Cheap Tee Shirts

Do you ever use tee shirts or logo apparel to brand your business? If you do, do you use cheap white tee shirts or do you spend a little more and get a quality shirt? Depending on your intended result, carefully consider which to use. If you're buying hundreds or thousands of tees for a company picnic or 5K, it's OK to use an inexpensive shirt and I'd recommend it. But if you're giving a shirt that you'd like someone to wear, don't give away cheap shirts. It won't get worn as often (if at all) and the recipient will associate the quality of the shirt with the quality of your brand.

Earth Friendly Anyone?

Eco-friendly gifts are hot and trendy these days and rightfully so. But what exactly is eco-friendly or green or sustainable products? It appears that these terms are used interchangeably but an eco-friendly gift is not necessarily a sustainable product.

Sustainable products are those products providing environmental, social and economic benefits while protecting public health, welfare, and environment over their full commercial cycle, from the extraction of raw materials to final disposition. Bamboo, wool, solar and wind power are sustainable products.

Eco-friendly products are those that are considered to inflict minimal or no harm on the environment. This could be a reuseable grocery tote made from recycled material.

With Earth Day fast approaching in April (22), you can use this time to sponsor an event to bringing awareness to our fragile environment and to your brand.

Recognizing Performance

I read an article in the paper the other day about one of the larger banks cutting back expenses while continuing to recognize performance. With expenses being cut all over, that doesn't mean you need to stop rewarding outstanding performance. Rewards = motivation = results. Be creative. Have team competition within departments. Reward the highest performing team.

Rewards could be anything from movie tickets to branded mp3 players and music downloads. If you have to cut out the golf outing at a resort across the country, why not have a local golf tournament and hand out branded golf items at the tournament?

Whenever you show your employees that you appreciate their efforts, they continue to set their sights higher. That benefits you!

Planning A Successful Company Event

To ensure high levels of productivity, it's important to keep your employees motivated and to continue to show your appreciation during good times and challenging ones. Several years ago, I was asked to plan and facilitate a party for a large corporation. I hadn't done this before, but because I had been involved in planning events at my former employer, and my husband and I entertain frequently - and we LOVE themes - I felt comfortable saying yes. The mission was to put on a party luncheon for a couple of hundred employees - on a limited budget. It was Cinco de Mayo. Because I had previously lived in Texas for many years, it was easy to envision. Here are some tips to plan a successful event.

1. Set an overall budget. Your budget needs to include food and drink, venue, decorations, staff and volunteers, entertainment, a main event, and a giveaway and/or prizes.

2. Plan your theme - If this is an employee event, consider a fun theme. You can choose from an upcoming holiday, an upcoming marketing program theme, your company's mission statement or your favorite Hollywood movie!

3. Staff and Volunteers - if you're relying on committee members made up of company staff, be sure everyone knows their assignments; from picking up food at the caterer or buying decorations to the afterparty cleanup. No detail is too small. Make it easy for them so that they'll volunteer the next time around.

4. Name Tags - If it's not an intimate group where everyone knows everyone, have name tags for all participants.

5. Food Menu - Since this is probably the largest part of your budget, you may consider setting all of the details for this first. Be sure the food is appropriate for the event and tie it into the theme if possible. Also, choose food that doesn't require alot of handling or care. You want everyone to relax and have a good time and enjoy the event. Remember there are vegetarians in every crowd, so plan for that. Your menu should include appetizers or snacks, main meat dish, veggie, starch and dessert (include fresh fruit - you'd be surprised how many people will eat it) and drinks. If you're outside in the heat, have plenty of water.

6. Decorations - For our Cinco de Mayo party, we had serapes, maracas as table decorations, colorful mini pinatas and pennant borders hanging all over the place. Try to make it as festive as possible to get everyone in the mood as soon as they arrive. Another event we did for this same corporation was a Fall Hayride theme. Because it was at the company's location in the middle of a large city, we couldn't have a hayride, so we rented huge hay bales, pumpkins and corn stalks from a local farm, strung up theme lights throughout their warehouse. Your guests will notice and appreciate the fact that you kicked it up a notch.

