SMB Marketing

Lynne Lambert, owner of Mapt Gear, has a revolutionary idea that may upend the promotional products industry. It’s kind of like anti-branding. Her company sells totes, messenger bags and a padfolio waiting for logos. However, the logos themselves are sometimes never seen on the products. Instead, she prints maps with pin illustrations to show the exact locations of companies’ headquarters (or specific locations or even event spots).

The Super Bowl, the Winter Olympics and now March Madness — the sports world has been in overdrive lately. Which can mean both good and bad things for the promotional products industry. As you gear up for the annual 64-team college basketball showdown, follow these tips to avoid the mayhem and bring on promo product magic.

With a full slate of industry trade shows coming up over the next few months, it’s important to know that the time and investment you’re putting into events will be worth your while. So, sorry folks: that means late nights partying with industry friends and then sleeping through the showroom floor is probably not the best strategy.

“Hi! Um, my name is Sam and I’m just calling to see if you’re interested in [click]” Ugh! Cold calling is the worst, right? It’s an unfortunate part of business, though, one that everyone must do at some point in their careers — especially if they are trying to sell promotional products to new customers. How else do you reach people beyond the ones you already know?

The 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Games may be wrapping up over the next week, but for some promotional products companies, the benefits will be felt for months. This season’s competition, as is common with the games, has led to a boost in Olympics-branded merchandise sales.

In January, Laura Gomez — a content specialist with Ricoma Embroidery Machines — called out a few embroidery trends she saw in 2017 that she expects to last throughout this year: embroidery on denim, embroidered baseball caps and Instagram-ready embroidered sun hats for women.

Every year, billions of customers search Shutterstock’s database of 170 million images, videos and music, often hunting for something to be used in the film, media and advertising industries. When those searches get analyzed—say by a team of data scientists, content reviewers, and creative professionals — we’re left with a wealth of data showing what designs are trending and exploring what we’ll get used to seeing in the marketing design world throughout the following year.

Branding: it’s not just for high-profile businesses. The definition of branding is “the marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or design that identifies and differentiates a product from other products.” As a small business, you can have great products, services and employees but still struggle. The problem could be that your brand isn’t buttoned up. Here are a few dos and don’ts for mastering the art of branding.

It is important for business owners to stay current on the latest marketing trends, but that can be difficult if you are wearing many hats. It is especially hard when you realize that marketing is constantly changing and what worked at one time for your company might not be very effective today. Plus, there are always new tools and tactics to learn that could set you apart from the competition.

Typography is more than the font options in the drop-down menu of a Word document or the Adobe Creative Suite. There is far more complexity to each font that it is important to know before you make selections for your small business or your customers. Typefaces have personality and can evoke emotion and even inspire potential customers.