Branded Merchandise

Just how do you get the greatest returns from promotional advertising? This is one question that is on the mind of every marketer in the industry. So, just where do you begin and what is it that you should be looking for exactly? A number of trends are important to follow within the promotional merchandise industry.

When it comes to buying promotional merchandise, it is important to pay attention to hypes and trends. This also relates to conventional brands as well. Ordering the same engraved fountain pens year after year to promote your company can eventually begin working against you. After all, less and less people these days actually use fountain pens to write anymore. A roller pen is generally a better promotional gift to give these days, while still giving the authentic appearance that you want. When you purchase promotional merchandise, it is vital to take into account both fashion as well as seasonal trends. Do not neglect this particular element. Keep in mind that promotional gift distributors are not trendsetters in general, but they are trend followers.

Here are a few trends that you need to follow if you want to excel with promotional merchandise:

• More and more people these days all around the world are going green. Promotional products derived from biologic biodegradable materials are eco-friendly, so they are doing quite well these days. Unfortunately, eco-friendly products are somewhat more expensive that other promotional gifts.

• Color is another important trend that you need to be following. Bright colors like pink, purple, blue and yellow are some of the most popular within the promotional product industry. Promotional merchandise featuring company colors is also in high demand these days.

• Prospective customers and clients want functional promotional items. Inexpensive products without function are nothing but a waste of budget in today’s market. Customers appreciate merchandise with useful functions. When you are searching for the right promotional products to promote your company name, think also of quality as well as cost. Failing to offer consumers a quality promotional item will send the wrong message to your target audience. Invest in products that your prospective clients and customers will appreciate.

Do you want to be kept updated with all the latest news surrounding promotional marketing?

Then you have come to the right place as Merchandise Mania launches their new channel: Merchandise Mania TV, or MMTV which allows you to be kept updated with all the latest product news straight from the experts at Merchandise Mania!

You can find our new TV Chanel at Merchandise Mania TV. You can also subscribe to our channel on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/MerchandiseManiaTV .

Feel free to drop us a line if you would like to know more about particular products that we may not have covered yet on our TV channel or website!

Our catalogue of products at Merchandise Mania is updated on a regular basis so stay tuned to our website for the very latest offers.

With the current downfall in the economy, most businesses are faced with financial strains, with budgets being cut across the board, and marketing being one of the most popular departments to be hit hard by the cuts.

However, cutting marketing budgets is certainly not the right way to go about it because surely if we want to increase our market share, we need to increase our visibility in that particular market segment? By cutting marketing budgets, we are restricting ourselves from doing that. Hence, I think its safe to say that to to increase market share, sales and profit, we need to be creative about how we market ourselves, we need to be better than our competitors!

So what does this mean for businesses? Does it mean more spending? Not really, especially if you are using promotional products to increase your presence in the market. Not only is using promotional merchandise as an effective marketing strategy, tangible, but its also measurable.

To put things into perspective, if you put out a single page advert in a newspaper or magazine, it will cost your company thousands of pounds, and the lifespan of the advert will only be limited to one day! You won’t have any idea about who has seen the advert in that day and for it be measurable, you may need to run the same advert at least 3 times.

On the other hand, if you compare that to giving a potential customer a tangible gift, the gift will have a lifespan of at least 8 months (maybe more, depending on what you have given). At the same time, you know who has received the gift and you only have to give them it once. I mean promotional pens are one of the most popular gifts companies’ give away because they are extremely useful and you can carry a pen in your pocket!

As you can see, if you can think of the right gift in a present in the right way at the right time, e.g. at tradeshows and exhibitions, then you are not only saving the business thousands of pounds, but are also opening up new opportunities to increase profits, generate new business and hopefully contribute towards improving client retention. So now the big question is, can an advert in a newspaper helps you do all that?

When it comes to promotional marketing, Merchandise Mania, are much more than just a supplier, we are consultants as well. We work with our clients as partners, to actually understand their business needs, and ascertain exactly what they are trying to achieve before recommending the right product for their promotional marketing strategy. So by all means, you can browse our website, and of course stay tuned to our blog for creative ideas, but more importantly, for a real quality service, please call us to arrange a consultation with one of our experienced Account Managers.

As mentioned previously, please stay tuned to our blog for more creative and breathtaking ideas on how to promote your business at www.merchandisemania.co.uk/blog/.

Finally, we would like to take this opportunity to highlight that we are extremely excited about the coming year and what it will present to both us as a company as well as our clients, and hope that you will be with us to celebrate, evolve and develop throughout the year.

We are extremely delighted with our product catalogue this year, as are our clients, who we work with on a regular basis. There are well over 1000 products in our catalogue to help you get going with ideas on what products you can go for to devise your promotional marketing strategy. Do you remember the saying, “a picture can paint a thousand words”? Not necessarily, because nowadays most people want to see the product in the flesh, so to speak, before they buy it! Therefore, we would like to invite you to our showroom in Borehamwood, in Hertfordshire, which is just 10 minutes way from the M25 and M1 motorway!

Now we are confident that you are looking for something new, innovative and different, what’s more, we know that you will find what you are looking for right here in our showroom. Our highly trained and skilled, dedicated Account managers, will sit down with you to get to grips with what your company offers as a business, and what areas of the business you would like to promote further, working with you to put together a portfolio of the very best ideas, specifically tailored to your business needs. Most of our clients just walk into our showroom and instantly see what they are looking for, I mean that really is the beauty of our showroom and it really is one of the best you will come across in the industry!

However, at the same time, we would be more than happy to visit you at your office, but there is only so much we can fit into our sample cases so we really do recommend you book early to visit us at our showroom to be consistently surrounded by inspiration and an innovation of ideas. Look forward to seeing you at our showroom very soon to solve your promotional products needs!

There are various methods of personalisation that can be adopted in order to make your marketing efforts distinct from your competitors. We will look into some of these methods in a bit more detail below.

Screen Printing
This is quite a popular technique that is used by quite a lot of our clients in order to sort of brand up their products before getting them sent out to their potential clients or customers. The method uses the process of applying ink through a stencil screen onto the product area. This method is ideal for personalising products made from plastic, PU and in some cases clothing and metal products as well.

Embroidery
Now I personally believe that this is a very clever personalisation technique and definitely one of the coolest techniques to use. This particular technique allows you to produce embroidery of 6 colours on your product and hence we believe that it is most suited for clothing, bags and caps.

Dye Stamping
Dye stamping is a very specific technique ans is most suited for leather or solid metal surface products as it is a technique that leaves behind an impression. It does this using a heated metal dye and pressing it into the surface of the product in order to leave behind an impression of some sort. Its up to you what you would like to leave behind.

Hot Foil Blocking
This technique is similar to the Dye Stamping technique but it allows you to add colour to the impression. You can add colour, by putting a colour foil between the dye and the product. Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to match PMS colours.

Diamond Cut, Laser Engraving, Sand Blasting or Inverted Engraving
This form of personalisation is an extremely delicate and intricate procedure as it involves carving the impression into the product. In all cases, except inverted Engraving, the idea is to cut the personalisation message or image, etc, into the product. However, with Inverted Engraving, you get the added benefit of a raised impression, so almost making the impression look 3D. This method of personalisation is best suited for metal and glass products.

Tampo Printing
It uses the process of transference of ink onto a product using a rubber pad. It is ideally for again plastics and PU products, and in some cases Clothing and metal products where applicable.

However, our personalisation options don’t just end there. If you can think of more ways in which you would like to personalise your promotional products then just give us a call today on 0845 202 2388 and we will see how we can help you in that respect.