You can imagine with the width of promotional product available to be decorated just how many times I might be sent a mug, a pen or a calculator and there’s only so many ways such product can be presented.

But for this year’s summer festival season how about these!

Now look closely, yes they are an over-shoe, and they can be over-printed up to 120mm square with your message or logo!

So while we currently bask in the sunshine, we all know once the exams are over, the holidays start and festival season begins – the heavens will open! But…rather than wearing wellingtons why not keep your shoes on, but protect them from the elements with a pair of funky Festival Feet, the disposable shoe covers! Protecting your shoes couldn’t be simpler, or more stylish, just slip the cover over your shoes when things get messy and tie the laces for a mud-free festival!

Is your target audience heading for the festivals this summer? If yes give us a call and we’ll quote and sample the Festival Feet for you, let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!

Andrew Nash is Managing Director at Sussex Promotions, the UK’s Promotional Product Experts. Established over 10 years, ISO 9001 & BPMA Charter Status accredited, Sussex Promotions are your one-stop shop for printed promotional products.

The Brite-Dock is a mobile phone holder, and there’s one on every desk in our office which must make it the product for 2012.

While the product is useful, a key factor in promotional product success, it also takes a fabulous full colour print to both sides allowing for a really attractive piece to keep on a desk top.

The Brite-Dock joins the Brite Family which also includes Mouse Mats and Coasters manufactured and printed using the patented Brite™ ‘In Mould Labelling’ process. This UK manufacturing process uses litho prints offering the highest quality and ‘brightest’ graphics which are then moulded into the product leaving a print that is integrated into the product and therefore incredibly hard wearing.

While other mobile phone, smart phone and tablet holders are on the market already, few, if any, offer the all over branding opportunities offered by the Brite-Dock.

The Brite-Dock is packaged in a small, neat, white box, arriving flat packed and put together simply by attaching its two legs in seconds, as such the product makes an ideal promotional product for mailing, or alternatively as a gift for sales people to leave behind or give-away at exhibitions with 112 pieces per small box.

Do you have an ‘index’ what’s it telling you? Let us know what you think in the comments below, thank you.

Andrew Nash is Managing Director at Sussex Promotions, the UK’s Promotional Product Experts. Established over 10 years, ISO 9001 & BPMA Charter Status accredited, Sussex Promotions are your one-stop shop for printed promotional products.

The BPMA is the UK’s leading association dedicated to promoting best practice around the sourcing, manufacturing and distribution of promotional products, its Academy helps address the industry’s need for staff that have a more rounded knowledge and understanding of all aspects of the promotional merchandising industry.

Production Manager, Gemma Mackay and Sales Administrator Claire Hunt both volunteered for the 5 month course starting last September, which culminated in a 1750 word case study. The course covered all aspects of the industry including sales, marketing, best practice and also the ever evolving range of decoration methods.

 A highlight of the course for Gemma and Claire was a visit to one of the UK’s leading printers and manufacturers of a wide range of promotional products where they were able to get hands on with a wide range of print techniques including digital, screen and dye sublimation printing, making mouse mats and printing mugs!

Andrew Nash, MD, commented “Gemma & Claire are both terrific members of staff with fantastic attitudes to work and great customer service, this course has given them the added confidence with hands on experience to provide an even better service than before. I am delighted for them both that they have passed with distinction.”

Claire and Gemma are both really looking forward to their graduation ceremony which will be held at the House of Commons!

BPMA Director General, Gordon Glenister adds “It’s great that a company like Sussex Promotions invest in their staff in this way.  Well trained staff creative a positive impression to end user clients and help the industry creative a professional image.”

So what’s the second key? Well, as you can imagine we get to see a lot of artwork and design ideas and this is the next hurdle to success. Let’s take a mug, for whatever reasons two competing companies chose the same style of mug as their promotional product to give-away to the same client, one requests their logo, address, telephone and fax numbers be printed to both sides of the mug, the other requests a full colour, full wrap photo image which transforms the white mug and presents a really strong message to the audience.

Which will be the winner? Of course…so the second key to a successful promotional product is the design. 

Design can come in different forms, there is maximising the print area of a product and utilising full colour print options if available, but design might also be to create a unique bespoke product which is available across a range of products cost effectively.

Consider Huhtamaki, who is a packaging company, they wished to make one of their products, a disposable coffee cup into a bespoke USB, now they could have opted for a USB with a print of their web address, but they chose a completely bespoke option which I think you’ll agree looks great. Again such a unique product is going to capture the audience imagination and be the winner.

Please let me know what bespoke or great designed product you’ve received that was a real winner, alternatively the awful! Please use the comments section below.

