Promotional branding. You may or may not be familiar with the term, but it’s been around for decades. From “Good to the Last Drop” (Maxwell House coffee) to “Just Do It” (Nike), “It Keeps Going and Going and Going” (Energizer) and countless others, slogans have become part and parcel of American culture.
In the trucking industry, promotional branding has become more vital than ever before.
Understanding the power of promotional branding is integral in creating a personal connection between potential clients and your company, according to Kelly Stone, owner and president of The Idea Box. Stone recently shared her thoughts in “The Power of Promotional Branding,” a webinar hosted by the Women In Trucking Association.
In addition to reaching potential customers and clients, she says branding is also a valuable teambuilding tool, helping instill a sense of pride in a business’s employees.
“Let’s be honest, branding and promotional products are a lot of fun — and it can really help elevate your brand and your message,” she noted.
What is promotional branding?
According to Stone, promotional branding offers a way to tell the story about what your brand offers, whether that’s a product, a service or a feeling.
“Branding and marketing work hand in hand very homogeneously,” she said. “Branding and promotional products equal brand awareness and loyalty.”
For instance, consider the basic ink pen.
Company-branded ink pens are the number one promotional marketing tool, Stone said. Think about it: People carry pens pretty much everywhere, from around town to around the globe, and often those pens are passed along to others. Every time someone pulls out that pen to jot a note or sign a document, there’s your company name.
When ordering promotional items, it’s important to make sure they’re decent quality:
“If you give out a crappy pen, people are going to associate your brand with a crappy pen,” Stone said. “Customers appreciate gifts — and when they get something that’s useful, you’re going to get a high return on investment.
“It’s effective marketing that has a very low cost and a low barrier to entry,” she continued. “Using promotional products in a smart way to promote your brand is going to give longevity and return on investment.”
Stone also noted that promotional items can often turn into great sales leads.
“You can spend as little or as much (as you like), depending on what your end goals are,” she said. “With a promotional product, it’s going to have a lot more longevity than a digital type of ad or a digital message because you can delete that.”
Questions answered
A large part of the session was devoted to a question-and-answer session with attendees.
- How can businesses measure the success of their promotional branding efforts?
“We get asked that a lot, and sometimes it’s hard,” Stone said. “Okay, so I have a pen. How do I know that this pen really got the results I wanted?”
One way to track results is to embed NFC (near field communication) tags in promotional items, she said, holding up a freebie pen distributed by a bank.
“There are a lot of products out there now today that have this incorporated so that when you tap this to your phone, it launches directly to the (company’s) website,” she explained.
“If you were to purchase 5,000 of these (pens), I’d be able to tell you 4,262 people utilize this pen to tap and get to your website,” she said.
Another way to measure the impact of promotional marketing is to incorporate some sort of call to action that will drive the recipient to visit your company website to fill out survey, enter a prize drawing or receive a discount.
“Again, utilizing unique tools that embed technology like NFC and or QR codes — that’s another way that you can measure the success of any promotional marketing campaign,” Stone said.
- How can social media be leveraged in promotional branding?
Taking advantage of social media platforms is imperative. This is one type of “promotion” that isn’t an overt advertisement.
Stone advises creating company accounts and then posting about employee activities, events and values.
“Promoting what you’re doing out there with your products and with your brand really can help set you apart from your competition,” she said. It can be as simple as posting a photo of employees wearing company-branded T-shirts participating in a team walk.
“You are promoting your brand and talking about what you’re doing out in the community,” she noted. “It’s a win-win situation.”
- How can promotional branding enhance customer engagement?
According to Stone, the end goal is to promote a personal connection with the customer. One way to do this is to give away products the public is already familiar with — for example, a Yeti or Stanley cup with your company’s branding.
“What you’re building is brand loyalty and brand impressions,” she explained. “That is crucial. You want that brand impression.”
The goal is to have others notice the promotional item and comment on it, triggering a response to the brand.
“They’ll say, ‘Oh, that’s a really cool mug! Where did you get it?’” she said. “The end goal is to have your customer have your brand on their mind and on their tongue all the time so that they are talking about you, talking about how great you are as a provider — but also, ‘Hey, look at this cool item I got!.’”
- How can promotional branding help attract and retain employees?
Most companies provide some sort of training or orientation for new hires, but businesses that go beyond the norm are likely to see ROI through employee retention and contentment.
“(Training and orientation are) great,” she said. “But do you put any sort of welcome kit together? Something that says, ‘Hey, welcome to the family!’ It could be as simple as a couple of tech stickers, a pen, a coffee cup —a few items with your brand on it to say, ‘We’re glad you’re here.’”
- What types of promotional branding are most effective?
“That’s the million-dollar question,” Stone said. “It really comes down to understanding and knowing what the campaign is and what the marketing goals are going to be.”
When strategizing with customers, Stone says she works to define their goals and then help them achieve those goals.
“I sit down and talk to them,” she said, adding that the following questions are vital. “What are we trying to achieve here? What do we need to make happen? What’s the theme? Who’s the audience? What have you done in the past? What has been successful? What hasn’t been successful? What would you like to see? What are you interested in?
“We kind of take all those components … and we sit and come up with different ideas, look at different avenues, and come up with interesting and different ideas for our customers based on what they’ve told us,” she concluded.
Resources for members of the Truckload Carriers Association (TCA)
Effective promotional branding is key to showing your employees that you care about them and vital to getting customers and potential customers to think of your brand first.
The Truckload Carriers Association’s Small Carrier University, sponsored by PCS Software, includes a learning module dedicated to helping small carriers with marketing, promotions and branding. Check out this and other learning opportunities at truckload.org/small-carrier-university.
Dana Guthrie is an award-winning journalist who has been featured in multiple newspapers, books and magazines across the globe. She is currently based in the Atlanta, Georgia, area.
