When executed correctly, a promotional products campaign can generate significant ROI. However,  in the days before the web, there were limited opportunities for interaction beyond the initial distribution of the product. In other words, a marketer would distribute pens at a trade show and hope people kept them. Social media has changed this, as there are now many opportunities for the product’s life to be extended using platforms like Flickr, Facebook, Twitter and blogs.

Here are some ways social media can be used to increase buzz surrounding a promotional product campaign.

1. Give people a reason to love you

People love free stuff. This is a universal truth and applies to people of all income brackets. People especially love free stuff that has high perceived value and is relevant. Social media provides people with a megaphone to express their love and appreciation for the items that you give them. While this is wonderful for the brand, someone posting their swag on Facebook/Twitter has less to do with you than it has to do with them. In this scenario, it’s a classic win-win. The recipient brags to all of their friends about the cool new swag they picked up from you, and the brand wins because they enjoy the free publicity.

If you have an audience that has a special relationship/connection your company (especially an audience that actively uses social media), then you have a perfect recipe for your swag going viral. Think about Apple and its cult of followers and you get the picture.

Examples of consumer posts:

Stuart MacDonald tweets about a free Blackberry Bold that he received from RIM during the Toronto International Film Festival.

Tara Hunt posts a picture of a gift pack we sent her on Flickr.

2. Surprise and delight people

We have found that in these moments, people are most willing and excited to share the news with their friends. This is basic human psychology – delight someone and they’ll likely tell everyone about it.

An example of this is sending a simple handwritten note along with a well targeted promotional item thanking the customer for a recent order (for example, this could be a bank customer opening up an account). Imagine the delight of receiving a hand written note from the bank manager  along with a gift that aligned with the customer’s interests or personality (good marketers always get to know their customers so this information should already be available). This human connection means a lot to people. Taking that extra step to make the experience personal often leads to surprising results on social networks.

The biggest mistake that companies make when they send “thank you” gifts to clients is that they send some generic and inappropriate gift that makes the customer feel as though no thought was put into it. This is why so many end users think of promotional products as “trinkets and trash.”

Example – Justin Kozuch tweets his delight after receiving a prize pack from RIGHTSLEEVE (Why? because he’s a friend of the company and we wanted to thank him for his loyalty). His Flickr photos are available here

3. Contests

We produced the T-shirts for TwestivalTO and considered ways to make a “simple T-shirt” exciting and engaging. First off, we needed to make the shirts fun and retail looking as the audience was comprised of young urban professionals who like good quality T-shirts with ironic catchphrases. This was the easy part. To create the buzz, we printed a hang tag on each shirt announcing a contest – the first 10 people who took a photo of themselves wearing the shirt and posted the result to Twitter (along with the hashtag #twestivalTO and @RIGHTSLEEVE handle) would receive a RIGHTSLEEVE prize pack.

We had a terrific response. Adding up the combined followers,  the TwestivalTO and RIGHTSLEEVE brands reached in excess of 5000 people. After sending out the prize packs, each of the winners posted photos of the prize packs on Twitter (thus reaching another 3000 people).

4. Trade show traffic

Trade shows are a great way to generate leads and sales opportunities. Promotional products have long been a staple item on the trade show circuit as companies consider them a necessity (as delegates just expect free stuff). Without going into the all of the mistakes that companies when buying promotional products for shows (chief among them is the disconnect between the giveaway and the audience), I wanted to focus on a way to make this fun again.

When we consider promotional products for our own trade shows, we consider 2 things. One, who is the audience and what products will get them excited about our company? Two, how can make the products we give away go viral so we can drive more traffic to our booth as well as awareness from the outside world.

To give an example, we gave away retro sunglasses at a recent trade show focused on the camp market (perfect for the audience). They were fashionable, unusual and within budget. We then developed a contest around the sunglasses. Photograph yourself with the sunglasses and the most creative entry would win a limited edition FlexFit hat.  We also required that the customer post the photograph to Twitter or Facebook along with the conference hashhtag and our Twitter handle.

People loved it. Not only were people clamouring to get their hands on the sunglasses (which satisfied rule #1 for trade show promo: make sure the product matches the needs of the audience), but people loved the creative and competitive process posting the photos. We enjoyed the buzz via the social networks and the customers benefitted from the glory they got by showcasing their new and fun sunglasses.

5. Solicit customer suggestions

Social networks are perfect for engaging customers for feedback and input on new products. Let me give an example for an organization that resells merchandise to its consumer base (ie camps, schools, associations, etc). You can create an initial line of products/designs and then post online for feedback from your audience. A simple surveymonkey survey can be used to collect results. This not only engages customers in the process, but generates significant excitement …. And potentially higher demand when the product eventually reaches the market.

6. QR codes

The unique thing about promotional products is that they are mobile – people take them with them and use them regularly (assuming the product is good). In keeping with the idea of the promotional product being the starting point in the relationship with the client, there are some interesting applications for QR codes. Consider a product that requires  a how-to demonstration. A QR code connected to a YouTube link featuring a how-to demonstration could become the new instruction manual. In hindsight, this would have been a good idea for  our how-to video on how remove money from our piggy banks.

QR codes could also be used for contests. Imagine producing 1000 promotional items (say T-shirts) with QR codes imprinted on the sleeves. 999 QR codes direct the consumer to a web site providing more information about the brand. 1 QR code directs the lucky winner to a web page announcing they are the winner of a prize pack featuring a something valuable produced by the company (for a mobile telephone provider, this could be an Apple iPhone). This generates excitement and also ensures a much higher retention rate for the promotional product.

7. Driving traffic to social media sites

One of the most powerful uses of promotional products is their ability to inspire action. In the early days of the internet, people would give out promotional items with their web site address emblazoned on it. Now, we are starting to see people direct customers to their Facebook or Twitter pages. This can be taken one step further – by encouraging the recipient to “like” or “follow” your brand, you can offer an additional incentive (contests or prizes mentioned above) or 15% off their first order, etc.

In sum …

Social media has completely changed the relationship between consumers and companies. Now that we have easy exchanges (enabled by Facebook, Twitter, etc) between the two parties, it’s time to consider the ways that promotional products can take on a new life after they have been distributed. The initial excitement surrounding “getting free stuff” will never go away, but  that excitement can now be extended throughout peoples’ social networks thus generating even greater ROI for the marketer.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 at 9:06 am and is filed under uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.