What is your advertising/marketing/branding plans during this new environment we find ourselves in? Are you doing the same as before or nothing? Now is the time to explore other options you may not have considered or felt you did not need. The key now is making sure you are actively engaging your clients in all your efforts.
So how do you engage clients and not be talking to them which can turn them off. How to be upfront and center with clients. Here are some questions you need to ask yourself: What is new? What do you want the customers to do? How are you motivating referrals if that is your main source for business? How can you attract new customers to your brand? How do we retain customers? For your team members: How are you engaging and motivating employees? How are keeping your workforce engaged? For each of these questions you have to write down how you plan to approach each one. If you are thinking about how you did it in the past , stop. Now think about how are you going to actively engage customers today and into the future in this new environment. I strongly urge you to include promotional items in your plans as people have to interact and engage with any promotional item that is given to them. I have the research data showing that people want promotional items, makes their experience more memorable, they keep them for seven months, and they remember the advertiser who gave them the right item. There are several more reasons why you should consider promotional items in your plans to engage your target audience with your message. So what do I mean by engagement. When you receive a promotional item you are wondering what is this package, what is inside. The process of opening it is the initial part of the engagement. Who sent it, why did they send it, what is it. As you open the package your questions are being answered. Depending upon how creative the sender is can stir even more interest. Holding the item is another point of engagement. The item is in their hands, they turn it over, read the copy, try it out, see how it works and discover any unique features it may have. If they like it, they will keep it close by and use it on a regular basis for a long period of time. What have you accomplished by expanding your marketing to include a promotional item? Branding recognition, memorable experience, if a new contact, immediate reaction, recognition, improve the perception of your business, remembering your business for the long term as they use the promotional item in their daily lives. Clearly, just handing out a promotional item does not in itself address all the issues raised above. I go back to what is your plan to address each issue and how are you fine tuning it to meet today's new challenges. Talk to a promotional distributor who will work with you and discuss ways promotional items added to your plan will excite and fully engage your audience time and time again. Peter Fishburn Promotional Product Consultant Brown & Bigelow [email protected] 775-883-9428
0 Comments
Donors are crucial to the success of any non-profit They provide the funding or volunteer hours to insure the common cause, whatever it maybe, is successful. Donors invest part of themselves to the causes they firmly believe in and they want two things in return for their investment. First, for the non-profit and its cause to be successful. They care about the issue or the suffering other people are going through or they would not be part of the program. They care to the degree they will give hard earned personal funds that they could have given to another cause, but they chose this one as it is dear to their heart. Or, they put in hours of time they could donate elsewhere but they have chosen this project to invest in. Second, they want to be recognized for their contribution(s). You often hear I don't want to be recognized or use the funds for the project instead of recognition. I am here to tell you that is false. If you want the project and the non-profit to grow, you have to recognize the people who are making it happen, be it volunteers or big donors of cash funds. The purpose of this article is not about the pros and cons of donor recognition gifts or how to do it. We can have that discussion later. I want to share with you an idea that I think is unique and impactful. Many non-profit organizations have recognition events, like dinners or other big events where all the donors and volunteers who have made a significant impact to the non-profit gather together. (We will be able to gather in groups again sometime soon) At these events, the attendees are given some type of gift for attending and donating. The challenge is selecting something unique that the participants don't already have or is not significant for the event. Here is the idea that I would like to suggest to you. You bring in a carefully selected artist who will come in, set up shop and paint a unique picture during the event. All the attendees can watch the progress of the work of art while the program for the evening progresses. What to paint? A lot of options. Have the guests decide on some choices, the program front page if it is an attractive image, a picture of what the non-profit does. Our imagination is our only limiting factor. At the conclusion of the evening you have some options as well. It can be given to the non-profit to hang in their offices. It could be raffled off at the event or future event for extra funding. Next, is the unique part of this donor gift. The image is carefully scanned in and copies of the artwork are framed and sent to all of the participants who attended the event with a thank you note. All the frames could be personalized as well to give a more personal touch. The picture would be hung in their home or office. The memory of the event and the cause will be remembered every time the donor looks at the artwork. Visitors would see the unique artwork, learn of the event and its purpose and recognize the recipient again for their involvement in the non-profit. Isn't this what a non-profit wants when you recognize people for all their efforts? I can assist you with this idea or work with you to create other unique donor appreciation gifts. Give me a call. |
Archives
April 2024
Categories |