The reality is that not all merchandise is created equal. If you are targeting tech aficionados, it obviously wouldn’t be very effective to create magnets with the local football schedule on them. In the same effect, it wouldn’t be very effective if you are trying to target families to send things that only college kids want. With that in mind, use these tips to your advantage:
College-aged market can be best reached by using things they will often use, especially things they will use around other people in their age group. The classic example is drink koozies. These are great because they will be kept around for a good amount of time, and anytime they are pulled out will be associated with good times and shared with others. Another thing that can be used is sunglasses or tshirts, for similar reasons.
Families can cover a large range of backgrounds. However, families with children often will be heavily interested in community events, among other things, which can be used to your advantage. Printing out fridge magnets with your logo and design can be useful to have something people will keep around. Especially so when you include the list of upcoming football games, a list of community events, a blank calendar, and things of that nature. People will commonly refer to the list, and every time they do they will see your business. These can even be kept after that season for use as a normal magnet.
Businesses, and especially B2B (business to business) services and products, will be best served by providing products that will be used day to day in an office setting. So this will naturally include things like Post-It’s. These are great because every single page of a Post-It note will be used, and displayed somewhere with your logo and number visibly. A solid Post-It note is essentially 100 little flyers everywhere. You can even put a little description of your service on them.
General audiences can be reached the best with things like pens and shirts. Pens are excellent because they get shared with multiple people, and even if something like this is lost by the original owner and left at a business, that’s OK. In fact, that’s what great about them. They can be left at places like banks, with cashiers for signing receipts, waiters etc. Waiters will love you because often time customers will steal pens on accident. Delivery drivers are the same way. So you will earn the love of the customers and drivers, but also earn attention from those who accidentally take the pen. For banks and cashiers, person after person will use and see your pen logo, and it’s fine if they take them. Shirts are the same way. Everyone loves free clothing. If you make sure you display the information prominently, the next step is to make it look good. Put a good looking design on there, the better looking and more comfortable the shirt, the more it gets worn, and the more chances your shirt has to be seen by people. 100 quality shirts that will be worn more than 10 times each is better than 300 shirts that will only be worn once or twice by most people.