What is a Brand?
A brand can be defined as what a product or a company 
is known as, amongst its users and potential customers. It may be a name, a term, a symbol or a mascot or some such unique and distinct feature that identifies the product.
Branding is the Marketing of your Brand
Branding is the marketing of such a brand to make it a household and trusted name. There are many branding strategies that companies adopt, right from gimmick advertising to using the media extensively to hammer the brand
into people’s lives and subsequently thoughts.
Gifting branded promotional merchandise is a tried and tested way of raising awareness and building loyalty towards your brand. It has been proven through studies that using promotional merchandise provides you with more of a return on your investment as compared to any other brand building strategy.
Here are some interesting stats re this topic:
- The figures say that at least 62% of the people who receive such branded promotional items tend to go back to do business with the company.
- Sales response rates increased by at least 75% for all those who distributed promotional items.
- At least 84 out of 100 times, promotional products helped a company
create a positive and lasting impact on its customers.
Considering the above statistics, it can be safely said that a company needs to
think on a promotional advertising strategy.
An important aspect is selecting the Branding Item
A important aspect is selecting the correct promotional item.
Selecting a promotional item plays an important role in branding.
You need to keep in mind the following points while selecting such a gift –
- Let your brand stand out – You can choose to make anything into a promotional item. But to have the maximum impact, you need to have something that connects with your business. If you are into real estate, you can think of tape measures, magnetic clips, or something along those lines. If you are a resort, you can think of caps, or bags or mugs with beautiful pictures of your resort.
- Consider the target audience. If your target audience is school kids then backpacks or satchels can be a good idea, but if you are looking at a corporate base, then note-pads, paper-weights, etc make better gifts.
- Choose items that can be used and are more visible – Because you want to target more number of people and want more number of people to see your brand, you need to choose items that can be carried around. If something is going to be dumped at the back of a cupboard, it may not be a useful strategy.
- Design the item – Ensure that your brand name is prominently and attractively placed on the item
so that people can see it effortlessly. You need to take care that the colors used and the pictures or graphics are eye-catching. People should want to feel associated with that item. - Plan for the occasion when you would like to send the gifts and then plan backwards to ensure that your gifts are ready by then.
- The last, albeit an important step is to decide the budget and negotiate with a supplier.
The guidelines of selecting promotional merchandise for your brand have been listed above. But these are not restrictive. You can go quirky or serious based on the image of the brand that you want to promote and the strategy that you outline.