Promotional products are marketing and advertising tool. Your bands of products or services are promoted to get a valuable impression from the targeted audiences. The first-ever such product was initiated in the year 1800 in the USA. This industry has a market share of $23 billion per annum.
Why Promoting?
Business promotional products are promotional merchandise or gift items such as pen, t-shirt, mug, calendar, bag, coaster diary, clock, headwear, water bottle, magnets, and myriads of others, umbrellas, notepads that are given away to existing and prospective customers with an expectation of growth in revenue and profit.
It is for you to decide the particular item considering certain facts such as utility value, aesthetic value, longevity, exclusiveness, transportability, worth-transferring to friends and relatives.
How Promoting?
These products carry the name, logo, slogan, and address of the company. Besides giving away to customers, you can give the business promotional products to your internal sales team, who will be encouraged to increase your sales. Thus promotional products are crucial for your business.
Those of your loyal customers will stay further with you, considering that you have acknowledged their actions of staying with you. They will recommend and spread your names to other prospective customers. Customers always prefer to buy on the recommendation of a satisfied customer. They know the product they will accept is tried and tested well.
Principle of Reciprocity
The fundamental principle of everyday life is Give-n-Take. Your present and prospective customers reciprocate in action by resorting to four possible measures, which are listed below:
By not switching over to other sellers
Recommending your brand to different customers
Developing brand awareness
Getting drawn to your products and services
It creates a long-lasting business relationship with customers. There is a psychological reason for this reciprocation. As long as the customers retain and use your promotional products, they have a moral obligation of giving preference to your products while buying similar products.
Authenticity & Reciprocity
By giving the promotional products, you need to send a positive gesture to establish that you don’t expect anything in return. Customers should feel that what you are giving them is of some value, so they should not think that they are giving something great. After all, your customers are human beings. They will be happy to realize that they are favored with a sweeter deal.
Types of Reciprocity!
1. Material Reciprocity
This interchange is physical; for instance, you welcome your new neighbor by lending him a washing machine till he obtains his new one. The neighbor will reciprocate you by doing something nice for you.
In business, you may include rewards for the loyalty program, return for certain purchases, and referral program. When they feel good about the material object, they reciprocate positively to promotional products.
2. Emotional Reciprocity
Every human being has the basic characteristics of being appreciated and can reciprocate unexpectedly to any act or even words of appreciation. If you make them feel good by saying:
Thanks for sparing me your valuable time.
It’s indeed my great pleasure to meet you.
It was nice working with you
These sentences satisfy the psychological needs of a person who will reciprocate nicely by behaving well with you. Non-materialistic gestures, too, have wonderful results on marketing strategies. Now think of adding a promotional product and see the spontaneous outburst.
Actual Incidence of Appreciation
Here, the story of the writer Dale Carnegie of How to Influence People and Make friends are worth mentioning. There was a huge requirement of holsters for the Ford Company, an American car manufacturing company. A young sales manager approached to meet the CEO Ford.
With much difficulty, he got only ten minutes to talk to Mr. Ford about presenting his products. After starting the conversation, he looked at the chandelier hanging in his drawing room and “appreciated” it.
That was enough to trigger Mr. Ford’s sensory organs that get engaged in any activity during any appreciation. He replied that he got the chandelier when he had been to Italy.
Mr. Ford described all the furniture and fixture items exhibited in his drawing-room. He told the names of the countries from which he brought them and their respective cost. He did not allow the poor sales manager to talk a single word about his product.
After finishing his talk after about an hour, Mr. Ford called him for dinner with him and gave him an order worth millions which were far more than his expectation. That is how the acts or words of appreciation impress the recipient.
Reciprocity Ideas
Winning somebody’s heart is not an easy job. Your customer will not buy your product unless you touch their hearts. Appreciatively offering a promotional product is the best way to do it in the following manner.
Be the first to give the product that should be attractive, usable, and worth retaining. Getting a bonus gives a psychological satisfaction received for the first time. If others have already shown, that need is already met and may not have the same impact. They believe in First-come-first-bought. You can also promote your products through discounts, rewards, or coupons. One way of offering the promotional product is to provide the same at the starting point of sales. You may submit a price cut for a referral at the sales end.
Feeling Valued by the customer is important, and you can do it for ensuring it.
Allow your customers freedom of choosing the promotion in the shape of a material object or reward.
To make your customers feel special, you can offer them the facilities of shopping vouchers. This may make them purchase more than what has been provided. They may also have a repeat buying.
Helping outside the Store, for instance, providing informative content and making it Memorable.
Conclusion!
While promoting your products, you should keep in mind that you will reap the manner you sow; therefore, the customers must have absolute power to buy from you or elsewhere.
