Smart ideas nab attention: tie gifts in to marketing plan.

A Thunder Bay printing company is convinced corporate promotional items can supplement a marketing strategy and make it successful, but only if they are targeted correctly.

SRC Sheldon Reproduction Centre, a business offering office supplies and printing services, has expanded its product base and now provides promotional items, also known as "corporate gifts" or "company giveaways."

"Promotional gifts are a natural tie-in to marketing," Simpson says. "We've been consulting with our clients since their infancy."

Simpson says the company's long-time relationship with its client base allows it to understand the client's needs and its target market.

SRC Sheldon tries to move away from traditional promotional items, such as pens and rulers, arguing that corporations have to be more aggressive and smarter in getting the attention of their target clientele. For example, Simpson says that a successful product so far has been the corporate golf ball. So much executive work, she argues, is done on the golf course.

"If it takes five hours to go through an 18-hole golf course, just think, that's five hours that they're chasing your logo," she says. "It's a little tiny ball and they've got their eye on it all the time."

Understanding one's client base, she says, is key to making promotional items an essential part of a marketing strategy. One of SRC Sheldon's former clients was a police association.

The association wanted to target small children with a safety message. After some thought, SRC Sheldon came back to them with a proposal to make removable tattoos for the children, with safety slogans on them, a strategy that appealed to them and worked. According to Simpson, companies must also strategically follow technological change in the office to market their promotional items. Useful items like mouse pads are very effective because they recognize the centrality of the computer to the modern office. The average corporate employee nowadays is sitting in front of a computer for most of the day.

"It's always in front of them. Why not use that?" Simpson argues.

The best way to proceed, says Simpson, is to properly match promotional items with the target market.

"We're not going to recommend a corporation to give away expensive pens to a group of children. You have to give away what will appeal," Simpson says.

Besides appeal, promotional items are a good way to get a company name out to the public. Usually, if a target market has fun using a promotional item, they will associate those feelings with the name and logo. SRC Sheldon itself has sponsored its own events, such as a recent baseball tournament where the company provided beach balls bearing the company's logo. People were seen throwing the balls around during the games, and they were widely used.

Beyond sponsorship, however, experts at SRC Sheldon believe that any use of promotional items should be cost-effective and in line with the company's budget forecast. Like any marketing tool, it is a non-essential item that is only worthwhile if there is a guaranteed return on investment. A company, she says, should not spend a truckload of money on expensive golf packages if their budget can only really sustain an order of company letterhead and pens. Like any form of advertising, corporate giveaways, as they are not directly revenue-generating, are a risk.

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"The worst thing a company can do is give the wrong gift to the wrong target market," Simpson says.

RELATED ARTICLE: Business to Business Gift Ideas

* Monitor static duster

* Mouse pad

* Calculator 

* Letter opener

* Coasters

* Water bottle

* Photo frame

* Paper weight

* Highlighters

* Clocks

* Jackets

* Watches

* Key chains

BY JOSEPH QUESNEL 

Northern Ontario Business