While everyone has gotten used to keychains, pens and magnets as giveaway items, you can make your company stand out by offering something a little more unique. Read on to learn about some of the coolest and most useful giveaways of 2018.
Whether you're working a trade show or offering your loyal customers another opportunity for engagement, promotional products can be a smart marketing choice. These branded giveaways offer a tangible way to keep your business in their minds and place yourself in a position of value to your potential customers.
According to The New York Times, including promotional products when conducting outreach to prospective customers can increase the response rate by up to 17 percent.
To ensure maximum impact, you have to go beyond ink pens and flimsy totes for your promo merch. You need to offer a branded promotional product that gives customers an incentive they wouldn't have otherwise.
Modern promotional products
Luckily, promotional products today offer far more options for engagement than they did just 10 years ago. Thanks to new materials, printing processes and increased automation potential, you no longer have to choose between cost-effectiveness and high quality. Promotional products are more easily done in smaller, purpose-built batches or easily mass-produced for a fraction of the cost.
The biggest innovations, however, have come from a willingness to step outside the more traditional offerings and provide potential customers with a more unique product or experience. Whereas wooden nickels, ink pens and paper notepads used to hold the largest sway at conventions, successful marketers are offering useful or fun items that assist their customers in daily life. Especially when you're marketing to millennials, well-thought-out promotional products can make your brand current and relevant to their lives.
Furthermore, SAGE says that 53 percent of the time, promotional giveaways successfully create a more favorable impression of the advertiser. That can add up to a significant boost to your brand's exposure and reputation in the recipient's mind.
Take a look at some of the most popular giveaway items you can expect to see in 2018.
1. Reading glasses
As we age, our eyesight ages right along with us. Magnification reading glasses can be a unique and useful promotional product, especially for a baby boomer audience. Cardboard-framed reading glasses are durable, cost-effective, and easy to print with your logo or brand message.
2. Cell phone fans
Customers like to be comfortable, and you will be hard-pressed to find many without their trusty smartphones in their pockets. Cell phone fans are handy pieces that feature a small, quiet electric motor driven by a cell phone's battery via its charging port. These are perfect for conventions in sweltering states like California, Arizona and Texas – everyone will want to keep these attachable devices in their cars or bags for constant use.
3. Solar phone chargers
Green tech is big, and dead cell phone batteries are anathema to today's always-connected customers. Cell phone chargers are friendly to your phone and the environment, perfect for a nicely branded win-win customers will use every day.
4. Reusable folding water bottles
As your audience turns its attention to New Year's gym memberships, proper hydration will become an important factor in their lives. A reusable, folding water bottle has the potential to become their constant companion, keeping your brand at their fingertips wherever their fitness goals take them.
5. Rainbow suncatchers
These inexpensive, easy-to-brand hanging decorations work great in the home or office. Besides providing pleasing colors and positive energy, they automatically draw eyes to them, ensuring your message is seen.
6. Lip balm
Sometimes the best promotional product is not flashy, just incredibly useful. By offering a quality, personal item to your audience, you place yourself in a position of confidence. These are great giveaways for personal businesses with heavy customer contact.
7. Fidget spinners
They were either the bane or boon to parents and teachers throughout 2017, but that doesn't mean they're done. These little devices, meant to offer the easily distracted (both young and old) a solution to a short attention span, offering constant engagement.
8. Branded food
Fact: people love to eat. At trade shows, however, they do not love spending $6 on $2 nachos. Whether you choose a pastry in a branded wrapper or a protein-rich granola bar prominently featuring your logo, you're offering a promotional giveaway that you know will get used.
Think outside the box
These promotional products are going to be popular in 2018, but the buzz you generate is all based on your delivery. Step back and take a look at how these unique items can work in harmony with your brand to create a value-added chance at engagement. By making promotional products a part of your brand messaging strategy, you provide your audience a service that will turn them into customers.