It’s Flu Season – What you need to know before you buy hand sanitizers…

Flu season is upon us. Although it is hard to predict when the flu will be most active, the CDC says that it can start as early as October and last as late as May. The usual peak season for the flu is December through February.

The single most effective way to protect yourself from the flu is to get a flu shot. They’re pretty easy to come by. Outlets such as Walmart, CVS and Walgreen all provide the shots. Certainly you can get a flu shot at your doctor’s office.

The CDC recommends that we all get our shots but especially recommends them for folks at higher risk:

·         Children under 2

·         Adults 65 and older

·         Pregnant women

·         Certain medical conditions,

…Asthma

…Heart Disease

…Diabetes

There are some common sense steps you can take on an everyday basis to protect yourself.

The easiest step is to wash your hands frequently with soap and water. If you don’t have access to soap and water use an alcohol based hand sanitizer.

Hand sanitizers are an effective and appreciated promotional product. They work well as a trade show giveaway, at job fairs, at recruitment sessions. They’re small and lightweight so you could use them in a mail campaign.

The most important thing to look for is an alcohol based hand sanitizer. Look for an alcohol content of at least 60% The CDC recommends sanitizers with an alcohol content of between 60% to 95%.

After that you’ll have all sorts of choices on size, colors, etc. Just make sure you get an alcohol based sanitizer with a content of between 60% to 95%

Here's a sample:

7 things you need to know about buying food gifts

Seven things you need to know about buying food gifts.

The upcoming holidays, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukah are traditional opportunities for saying “Thank You” to your customers and your staff.

Food gifts are a popular way to say “Thanks” because they are fun, you don’t have to worry about sizes and they’re perfect for shared consumption.

But, before you buy food gifts here are 7 things you should know:

1)      Convenience. Instead of sending a staff person off to the local Costco, Sam’s Club or other retail outlet,or having them slog through endless websites, you can purchase food gifts from the same company that provides your promotional products and other business gifts. Plus, you’ll benefit from your ongoing relationship with that vendor.

2)      Promote your brand. Many gifts purchased from on-line sources arrive with their promotional literature and catalogs. They’re promoting their business and not yours. Food gifts purchased through your promo products person will have your logo on them. Who do you want to promote?

3)      Value Pricing. Food gifts from your logoed products vendor don’t go through all the middle men that are involved in distributing “big box” gifts. This can get you better quality for the same or less money.

4)      Fresher. If you’ve been to a Costco, BJ’s or Sam’s Club recently you’ve probably noticed that the food gifts have been on the shelves since late September. How fresh can that stuff be? When was it made in order to be on the shelves in September? Food gifts sourced through your vendor will be packed-to-order and not made months in advance.

5)      Contents. Food gifts from your supplier are crammed full of, well, food. You won’t find a lot of fluff and inexpensive food items.

6)      Shipping direct to your customer. The big box stores won’t ship your gifts. Many of the on-line retailers don’t have that ability either. All of our vendors can ship your order directly to your customer.

7)      Customization. If you’ve been to the big box stores and seen their food gifts it’s a pretty good chance that your customer’s have seen them too. What you see is what you’ll get. Our vendors have the capability to customize your gift.

So, now you know that you can go to your promotional products vendor for holiday food gifts. They are well positioned to help you put together the right gift to say “Thank You” to your customers, future customers and staff.

Bon Appétit! 

Check out my #constantcontact newsletter archive

Check out my #constantcontact newsletter archive

What you should know about promo products (before you buy)

Promotional products, (also called swag, giveaways, tchotchkes, bling, premiums,) can be a very effective and cost efficient way to advertise and promote your business.

Here’s what makes them so effective:

1.       80% of consumers own between 1 and 10 promotional products.

2.       60% keep them for up to 2 years.

3.       53% use a promotional product at least once a week or more often

4.       88% of people who have received a promo item recalled the advertiser for up to 12 months after        receiving the item

5.        62% of these people recalled the advertiser’s message

  Only 71% of people can recall an ad they saw in a newspaper or magazine from the week before!