7. Music - You may want to consider a live band, a DJ or get a couple of employee volunteers to have music playing during the event.

8. Entertainment - Try for interactive involvement (don't forget props; i.e. microphones, prizes). One of the events we did was a luncheon workshop for managers. You'd think we would have contacted a nice restaurant or hotel meeting room, but we decided to go to the same local farm that we rented the above hay bales from and used their outdoor deck and kitchen. We had the food catered. This was a small group so we divided them up into two teams. We gave them each a CD player with CD, paper and pens and each team had to pick one song from the CD and write their own lyrics to the song - and the theme was teamwork. Once they rewrote their song, they had to sing it as a group. It was absolutely hysterical and I saw one of the managers from the group 5 years later and he recognized me and came over to tell me how much fun that was. One company picnic that I attended as an employee, we had a pie throwing contest and the managers were the recipients. Each department had a bidding war to throw the pies in their managers face and all of the money went to charity. (Just make sure your managers have a good sense of humor)

9. Giveaways and Prizes. If you budget will allow, plan for a giveaway for each participant. For instance, if you're planning a company picnic, give each person a tee-shirt or hat with your company logo imprinted on it or if it's a beach theme, you can give away beach towels or a suncare kit. Stay with your theme.

10. Make it Personal - get involved. You can't imagine the goodwill you generate with your employees by interacting with them at the event. (This part works on a daily basis). Just like in foreign policy, when you show people you're rooting for them and you want them to succeed, they're gonna like you! If it's a large organization, this is where those name tags come in handy!

10. Enjoy the party!

A Marketing Success Story

We send out catalogs several times every year. And each time we do a mailing, we usually send out 100 catalogs at a time to our best clients and we typically don't send out catalogs to companies that may have ordered one case of a product. Last year, while putting together a mailing, I was going through the list and came upon a company that had ordered one case of chocolate. I decided to send a catalog. You never know. Within a week of the mailing, we received a call from this company and they placed an order for 5000 pens. That one mailing grossed us $15,000 in sales. So, if you're thinking of cutting back on your marketing budget, think twice. If you stop marketing, your business will go any which way but up.

Trendy Ideas for the Spring

When I attended the latest industry tradeshow last month, I invited my daughter along so that we could spend time together (she lives 1500 miles away) and to get her input on gift ideas as she's in the "under 30" age group. The show had over 1000 exhibitors and so there were many tens of thousands of gift ideas. One of the first items we saw was at the Cross Pen Company Booth. Beautiful leather journals in different sizes. Over the course of the two days we saw many other journals of all sizes and colors. Journals are the perfect gift and one size fits all. Take it to a business meeting with clients or staff to keep notes. Keep a personal journal. Use your journal for business goals. A leather journal is a perfect gift to encourage staff to reach their business goals. A perfect gift for my clients, I thought. Something they'll use everyday with my logo tastefully branded on the front. I'm looking forward to their arrival next week and can't wait to get them in the hands of my clients.

A History Lesson

As I was doing research and development, I came across an article I hadn't seen for some time. It was about the history of promotional products and advertising specialties. It seems that the first promotional products were commemorative buttons when George Washington was inaugurated.

Skip ahead a few years and travel to Ohio. Jasper Freemont Meek owned a small newspaper in Coshocton Ohio and was looking for ways to supplement his income. He saw a girl drop her schoolbooks in the dirt. Mr. Meek approached one of his newspaper advertisers, a Mr. Cantwell, who owned a shoe store. Mr. Meeks sold him on the idea of buying imprinted burlap bags with the message "Buy Cantwell Shoes" and to give one to each child that came into his store. He would build store traffic with his message being seen all over town. Both entrepreneurs reaped the rewards. Mr. Meek officially started his own promotional products business by then selling imprinted horse covers which were seen on almost every horse in town.

