Promoting Sales Using Advertising Specialty Items

By Ana Hernandez

In my teenage years, I worked in my family's advertising agency over the summers and after school. It was a great experience for me, and the cash didn't hurt much either!

Most advertising agencies are pretty broad-based, but we were targeted towards real estate advertising specialties. Our advertising agency housed several different departments, and they all ran with a great deal of autonomy from one another.

We had a department specifically designed for advertising specialties that brainstormed pseudo 'guerrilla marketing' techniques. This department was solely dedicated to generating word-of-mouth campaigns. At that time, the Internet was just but a dream in someone's head. Of all of the company's advertising specialties however, our biggest focus was on the designing, producing and distributing of promotional products to sell state wide commercial real estate.

Today many people are using advertising methods like logos on pens, t-shirts and several other give-away advertising products. Yet many people never really think about what goes into producing these advertising specialties. In fact, many people never even realize how much of an effect these kinds of advertising products are really having on them.

The greatest thing about advertising is that when it's done correctly, you don't even know that you've been influenced by it. It sort of works it's subliminal magic at an unconscious level of your mind so that if you see the right logo over and over, it gradually becomes quite familiar to you. You begin to feel very comfortable with it as you recognize it apart from another brand. This is the evolution of name branding and building trust and customer loyalty. This type of name branding advertising makes you much more likely to buy the product from this particular company when you are in the market, whether you're aware of it or not.

Of course advertising specialties products can be quite difficult to do well. Lots of companies simply specialize in printing promotional products and they leave it at that. These companies focus on delivering good, clean printing on high quality pens, papers, T-shirts, or whatever else.

Where I worked however, we handled every step of the promotional campaign. We didn't just design the advertising campaigns, and we didn't just restrict ourselves to designing the logos and be done with it. What we did was much more intricate.

We made sure that the logos fit the promotional products precisely, and that the products that were used were appropriate and designed in such a way as to gain attention. After all, what would be the point of giving away pens if no one was going to notice the logos on them?

The best advertising specialties products are hand-picked, or even custom made for that business' advertising campaign. For example, making a notebook with a strange shape reminiscent of the corporate logo, or handing out an office toy with the company's motto can be much more effective than a more traditional advertising product. It is all a matter of catching the eye.

As far as I'm concerned, 90 percent of what goes into advertising is the uniqueness of the advertising message and this is where advertising specialties products shine. The other 10% is just timing timing and pure luck.

About The Author: Ana Hernandez DO is a practicing physician and self proclaimed marketing enthusiast. Her website at http://www.adminder.com/c.cgi?netrageouz&EzineArtcl is the portal to her delicious recipes for creating killer online marketing campaigns. Her online course, "NETfabulous! Marketing ECourse" is jam packed with tips n' techniques for both newbie and seasoned marketers alike. Subscribe for FREE at iBlog netrageouzly!