OK, enough with the statistics. Here’s the point I want you to take away: this stuff works, people hang onto it, and they use it.

A promotional item does not have to be expensive to be effective. It does need to be useful.

Useful items are retained, and that’s what you want as an advertiser.

But, what’s useful? Well that depends on where you want to be remembered.

Do you want to be remembered in the office? Then think about items like notebooks, sticky pads, pens, desk accessories, wall calendars.

Do you want to be remembered in the home? Then you would consider things like kitchen utensils, magnetic memo boards for the fridge, tote bags, coasters, BBQ tools.

Here are some items that work anywhere: cell phone chargers, USB drives, water bottles, umbrellas, caps and T-shirts. Notebooks and sticky notes work everywhere.

So, think about who you are going to give this stuff to and what they would find useful.

Alright, you’ve thought about all of the above. You’ve decided you can use promotional products to advertise your business. Here’s what you need to know about buying these items.

•          All items will have a minimum purchase quantity. On less expensive items that minimum might be 100 to 250 pieces. Sometimes you can buy less than the minimum but you’ll be surcharged.

•          All items will have a maximum imprint area. That’s the largest available area for imprinting your logo. The point is don’t try to print everything about your company on the side of a pen. It won’t work.

•       Artwork, (that’s what the industry calls your logo or whatever design you’re going to put on your promo item), needs to be in the proper format. The universal format for promo items is what’s called “vector art.” It’s too complicated to go into it here but vector art is a high resolution file that won’t distort and will print clearly. Jpeg, tiff and giff files won’t work. If your logo isn’t in “vector art,” spend the money to get it created in this format.

• Colors. There are “spot” colors (think of one or two distinct colors on a T-shirt design), and there is “full color process” (think of a refrigerator magnet that looks like a full color photo.) When you see the catalog price for an item it includes the first color. Every color you add is going to cost extra

• Set up is the charge to prepare your artwork for whatever process is being used to imprint your item.

• Time. One of the problems with technology is that we’ve all become accustomed to instant everything.

The problem is that this is a manufacturing process and it takes time. Most products will take somewhere between 7 to 10 business days to produce. Add to that the shipping time. Many of the industry suppliers are located in California and that’s 5 days by ground to the East coast. Allow yourself a good 2 to 3 weeks to have your order produced and shipped.

• Proof. A proof is a virtual representation of what your design is going to look like on your product. Always insist on a proof and always go over it with a fine toothed comb. The last thing you want is for your 1,000 pens to arrive with a typo!

The two areas where a project can go wrong are artwork and time. Have your logo (in several versions) in the proper format before you start your order. Give yourself enough time to deal with any glitches that might come up..

A quick word or two about pricing. You can get pretty much any promotional product through an on-line distributor. Their prices are often lower than what a local distributor might be able to show you. They work on huge volumes and small margins. If you know exactly what you want and don’t need any help, this might be the way to go. If you need advice and guidance you should go with a local distributor. As someone famous once said, “you get what you pay for.”

You now know:

•          Promotional products work as a way to advertise and brand your company.
•          Pick something that’ s useful to your target audience
•         Have your logo (in several versions) prepared in the proper format well before you begin the      ordering process.      
•         Give yourself enough time

If you stick to these guidelines you will have a successful promotional product campaign.

mAh…what is it, and why you should care...what you need to know about buying logo'd power banks

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This blog is about power, why it’s important, how to get it and how to keep it.

It’s not about political power or the personal power to influence and control people.

It’s even more important!

It’s about portable power for recharging all those devices we have and depend upon in our daily lives…smart phones, mp3 players, digital cameras, tablets, etc. Those devices that seem to run out of power at the absolute worst time.

Portable power banks, (also called external battery packs, external back-up battery, external battery charger or power bank charger), are a very popular and well received promotional product. It’s easy to see why.

