Employee Recognition through Promotional Products

I’ve talked about my college student on this blog before. This past week her school gave her a promotional padfolio and pen in recognition of a scholastic achievement. It was a beautiful black leather with her university’s name and logo emblazoned across the front and on the matching pen. The interesting thing about this story is her reaction.

She loves it - carries it around with her and uses it to take notes – not just for class, but on the job as well. It’s more than just a pen and pad for her – it is recognition of her achievements and it is very meaningful to her. She is proud of what it represents and uses it daily.

This is a great example of how recognition builds pride and loyalty.

Last week I wrote, “Promotional gifts help make your employees feel valued on an individual level. If an employee feels that you value their contribution as an individual member of your team, loyalty and job attitude grows.” This student’s reaction to the recognition of her achievements through a promotional gift is easily replicated at the corporate level.

Two additional benefits of employee recognition through promotional gifts are:

1. Employee recognition creates a team atmosphere.

• Consider team apparel like logod polos or button down dress shirts with your company name
and logo for tradeshows.
• Introduce branded padfolios for sales meetings and client sales calls.
• Give all employees a padded laptop case.

2. Recognizing your employees through promotional gifts can helps to reinforce sales promotions or other actions that are important to your business. At every opportunity, it reminds your employees of some event or action that is important to your business.

For example, one of our clients kicked off a company wide effort to reduce waste. They purchased stainless steel travel mugs for everyone in the office to use. Lids were not optional. The upfront cost was about 4 months worth of paper and Styrofoam cups.

The result? They dramatically reduced waste and cut 8 months worth of budgetary expenditures on disposable cups within the first year alone. An added (and unexpected benefit!) was that there were no more coffee spills on company computer keyboards or on company issued laptops – creating a direct cut in monthly hardware costs. A win-win for everyone!

Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina Logo'd Gear is a premier provider of promotional products. We help our clients Stay in Front of Your Customers! Visit us on the web at http://www.logodgear.com/ or follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/logodgear or linked in: http://www.linkedin.com/in/logodgear

Employee Retention Tips

Do you want to make sure you keep your best employees when the job market rebounds? According to a recent study by the American Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) and CareerJournal.com, retention will be a challenge. This study says that 83% of employees and 56 % of HR professionals think that voluntary turnover will rise as the economy slowly starts to improve. What can you do NOW to ensure employee retention in the future?

It’s clear that retention requires a competitive salary and great benefits. However, that is just a start. Did you know that companies that use promotional products have a higher employee retention rate than businesses that offer cash incentives?

Business gifts help make your employees feel valued on an individual level. If an employee feels that you value their contribution as an individual member of your team, loyalty and job attitude grows. Does this mean you need to run around handing out logod coffee mugs and imprinted pens? Not necessarily.

Here are Three Tips to Improving Employee Retention:

People want to enjoy their work. Make work fun.
For example, what if you gave your team a branded inflatable beach ball to toss around during times of stress – or to celebrate an achievement?

Recognize and celebrate success.
For example, what if you handed out personalized laser engraved pens for each milestone achieved by a project team? This sign of appreciation would be used everyday – a constant reminder of the company’s appreciation of the individual achievement.

Create and nurture traditions that are special to your group or organization.
For example, pick a monthly or quarterly charity to help or create a softball team or other group activity. Imprinted shirts with your charity goals displayed can have both a team-building and an inspirational effect.

These ideas – the imprinted beach ball, engraved pen, screen printed t-shirts – they are a means to end. The motivation is to remind you and your employees of accomplishment, to keep the feeling of appreciation strong, and to instill a sense of joy and a job well done. Most importantly, a happy employee is a retained employee!

Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina Logo'd Gear is a premier provider of promotional products. We help our clients Stay in Front of Your Customers! Visit us on the web at http://www.logodgear.com/ or follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/logodgear or linked in: http://www.linkedin.com/in/logodgear

Are You Getting Ready for Earth Day? April 22

Earth Day is only six weeks away. It’s a perfect time to renew your company’s commitment to any green efforts or to launch a new campaign for your clients. Of course, there are many ideas out there for ‘going green’. Some ideas might be:

1. If you can’t go paperless, save paper and money by setting up your office printers to automatically duplex print.

2. Use 100% post-consumer recycled paper for all printing.

3. Provide employees with water bottles or coffee mugs made from recycled material to re-use. How many hundreds or thousands of Styrofoam cups do your company employees throw away – every day? In the long run, it’s cheaper for your company – and better for the earth – to provide coffee cups and water bottles branded with your company logo to your employees.

