Who gets your chachkas?

Look around your desk. Odds are you have a mug with the company logo, pens from myriad organizations, a paper clip holder touting the virtues of one of your oldest suppliers and maybe even stress ball from the local hospital.

The pervasiveness of these trinkets (according to one estimate, there are more than 750,000 items on which you can have your company’s name printed) attests to their viability. According to a survey conducted by the Promotional Products Association International, 72 percent of business travelers carry at least one promotional item with them. Seventy-three percent of those can recall the advertiser’s name or message.

In short, those seemingly mundane products can be an extremely effective way to market your company. But that doesn’t mean you should just send any old pen out with your next invoice.

“It’s hard to say to somebody, ‘That’s not going to work,’” says Patricia Gaines, president of Pagi Corp. and a 22-year veteran of the promotional product world. “Our industry is so pen and calendar oriented.”

But the key to a successful product promotion campaign, she says, is in the planning.

Gaines recalls one incident in which a mistake very nearly caused a huge problem. She received a phone call late one evening from the president of a client company. He had distributed a puzzle at a local trade show that bore a message about how to find answers for businesses. But there was one problem: The solution wasn’t included in the package.

Now, the president was receiving phone calls about the puzzle, and he couldn’t answer the question. He turned to Gaines for help. She faxed him the solution and he relayed it to the callers.

In this case, the near-disaster actually helped. People remembered his company.

“He’s still a client. We laugh about this,” Gaines says. “It worked.”

Ensuring promotional campaigns work is Gaines’ job. And she takes it seriously.

“I interview them. I find out what the budget is, the quantity, the objective, what they’ve done in the past, what they don’t want to do. We put a lot of thought into our programs, whether somebody’s spending 10 cents (on an item) or hundreds of dollars.”

So how can you ensure your company gets the best return on its investment?

Define objectives

Before Gaines takes an order, she makes sure to ask questions: What is the item going to be used for? Who will receive it? Is the item promoting a new product or the general business?

“We’re more of a consultant than an order taker,” Gaines says. “If they haven’t done the brainstorming within their organization, then they will do it with us.”

The promotional product itself sends a message to the recipient. And often, it arrives with more than just the company’s name attached. So it’s important, Gaines stresses, to send the right message.

“That’s the fun of this business,” she says. “You never know what you’re going to do. But that’s also the challenge. People will say, ‘I want something different. I don’t want the same thing as anybody else.’ And you have to deliver.”

Know your audience

There is no one-size-fits-all approach to promotional products.

“You’re not going to give a senior citizen something that is meant for a white-collar worker that has a desk or a blue-collar worker, or a child,” Gaines says. “You have to know who the recipient is.”

Some businesses send items as a thank you to clients for their patronage, but often forget the most important people to the organization — their employees.

“You really need to acknowledge your people, their persistence and their loyalty,” she says. “You can’t just put it on remote. You have to do something to acknowledge that they’re doing a good job.”

Know your budget

Cost is always an issue with promotional items. Price tags can range from a few cents an item to hundreds of dollars each. Gaines has worked with companies that have spent as much as $250,000 on a single campaign.

Nationally, promotions distributors raked in more than $13 billion in sales in 1998, so it’s a large pie with no single dominant player.

And when companies spend that much money, expectations are just as high as if they’d made a capital investment in a new product. That’s why Gaines stresses the importance of planning. Knowing the objective of the promotional campaign is key.

Gaines’ attributes some of her success to a bit of naivete. When she founded Pagi, she pursued large companies.

“I figured I may as well start at the top and work my way down,” she explains. “Thank goodness I haven’t had to do that.” How to reach: Pagi Corp., (440) 946-1890

Daniel G. Jacobs ([email protected]) is senior editor at SBN.