Thursday, May 29, 2014

Let's get started...

This is the inaugural post for "about promotional products & marketing."

This blog is for those of you who buy and use promotional products for your company. 

I'll be writing about promotional products, marketing and advertising. I'll talk about where the three intersect.
I'll cover how you can use promotional products to support and promote your brand.

As we go along I'll give you useful information and industry terms you can use to make yourself a better buyer. This information will be of value to both new and seasoned buyers.

Sometimes I'll use specific products to illustrate a point. But, the blog is not going to be about the products.

First...the 30,000 foot view:

Marketing is your overall strategic approach. It involves how you define and position your products/services. Marketing is everything dealing with how your products/services show up in the world. Marketing is strategy.

Advertising is tactical. Advertising is your message and the channels you use to get your message out. Advertising is TV, radio, print, outdoors, direct mail, social, etc. Advertising is tactics.

Promotional products are a form of advertising. They are not marketing. They are not sales. They can support your other forms of advertising. They should not be your only form of advertising.

Here's their benefits as a type of advertising:
Tangible, they are items you can see, touch, smell and taste.
Useful, if chosen properly they'll be something that people will hang onto.
Retained, see useful
Remembered, if it's useful to the recipient they'll be seeing your message many times.

So, what did we learn?
Marketing is your strategy, advertising is your tactics, promotional products are only one form of advertising.


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