They’re very useful and practical…that means they’ll be retained. They offer a fairly good sized imprint area, so your logo can stand out and get noticed. And, pretty much everyone can use one. This is an item that every company should have in their promo product cupboard.

Here’s what you need to know before you buy:

These are portable, rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. They come in a range of capacities (with capacity being how much power they generate). The power capacity is measured in mAh, milli amps per hour.

Power banks range in capacities from around 1800 mAh on the low end up to 14000 mAh on the upper end.

Here is a 14000 mAh charger. It has 2 recharging ports and will power up pretty much any device. This one comes with multiple adapters to fit most every device. It will make your coffee in the morning. Expect to pay about $68 for a device like this.

Think of the charger as your gas tank. The higher the number the bigger your gas tank. And, like gas tanks, these batteries can be refilled, i.e. recharged. The typical power bank can be recharged about 500 times before it starts to lose its efficiency. (They come with a USB cable so you can recharge it from your computer.)

Think of your device as the gas pedal, the more you stomp on the pedal the faster your tank gets emptied. A smart phone will use less gas than a tablet.

So, how much charging will you get from a power bank? It depends upon the mAh capacity of the power bank and the size of the battery in the device. For instance, if your smart phone battery is 1500 mAh (which is pretty typical) a 2200 mAh power bank will charge it 1 time, (assuming your phone battery is at 0%). If your device has a 3000 mAh battery then the 2200 mAh charger won’t charge it completely.

Look at the output rating for the power bank you’re considering.  1A -1.5A is adequate for a smart phone while 1.5A -2A is recommended for a tablet. Although a tablet can be charged with a 1A charger, it will take longer and probably won’t charge the tablet completely.

This is a 4000 mAh dual port charger. This one offers 2 power output levels, 1A and 2A. It also features a charge indicator light.

Expect to pay about $25 for something like this.

Look for a charger with multiple ports (2 USB ports along with a micro is a nice feature.)

Look for a power bank that has fresh batteries…if the price is super cheap in comparison to other chargers of the same capacity it might mean that the battery has been used before and been refurbished.  It happens.

An indicator light is a useful feature and a “use” indicator is an even nicer feature.

After that you can add features such as an LED flashlight, probably less than useful.

And lastly, do you want a plastic housing or an aluminum case?

This is a 2200 mAh charger with a metal casing. This has a single port and an indicator light. This is about $13.

The cylinder shape is quite popular. This is also a 2200 mAh charger. This one has a plastic casing. These are about $10.

Look at the links; they have a lot of the technical stuff. But, even if you don’t, you are now a much smarter buyer of power banks.

Logo'd USB Drives - 6 Things To Know Before You Buy

USB drives, (also known as "thumb drives," "memory sticks," and "flash drives") are a staple promotional item that every company should have in the cupboard. It's easy to see why: they're useful and that means they'll be retained, they're inexpensive, and they offer multiple opportunities for branding.

You can use them to reply to RFPs, as a way to present information about an event (schedules, venues, etc.), speaker bios, insurance policy benefits, the list goes on and you get the idea.

BUT...they are not all created equal and it's easy to get taken if you just go for the lowest price.

Here's what you need to know before you buy.

The most important aspect of the drive is what is know as its memory classification (not the memory capacity, I'll get to that later).

Memory classification is designated by "Tiers" with Tier 1 Memory being the best and Tier 3 being the least reliable. The little chips at the heart of your USB drive were cut from a master silicon wafer.

Master silicon wafer

The chips cut from the middle are stronger, have the longest lifespan (about 10 years), have zero to extremely low error rates and are faster. These are Tier 1 chips. They often have a serial number or name etched on each chip.They have a lifetime warranty.They are unused and go straight to the USB drive maker. (More on that later)





Here's what the guts of your USB drive looks like.....





Tier 2 chips are cut a bit further away from the center. They are reliable, although not as reliable as Tier 1.
They will not have a manufacturer's name or a serial number. They're a bit slower and won't last quite as long. They will not have a lifetime warranty.

