3 Tips for Choosing the Right Promotional Product

With thousands of individual options from hundreds of different categories, picking a promotional product for your next campaign can be an overwhelming challenge.

But with the right criteria in mind, you can easily narrow down the choices that make the most sense for your brand.

So here are our top 3 tips to consider when choosing a product for your next campaign.

Brand Alignment: If you put your brand on a product, then that product reflects on your brand! When choosing a product it’s important that the type of product you choose matches what your brand stands for and the audience it serves.

I cringe when I see companies who’ve clearly chosen the cheapest product they can find regardless of what it is and slapped their brand on it just to have something to give away. Simply money well wasted.

For example, If you’re a University, then giving away branded sunglasses or air fresheners doesn’t make much sense at all. When using these products, the user will not make the connection with your brand as there is little association between the two.

A better option would be to choose something that's even moderately related to your organization's mission and purpose. Going back to our University example, choosing an interesting product that demonstrates a forward-thinking attitude and commitment to learning will build a positive connection with your brand.

As a real-world example, we love what we did for Lakehead University with their campaign headline “Far from Ordinary”.

Campaign Alignment: Choosing a promotional product that can function as a key piece of your larger campaign will increase your overall brand exposure and help ensure your promo investment doesn’t just go in the trash.

A common application of this is to have a dedicated landing page URL printed on your product that continues the message of your campaign.

To use a commercial gym as an example, perhaps a branded water bottle with a URL redirecting to special enrolment offer on a landing page would work as a simple campaign tie-in.

The work we did with Global Affairs Canada is an example of an excellently crafted cohesive campaign. As part of their efforts to promote tourism in Canada globally, they used a branded viewer that you could use to watch VR videos that provided an immersive taste of the experience to come.

Repeat Exposure:

It goes without saying that the longer your audience actively uses a promotional product, the longer they will be exposed to your brand. Moreover, if they are also motivated to share your product with others, it further increases your reach.

This is why it’s important to choose something that not only has utility and high production quality but can also elicit emotions and get people excited. When people are excited they have the natural tendency to show their friends and colleagues which further amplifies your brand’s reach.

Simply put, giving away another branded pen or tote bag is not going to even come close to doing that. Neither will a gimmicky novelty product that's amusing only the first time they interact with it.

Rather the key here is to choose products that tap into emerging trends your audience cares about or in your brand's area of expertise. With a little research, you'll find dozens of innovative new promotional products taking advantage of the latest trends in areas such as technology, lifestyle, and eco-sustainability to name a few. 

A Word on Budgets

We’ve purposely left budget off this list as it’s the most obvious consideration that trumps everything. After all, If you can’t get approval for the funds to pay for it, it doesn’t matter how great the product is. I just recommend you opt to give away nothing at all than settle for a throw-away piece that will poorly reflect on your brand.

Kicking Off Your Next Campaign

If you'd like a quote for incorporating branded Google Cardboard VR viewers in your next campaign, feel free to Get in Touch.