Andrew Nash is Managing Director at Sussex Promotions, the UK’s Promotional Product Experts. Established over 10 years, ISO 9001 & BPMA Charter Status accredited, Sussex Promotions are your one-stop shop for printed promotional products.

Mugs, like pens, are of course subjective, for various reasons individuals will have a preference of a particular mug, apparently the tea tastes better!! Albeit more likely it’s just bigger, smaller, more comfortable or it looks good!

Sussex Promotions use a pink promotional mug, and that seems to go down very well, it’s a cracking colour and looks great. (It does of course have a white inside.)

So introducing the Cafe Diner, the Darwin, the Classic Ceramic and the Nuvo.

Each promotional mug is available in white and can be direct screen printed with the exception of the Cafe Diner which with its pinched waist is transfer print only.

A promotional mug is the longest kept promotional item so it’s important to get the mug shape and the design right, but my advice is focus on creating a cracking looking item that recipients will consider a gift and will want to use, that will remind them of you but it is not a business card, it does not need your address, telephone and fax number all of which are ugly to read and look at, your name or your logo or your web address is plenty!

Samples are of course available, let us know what you think or share your favourite mug shape, please use the comments section below.

Andrew Nash is Managing Director at Sussex Promotions, the UK’s Promotional Product Experts. Established over 10 years, ISO 9001 & BPMA Charter Status accredited, Sussex Promotions are your one-stop shop for printed promotional products.

What about a promotional product to leave at someone’s house? Now if we put our minds to it, it is fairly easy to rattle off ‘useful’ products that we use every day in our homes, but we have to be careful here, the psyche at home is different to the office, where at the office drinking from a branded mug might be the norm, drinking at home I think is different, what might work commercially doesn’t necessarily work in the home.

Last week we were faced with this question by a plumber.

The plumber had realised that he was quite easily forgotten, home owners don’t need a plumber very often, and as a result while he is often remembered, how to get hold him isn’t, so what could he leave behind to be remembered. After all, there are boilers to service, leaks to fix, new bathrooms to install for the customer but also their friends, if only they could remember how to contact him!

A promotional product is perfect for being remembered, as long as it is useful, and the customer will remember it. I did also suggest that an annual direct mail piece reminding his clients’ of their forthcoming boiler service would help rather than leaving it to the customer to remember, also a Christmas card is no bad thing!

So the promotional product, a magnetic radiator key, links perfectly with who he is, stays attached to the radiator, is used maybe a couple of times per year, but incredibly useful when it is and the customer will always remember the Plumber can be contacted by the little key attached to the radiator, hopefully they’ll remember which radiator but I’m sure they’ll have fun running through the house!

Do you have a domestic audience, if so give us a call and we’ll see what ideas we can come up with.

Andrew Nash is Managing Director at Sussex Promotions, the UK’s Promotional Product Experts. Established over 10 years, ISO 9001 & BPMA Charter Status accredited, Sussex Promotions are your one-stop shop for printed promotional products.

You see a promotional product can literally be anything that can somehow be decorated to take your message and on delivery to the intended audience communicate that message.

So image the chair that you are sat on right now, this chair was actually a gift from a supplier you spend a lot of money with, it’s a particularly good office chair, exceptionally comfortable and supportive.

Now this chair is branded, it’s very subtle, it is a combination of embroidery and embossing, a bit like something we might find in a high end sports car. You love this chair and both consciously and sometimes subconsciously every time you sit in it, you remember that great supplier.

Now the chair is not something I’ve ever done, but it makes my point, anything can be turned into a promotional product because the print technologies have continued to evolve and develop such that almost any material can carry a message.

I regularly beat the drum that a promotional product needs to first and foremost be useful for the intended audience, if it is useful it will get used, and if it gets used, the message will be seen time after time and that is what promotional products are all about, continued repetition of sending a message but via a medium that is useful rather than annoying such as email!

Imagine reading (probably subconsciously) a strap line and web address on a mug 7 times today….imagine the same message arriving 7 times today by email.

Who is your target audience, create an avatar for them, as detailed as can be, what product is really useful to them, used every day? Let me know in the comments section below and I’ll see whether we have something and of course how it could be branded.

Andrew Nash is Managing Director at Sussex Promotions, the UK’s Promotional Product Experts. Established over 10 years, ISO 9001 & BPMA Charter Status accredited, Sussex Promotions are your one-stop shop for printed promotional products.

I feel that a common trap SMEs fall into is the need to keep up with the Jones’s, we must have a goody bag because everyone else will, we must have a give-away…because everyone else will, we must have promotional products….because?

Do we lose track of the actual purpose of attending these events, surely in most cases the purpose is to meet potential new customers, and quite possibly to touch base with existing ones too. The purpose is to interact, establish needs and if appropriate introduce solutions, and ideally take notes and a business card and agree the follow-up.