Tier 3 chips are cut from the edge of the master wafer. They can have failure rates up to about 40%. They do not have any warranty.

Here's a little secret about low cost USB drives; they are most likely either Tier 3 or they've been scrubbed and are being reused. It happens. That's why you're likely to see a 1GB drive from one source for $12 each and the same capacity from another source for $6 each. Rest assured, the first drive is Tier 1 and the other is probably Tier 3.  Your promo products vendor can tell you if you are getting a Tier 1 drive and you should insist on documentation that you're getting Tier 1 and a lifetime warranty.

As the old saying goes, "You get what you pay for."

Here's the next thing you need to know; chips are sold as commodities. The price will fluctuate from week to week. Most suppliers post their prices on Monday's and hold those prices throughout the week. They re post the following Monday. Right now (September 2014) chip prices are at all time lows.
When Apple was manufacturing the iPhone5 prices jumped because Apple was buying all the supply they could.

Next, memory capacity has expanded significantly over the past few years. Most suppliers offer drives with 64 GB of capacity. The most popular capacities are 1GB and 2 GB. See if you can find a 32 mg or 64 mg drive...even 128mg are getting scarce.

The most popular (and practical) style is the "Swing" (also called a swivel ) drive, so named because of the arm that swings away to give access to the drive. (It's practical because there is no cap to lose).

You see they come in a ton of colors so getting something to match your corporate colors should be pretty easy.

Here are the typical imprint areas (and imprint sizes) for a swivel drive:

Drives come in all sorts of shapes and materials so you should have no trouble finding a drive that suits your style and budget. Many of the suppliers who cater to the promotional products industry are capable of making your custom design. You'll pay a bit more for a custom design but having something that is unique to your company might be worth the expense. Here's an example

Here's the take away: all chips are not created equal. Insist on Tier 1 memeory with a lifetime warranty.

Hope this was helpful and drop me a comment if you have any questions.

Havin' Some Fun with Colors!

In my last blog I said that the two areas where a promo project could go wrong were artwork and time.

I lied.

You can add color to the list. Putting your logo on something, in color, can be a frustrating process. The client (you), the distributor (me) and the supplier (the people who put your logo on your stuff) may all be speaking a different language when it comes to color.

So in this blog I'm going to cover the 2 major color systems. I'll show you how they differ and how to understand them when you're talking about decorating your promo item.

You might remember being taught in grade school art class that black and white are not colors. Black is the presence of all colors, white is the absence of all color. Occasionally this will come up in decorating a promotional product when someone will think that black or white doesn't count in determining the number of colors being used to print their logo. They do because they are inks that have to be mixed.

And that's just the beginning of fun with colors!

What comes next could easily be described as TMI  (too much information). But if you're involved with promotional products this stuff is going to come up sooner or later so you might as well have some information on your side.

There are 2 color systems: RGB and CMYK.

RGB, (red,green,blue), is the color system you see on your monitor, TV or digital camera. It's called an additive process because you can make all possible colors by adding different parts of red, green and blue.

This little illustration shows how RGB works.
See how you can add, (remember this is called an additive process) more or less of the primary colors to make pretty
much any color you want.








Here's another look at the RGB color scheme

The other color scheme is called CMYK, (cyan, magenta, yellow and black). The CMYK process is the one used in printing..for putting an image on a piece of paper.

CMYK, (also known as process color or four color printing), is a subtractive process. It works by partially or entirely masking colors on a lighter (usually white) background. The inks reduce the light that otherwise would be reflected back into your eyes. It subtracts from the white. It's the combination of the ink colors that determines what wave length (and consequently what color) is reflected back to you.

Because CMYK is subtractive and is being reflected off of a surface, CMYK colors are often a bit duller looking than RGB colors. 

Here's an illustration that gives you an idea of how this works in printing.

Here's a quick YouTube video that explains the two color models.

Whew! That was alot!