SMB Marketing

The stage is set. You’ve greeted them with a handshake and exchanged pleasantries. Now it’s “show time”. You must win over your potential customers. As you begin, the last thing you want to do is flub your lines. And winging performances works for virtually no one.

2017 is a wrap! Now it’s time to focus on propelling your business and your clients’ companies forward into 2018. To succeed, it’s important to thoroughly evaluate the marketing landscape. You should take the time to ask, what are the top trends in promotional product marketing going to be in the new year?

‘Tis the season for gift giving! As the holidays wind down and shopping lists shorten, your customers may get stumped on what to get their clients. Advise them to never pass up the opportunity to say thank you to existing clients or even to gift competitors’ customers — more than half of companies do this!

The holiday hustle has begun! As you begin to write your own wish lists, there are a plenty of companies’ with promotional products that are topping the lists (and trees!) of others that you should know about. Get into the spirit and check out merchandise to inspire your clients on their next round of holiday promotional product purchases.

In pop culture, we are surrounded by logos that are so incredible, they have become recognizable across multiple generations, such as the golden arches, a silhouette of an apple or the black swoosh. Even these descriptors alone automatically trigger in most minds the brands they represent.

A customer’s opinion of a business is most often based on an interaction that occurs between the individual and the company’s employees. This effectively means that your clients are hiring workers to be ambassadors for their brands and, according to Business.com, “a new customer will develop an impression about your employee (and your business) in their first seven seconds with your employee.”

If you target or want to target health and wellness companies, the product possibilities are virtually endless when you consider all the events, races and teams they can get involved in to market their businesses. Whether it’s sponsoring a 5K race, an intramural sports organization or the local little league team, businesses such as gyms, vitamin shops, athletic shoe stores and more can make their marks with their logos on must-have fitness items.

By this point in 2017, the use of social media is second nature to almost everyone. Posting on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and a slew of other media channels is as comfortable as sending emails. According to Statista, 81 percent of Americans have at least one social media profile.

You may have asked this question when considering your own company’s branding. Certainly, several major corporations have invested a great deal of time and energy in selecting typefaces.

Putting a brand or logo to work not only helps a company to look good; it also keeps its name ever-present in the minds of customers. Certainly wearables — including hats, outwear and jackets — are a huge part of the promotional products landscape. But there are always new items coming to market and ideas that distributors can present to their customers to make them stand out.