Print Blog: communicate, motivate, educate, enhance, celebrate, animate, and promote with print and promotional products

Have you heard what companies are shelling out for 30 seconds of advertising at this weekends Super Bowl, $3,800,000 for 30 seconds. That's a lot of cash no matter how you slice it but when you look at it from a cost per impression basis it doesn't come close to the cost per impression of promotional merchandise.

The Internet has changed marketing forever and created entirely new marketing channels, without the Internet there'd be no such thing as email marketing, SEO, or Inbound Marketing. But that doesn't mean traditional marketing is dead, in fact in some areas, such as promotional merchandise and even printing, the rise of the Internet has made old school marketing even more valuable.

Most of us have been recipients of promotional merchandise, whether we realize it or not. At some point, everyone has discovered a freebie pen or key fob in their desk drawer or glove compartment with the insignia of some company emblazoned across its surface. The fact that the vast majority of us don’t remember where these items came from is insignificant – that we wind up using them on a daily basis to the point that the company’s logo becomes etched in our brains, however, is.

Promotional desk pad calendars are a textbook example of the rule of reciprocity in action. Because of their very nature -- they're calendars, after all -- they generally stick around and keep giving back, fulfilling the rule of reciprocity, all year long.

“Give and you shall receive” is a proven principle in life and business. Businesses have long seen the truth in this, receiving valuable, sales-generating appointments in return for giving useful promotional products to prospective customers.

When you allocate a part of your business's valuable marketing budget to promotional products you want to spend wisely, choosing promotional merchandise that will deliver the greatest possible return and provide your company with maximum exposure.

You’ve probably been advised to choose your words carefully when approaching certain people about sensitive subjects – or when crafting a marketing message to convincingly sell your products or services.

While Americans are spending more time on line, the U.S. is nowhere near reaching the paperless society that once was predicted. Reports of the death of print are very much exaggerated.

If you want to launch a successful marketing campaign or come up with a successful package for your product, start with color. Extensive marketing research has shown that of the senses, vision plays the greatest role in influencing purchasing decisions. For instance, a study by the secretariat of the Seoul International Color Expo 2004 found that 92.6 percent of respondents cited vision as the greatest influencer, compared to 5.6 percent for touch; and 0.9 percent each for hearing and smell.

Marketers have known for years both print and promotional advertising are effective mediums that drive results but it's always been assumed that neither print nor promotional products have the persuasive effect of television advertising. A recent study disproves that notion and confirms that promotional advertising by itself outranks television and that when promotional products are combined with either print or television the results are even better..