While Ford, Disney and AT&T pay big bucks for their products to be featured in movies and TV shows, research by the Advertising Specialty Institute concluded promotional product placement is on average the lowest cost-per-impression than ANY other form of advertising.

The average life of a custom product can be anywhere from five months to five years, providing thousands of impressions, or number of people exposed to your advertisement, per month. Custom calendars and personalized pens are effective and affordable handouts that linger around offices for a year then get tossed, but what logoed items will create a long-lasting emotional connection, greatly increasing the ROI of your ad campaign?  Here are a few tips on promotional product placement for building your brand.

Quality over quantity.

Rewarding your top 50 clients with an executive gift set often provides better results than spend the same amount on 5,000 budget pens.

Uniquely functional is in.

Knowing your audience is key. Teachers and students are using flash drives more than ever while hospital employees are often on the hunt for their lost retractable badge reel. What products does your target audience use on a daily basis?

Plan ahead.

While custom caps and tote bags receive the highest number of impressions-per-month, if your working the Miami trade show in August you may want to ditch the ruler you’ve handed out the last few years for personalized sandals or suntan lotion to save attendees a trip to the overpriced gift shop for the essentials they forgot at home.

Next time we will explore how demographic and psychographic variables help determine the most likely to purchase; from expectant parents to credit card holders with a new bank card issued, and how optimized lists can increase your direct mail response rates as much as 75% when paired with the right promotional product!