4. Get green by using organic products in your office and as gifts to your clients. Did you know you can put your logo and marketing message on biodegradable pens, biodegradable golf tees, corn plastic water bottles and coffee mugs, and bamboo shirts and hats?

So here’s our challenge to you. Create your next campaign to showcase Earth Day. We’ll work with you by discounting your Earth Day orders over $500 by %10 if you mention you saw this blog, saw us on Twitter, or got here through LinkedIn. And together, let’s work to make it a safer, more sustainable world!

Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina Logo'd Gear is a premier provider of promotional products. We help our clients Stay in Front of Your Customers! Visit us on the web at http://www.logodgear.com/ or follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/logodgear or linked in: http://www.linkedin.com/in/logodgear

Promotional Products and the Five Senses

I came across an interesting quote the other day in a magazine about promotional products. It said:

"Promotional products are the only advertising medium capable of engaging all five senses."

That's really a powerful thought. Imagine - most consumers are inundated with advertising. I bet that in your office or home right now is a magazine with lots of print advertisements, right? Companies spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on advertising campaigns where the only sense being used is that of sight. You can see the product, but you can't touch it, hear it, taste it or smell it.

An internet pop-up interrupts you (and can be very annoying!). Television or radio advertisements also interrupt and distract, although they might add hearing to the list of senses affected.

Only promotional products engage customers and are physically integrated into their business and personal lifestyles.

This week, for example, my company is featuring slim grip logod water bottles for our weekly special. Your customers can touch it (hold it), see the bottle (and your logo and branding message), and taste and smell whatever beverage is inside. Since these bottles are useful, customers tend to re-use them over and over again - re-engaging multiple senses - and helping to effectively communicate your message.

Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina Logo'd Gear is a premier provider of promotional products. We help our clients Stay in Front of Your Customers! Visit us on the web at http://www.logodgear.com/ or follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/logodgear or linked in: http://www.linkedin.com/in/logodgear

How to Promote Your Marketing Message - 6 Easy Steps!

Successful marketing campaigns don't just happen. You need a good plan that includes your target audience, budget and desired results. Here are 6 important steps to a successful promotion campaign:

1. Define your specific objectives.
What are your goals? Is it to increase website hits? Bring in new clients? Increase sales levels with current clients? Identify exactly what you want to accomplish.


2. Create an effective distribution plan to your target audience.
If your objective is to increase sales among current clients, then your target audience might be clients who have placed orders of X size with the past XX months. Carefully identify your target audience and then plan the best distribution plan for your promotional products. It might be a mailing or it might require onsite visits.

3. Create a central theme and message.
Ah, the favorite buzzword - branding. Make sure your marketing campaign has a recognizable theme. It might be a particular graphic, color, or prominent wording. Make sure you use the theme consistently and in all areas of your campaign, not only on your promotional items.Supporting your theme with a message helps to solidify your company's name, service or products in your target audience's mind. For instance, a small tourism development board created a theme with the message - "Planting Seeds Leads to Growth" and sent garden-related products (like logo'd edible mini-seed packets) to its target audience along with the promotional literature for the campaign.

4. Select a promotional product related to your marketing theme.
For example, if you were creating a theme around recyling, you might want to send green products like re-usable hemp bags or travel mugs made of recycled materials.

5. Don't pick an item based solely on price or the latest trends or fad.
The most effective promotional products are used in a well-planned, targeted campaign.

6. Call your favorite promotional products consultant. (Yes, we're hoping that's Logo'd Gear!) We can help you look for unique product ideas and creative distribution solutions - at no added cost. Our goal is always to help you Stay in Front of Your Customers!

Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina Logo'd Gear is a premier provider of promotional products. We help our clients Stay in Front of Your Customers! Visit us on the web at http://www.logodgear.com/ or follow us on twitter: www.twitter.com/logodgear or linked in: http://www.linkedin.com/in/logodgear