifts.

Good things come in small/creative/fun packages! More holiday business gift tips.

When it comes to business gifts, what’s on the outside can be at least as important as what is inside the package. By making the packaging and/or presentation of a business gift creative, we can make the initial impact and resulting memories of the gift that much more powerful.

Although gift cards are a popular choice, statistics show that fully 25% of gift cards are never redeemed. And when they are, they are usually used to purchase necessities, or even a gift for someone else. But what if you were to enclose that gift card in a wallet? Certainly the wow factor has just increased tremendously and you’ve given an additional item that will be used and enjoyed long after the gift card is gone.

Do you like to give a more “crafty” type of gift? Maybe creating a cookie recipe and packaging the dry ingredients so that it’s practically ready to bake? What if you dropped that

ingredients package into a cookie jar, or a mug? Your presentation impression just went way up and, again, the packaging will stay behind and be used long after the cookies are enjoyed. Imprint that mug or jar with the cookie recipe and you’ll be remembered whenever a new batch of cookies is baked, too!

A Slow Fourth Quarter is a Great Way to Kick off the First Quarter

For many businesses outside the retail sector, the fourth quarter is the slowest one of the year. Budgets have been spent, people are on vacation or in a holiday frame of mind, and new projects are being put off until after the first of the year. It can seem like a great time to just kick back a bit, or a time to worry about how to make ends meet until things pick back up.

Ideally, though, the fourth quarter should be the time when you evaluate the past year and plan out your business and marketing plans for the coming year. Even if the fourth quarter is a busy time for you, it’s important to do this now so that you can get a jumpstart on the new year.

1. Evaluate your current business and/or marketing plan towards putting together one for 2014:
   1. So you never wrote a business and/or marketing plan at all; you kept it all in your head. Unfortunately, that just resulted in a huge headache when you realized that nothing was going the way you’d “planned.” Take the time to sit down and put together a written plan. Don’t know how? Get a book, take a class, or hire someone to do it for you – Lev Promotions is one resource.
   2. You did write a plan, but it’s been living in the dark recesses of your computer or a desk drawer because you haven’t actually looked at it since you finalized it, then now’s the time to pull it out and see what you’d planned to do vs. what you actually did. More than likely, most of your plan went by the wayside and you ended up somewhere entirely different than where you wanted to be. Revisit the plan, bringing it up to date so that you can really put it into action for next year.
   3. You wrote a plan and reviewed it at least once a quarter to compare reality to your plans. You kept your plan in motion, tweaking it when needed to keep it current and viable. Keep up the good work.
2. Write a plan for 2014.
   1. If you had an actual written plan in 2013,  you don’t have to recreate the wheel. Keep the parts of the old plan that still apply and add new components where they make sense.
   2. If you didn’t have a written plan – now is the time!
3. Schedule regular intervals to review your plan.
   1. Review it at least on a quarterly basis, if not on a monthly one.
   2. Tweak as needed.

With a good marketing plan in place to use as a roadmap to guide you through the year, it should be easier than ever to find success and growth in 2014.