It’s no secret that company branded merchandise is incredibly impactful for brand exposure, recognition, and loyalty, as well as a vital element in sponsorships and promotions.
It offers you an opportunity to form an emotional connection with prospects and customers by providing them with real value. It reinforces your brand’s voice, message, and acts as a tangible touchpoint for digital campaigns.
However, for your company’s branded merchandise to be a core part of your overarching marketing strategy, you need to take a strategic approach. You need to think about your business and marketing end-goals, establish quality standards, and determine how to measure their impact and impressions.
Here are our branding specialists’ top tips to help you leverage branded merchandise to best benefit your company.
DO: Choose Merchandise That Is Usable And Perceived As Valuable
Simply put, branded merchandise holds no power if prospects can’t or don’t want to use it.
For that reason, you’ll want to choose lifestyle products with functional features that hold value in long-term usage. Think branded water bottles, USBs, tote or laptop bags, chargers, power banks, hats, and so on.
The more your prospects use these items, the more they will appreciate them, and the more positive sentiment and front-of-mind exposure your brand will enjoy. However, you’ll want to vary it rather than picking one product to avoid losses.
The more varied your branded merchandise is, the more reach and exposure your company as a whole will get.
DO: Cultivate An Effective Strategy
A pivotal element to leveraging branded merchandise to benefit your company’s bottom line is cultivating and implementing an effective strategy. You want to communicate generosity and a desire to offer prospects value above all else. You want to show them how you solve problems and fulfill their needs; their problems and needs.
To do this, you’ll need to get a clear understanding of precisely who your target audiences are for each product. Define their personas to help you pick products that resonate with their needs and desires. Use their demographics to work out the best methods for getting your company’s branded merchandise into their hands.
Pro tip: Avoid ‘trendy’ products as these can quickly lose their appeal and leave you with merchandise no one wants.
DON’T: Restrict Your Theme
This one’s hard.
On the one hand, you need to craft precisely targeted messages and distribution plans. This ensures your company’s branded merchandise resonates with specific demographics, increasing its success.
On the other hand, using multiple or overlapping themes ensures your merchandise reaches a wider prospect pool and gets used more often.
Luckily, you can have the best of both worlds. Try to create a collection of merch that includes staple products that will reach and engage the widest pool of prospects possible. Then, start bringing in more specific items that are based on specific campaigns, seasons, or limited-edition releases.
With our tips, you should have no problem leveraging branded merchandise to benefit your company’s bottom line. However, you’ll need to choose and brand your merchandise first!
In that case, Red Energy Promotions is precisely the supplier and branding specialist you need.
After 16 years in the brand-building business, we’ve honed our skills and accumulated an expansive collection of branded merchandise. Not only will your company enjoy the most profitable products possible, but we will reinforce their potential through our logo and graphic design, eCommerce, and marketing campaign services.
If you need advice on choosing branded merchandise for your company, please book a free brand strategy session with one of our branding specialists now!
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