Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Marketing In Tough Times

Constrained Promotional Budget? Economy Got You Down?


If your company has a constrained promotional or advertising budget, you might consider inexpensive personalized pencils as promotional products for your customers. With personalized pencils you can still distribute targeted message-bearing gifts to your loyal targeted as well as potential clients even if the economy is in a downturn. As personalized pencils are not as expensive as other promotional products, such as t-shirts or totes, you can distribute them to a wider audience of prospects and customers than the more expensive items.


A New Business?


Distributing personalized pens and pencils for business promotion is ideal if you are just starting to to make the world aware of your company or brand. A recent Advertising Specialties Institute study showed that writing instruments are one of the top five promotional products in terms of longevity and they are also offer one of the lowest costs per impression.


Lots of Choices


There are many types of pens and pencils you can use in your advertising/branding campaigns.

  • The most common and least expensive one is the round pencil with red eraser and gold feature. For this kind of pencil, you only have to invest less than $0.20 a piece. This is a good deal especially since you can choose from a wide range of different colors like yellow, white, blue, green and black.
  • If you want personalized pencils that are not very common you might want to choose hexagonal ones or those that have sides.
  • There are also pencils available in different glowing colors. If your main customers are kids, then you want to give out pencils with vibrant colors.
  • If your clients are mostly woodworkers or tailors, you may want to give out carpenter pencils (ones that are thick, have a bigger lead, and do not have eraser) for free.
  • Other types of pencils that may cost a lot more, but will surely be appreciated by your customers are mood pencils, which change colors at the user's whim.
  • Lastly, you can also choose mechanical pencils.

Add Them To A Tote!


Many companies combine personalized pencils with other promotional items.
  • For students, you can probably give a pencil in a case along with items like ball pen, eraser and sharpener during the first day of classes.
  • If your target clients are CEOs and business executives, you may give out a planner or notepad with accompanying personalized pencils.
  • You can also consider pencils and bags imprinted with your logo or message as your Christmas giveaways to loyal customers.

There are really so many things you can combine with pencils to make your promotional item or giveaway more attractive to people.