Other early pioneers in this industry were other newspapermen looking to supplement their income, including Mssrs. Murphy and Osborne of Red Oak, Iowa. They printed a watercolor on cardboard and attached a calendar pad to come up with the first art calendars. Current statistics show that calendars are still one of the most successful and effective promotional products even now.

A New Beginning

Wouldn't you like to wake up tomorrow morning, turn on the news and the new administration has fixed the economy? As I listened to President Obama's inaugural speech, I felt renewed hope about the future of our country. I loved that he talked about personal responsibility and how we all need to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and dust ourselves off. What a motivating thought. For myself and my country - I promise to get busy with my marketing plan for the year and to build my business during these hard economic times. It's good for the economy. And to paraphrase what he said, not to question if it's a big company or a small company, but if it works. I've spent the beginning of January taking a look at CT Corporate Gifts from a different point of view and have begun making changes. What have you done to kick it up a notch?

Happy New Year!

I returned home last night from my industry's first trade show of 2009. I was surprised to read today that attendance was up from last year in spite of the current state of the economy. The trip was awesome. My daughter met me in Orlando for a whirlwind trip. We went to Epcot - a first for both of us and attended a private industry function at Universal Studios (another first). The tradeshow showcased dozens of new items including a larger than ever group of green products. But the highlight of the trip for both of us was a two hour keynote with Tony Robbins and 1200 of our closest friends. What an electric event!!! The topic was "Harnessing Your Competetive Edge". This meeting started at 7:30am sharp and last two hours. And for over half of it, Tony had everyone on their feet yelling and laughing. I came away knowing that I can change my emotions by changing my focus. I can change my results by changing my focus. And that's what I'll continue to do in 2009. Happy 2009!

The Power of Promotional Products

I received a mass e-mail yesterday from The Advertising Specialty Institute which announced that promotional products beat out all other forms of advertising as the most cost-effective advertising medium available. More than 600 travelers in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia were surveyed to reveal the following findings:

• 84% of people remember the advertiser on a product they received.
• 42% have a more favorable impression of an advertiser after receiving an advertising specialty.
• Nearly one quarter indicate that they are more likely to do business with an advertiser on items they receive.
• 62% have done business with the advertiser on a product after receiving it.
• Writing instruments are the most commonly owned advertising specialty, with 54% of respondents owning them.
• 81% of promotional products were kept because they were considered useful.
• More than 75% of respondents have had their items for about seven months.
• Bags deliver the most impressions with 1,038 impressions per month on average.
• The average cost per impression of an ad specialty item is $0.004 compared to $0.033 for a national magazine ad, $0.0129 for a newspaper ad, $0.019 for a prime time TV ad, $0.007 for a cable TV ad, $0.006 for a syndicated TV ad and $0.005 for a spot radio ad (Nielson Media data).

During these economic conditions, we all need to ramp up our marketing and advertising efforts. What more effective way to improve sales than to put your logo on a strategically chosen product whose recipient is going to keep it for seven months on average?

Making promotional products and corporate gifts a part of your marketing culture will help you grow your business even in times like these.

Stand Out From the Crowd

Several years ago I was attending a local Chamber of Commerce event and was speaking to a local insurance agent that I knew. We were talking about how their vendors stopped by their office every month and left goodies for them. Little sticky pads and pens and other SWAG with their name and logo. But there was one vendor who dropped by every month with some type of food item. One month it could be donuts and another month it could be chocolate. But he said the one they remembered every month was the vendor who left food for them. There was an emotional attachment to the food and it stood out from the crowd. Another story is a personal one. Many years ago I worked for an insurance company. Every year during the holidays we received lots of gift baskets and gift towers for our department to share. One year was particularly overwhelming. I had to write down who sent what, to send out thank you notes, but the gifts that I remembered who they came from, were the ones that stood out by virtue of the gift itself or the timing. The gifts that we received early- around Thanksgiving - stood out from the crowd as did a couple of other gifts, simply because their packaging was a little different - or the gift itself was a little different. Stand out from the Crowd! Send your gift early, send something a little different, send something with a special significance. Just keep putting your name out there!