By Jeff McRitchie

Free Stuff!

You've gotten them, seen them, perhaps even been a little bit annoyed by them, but the key is that you've held onto them. The items that we are talking about, of course are - in the current vernacular - known as "swag." This, of course, refers to any item whether it's related to your company's services or not, that has your logo emblazoned on it. If at all possible, the best kind of swag for your company is small samples of your product. That's not always going to work, however, especially if you offer services rather than goods. If that is the case for you, some tried and true ideas for swag include - cloth tote bags, pens, cups and mugs, etc. The idea is to get your name and number out among the masses, along with a good idea of what it is your company does. In order to get whatever swag item you have decided to produce into the right hands, you should keep an eye out for where lots of people are gathering. Conventions, concerts, festivals and the like. Sometimes, your neighborhood business alliance will put together entire bags full of swag and hire people to hand them out at these large events. If they don't, perhaps you could gather a few together and do it yourself. There is no overestimating the power of swag.

Give Them Something of Value.

There are a couple of things to keep in mind when you are doing a non-targeted sales promotion. One is that you want to make sure that you are communicating your services strongly, and the other is to create a perceived value of your goods or services through the item that you are giving away. In order to do this correctly, you want to give the receiver of the item the idea that it is truly worth something and is usable, while keeping your costs to a minimum. It's interesting to look at recent history when you are considering this. For instance, DVD's used to be a highly valued promotional album, but now they are just as likely to be immediately discarded.

Some Ideas. One of the hottest promo items these days is flash drives that are emblazoned with company logos. At this point in time, anyway, they are small, inexpensive to you, and likely to be held onto by whoever receives them, three things that always make for a great promotional item. Another "evergreen" idea that we've seen not enough of, is small journals, calendars, or address books that are elegantly bound and eminently usable. The better the binding style of such an item, the less likely that it will be thrown away. Go to your local print shop, or just take a good look around online, and peruse all the different styles there are. Double loop wire booklets are that classic journal style, and that binding method works well for address books too. Calendars can be bound in a number of different ways, but you want to make sure you keep the size pretty small, in case your receiver has to carry it around for a long time at a festival or convention.