Now yes I sell promotional products, and I’ll be delighted to supply you promotional items to give-away at this stage, but while everyone else is doing it, and there are many attendees who attend just for your freebies, I question following the crowd.

For me, my preferred method of delivery is direct mail – ouch! Andrew haven’t you seen the latest postal price increases? Well yes I have, I am very aware, and I am using Direct Mail more than ever…. But why? Because:

1.       Direct Mail delivers to the desk top, how often does an attendee of a show go home rather than back to the office after a show

2.       Direct Mail delivers a product safely, in theory it doesn’t get lost or broken as an attendee commutes home

3.       Direct Mail is now so rare it doesn’t fight for attention

4.       A promotional product creates ‘Lumpy Mail’ it’s intriguing, it gets opened, and if the product is right…it is such an effective form of advertising

So having made relations, determined who are the interested customers, yes I would send a follow-up mailing, personalized, answering some of the issues raised and with it enclose a useful, memorable piece of merchandise such that my follow-up telephone call stands the greatest chance of being answered.

Useful is paramount, but design can help make it memorable…and the more lumpy the better!

Are you using Direct Mail or is it prohibitively expensive? Let me know in the comments section below.

Andrew Nash is Managing Director at Sussex Promotions, the UK’s Promotional Product Experts. Established over 10 years, ISO 9001 & BPMA Charter Status accredited, Sussex Promotions are your one-stop shop for printed promotional products.

Promotional Products the White House called ‘swag’ and ‘unnecessary’.

However such spending cuts and targeting of ‘unnecessary’ promotional products seems to be very much a political headlining decision and not a decision based on how effective these products can be in communicating federal messages.

The evidence? Well search store.barackobama.com in google and you will find the Obama merchandise store with over 200 items of promotional products and printed clothing.

Now if ever we needed a web site to demonstrate the sheer breadth of what can be printed with the same logo, this has to be it, everything from T-shirts to Aprons, Glassware to BBQ Spatulas, there’s even a dog sweater!!

Why is the Obama campaign team using merchandise to such a huge affect?

1)      Fund Raising – running an election is expensive business, it is so much easier to raise funds by selling something for that hard earnt $10 than it is just asking for a donation…$30 baseball, with $25 profit…now that’s fundraising!

2)      Raising Awareness – imagine the volumes of this merchandise in America right now, the Obama campaign will be everywhere.

3)      Message – Obama is wanting to send messages to all sorts of groups and communities, be it Veterans, Hispanics, Nurses, Environmentalists, his campaign has a Promotional Pack with messages targeted for each community to share.

4)      Part of the Team – Supporters like to show support by being ‘part of the team’ look at supporters of football wearing their club shirts with pride, for fans of Obama he’s giving them the opportunity to be part of his team, and show their support.

What are you looking to achieve with your marketing, how can Promotional Products make a difference? Let me know in the comments below and we can discuss further…

Andrew Nash is Managing Director at Sussex Promotions, the UK’s Promotional Product Experts. Established over 10 years, ISO 9001 & BPMA Charter Status accredited, Sussex Promotions are your one-stop shop for printed promotional products.

With economies in negative growth, and less business to go round finding sales and growth for business might seem unrealistic, but the funny things is many think that, and many will use that excuse, however for those that still market their business there is still plenty of business out there.

However in this tougher market what is key is that success requires businesses to be great, not mediocre, great in their service offering, great in their marketing and great in their presentation.

Part of this presentation is the look and the feel of everything, from the branding on shop front or office building, through to the cleanliness of the inside. The opening greeting on the phone, following no more than three rings, the cleanliness of the cars and vans, and the presentation of the staff.

It is a well known statistic that we have 5 seconds to make an impression, and where appropriate staff wearing promotional clothing is an important part of that presentation.

Whether you are a gardener, or a farmer, a car cleaner or a chimney sweep arriving at a client’s premise in an embroidered polo shirt or other such promotional clothing sets a different tone and level of professionalism (even if it’s just window dressing) compared to arriving in work jeans and top.

The daft part is how easy it is to make a good first impression, from simple jpeg artwork an embroidery swatch can be generated, minimum order quantities is just 12 and the cost of promotional clothing is almost negligible, you’re buying clothes regardless and the cost doesn’t have to exceed what would be paid retail, even with decoration.

Do you have examples of bad first impressions, please share with us in the comments section below.

Andrew Nash is Managing Director at Sussex Promotions, the UK’s Promotional Product Experts. Established over 10 years, ISO 9001 & BPMA Charter Status accredited, Sussex Promotions are your one-stop shop for printed promotional products & clothing.