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How Promotional Products Can Help Boost Sales

Promotional products are an ingenious way to promote a brand, boost business, and increase market share, customer trust and employee satisfaction. The best and rightly selected promotional product has a greater impact on the customers when compared to other modes of advertisements through television and print media.
Promotional products have various crucial roles in boosting sales of your business.

• Increases ROI
• Sales Promotion
• Customer acquisition
• Customer retention
• Customer Satisfaction
• Gains customer Loyalty
• Increasing Brand Awareness

Increases Return on Investment

The cost of advertisements in TV and newspapers are much large compared to promotional product marketing. Moreover, promotional items bring about higher CPI (Cost per Impression) when compared to other media advertisements. Promotional products are the only inexpensive yet effective means that generates better ROI. Higher ROI is achieved through less money, repeated exposure, new customers, and repeated purchase.

Customer Acquisition and retention

In a competitive scenario, to stay ahead of all other competitors, it is important to build up a brand opinion, trust, and persuade customers to choose our products over others. While using such items, the customers see or use them repeatedly and refer others to use the brand for the sake of mere usability. As per PPAI 2009, 60% of customers used the promotional items several times. 7.6% of them made others to use the product and 4.4% of them gave the products to others. This process brings in new customers. This way of repeated impression eventually increases sales.

Customer satisfaction

The main advantages of products over advertisements through newspapers and magazines are that they are only one way. The customer is not benefited materialistically in other media advertisements. This satisfies the customers in terms of materialistic possession.

Customer Loyalty

A high quality promotional product with a great visibility, usage, and durability reminds the brand or the product well ahead of all other medium. These type of products also help recall the message sent through them. The usefulness of the product grows to become a long-term remainder of the product. Promotional products increase:

• Advertisement’s honesty
• Concept towards the product or brand
• Attitude towards the sales product or brand
• Objective to purchase
• Recommendation to try or purchase the brand or product

Brand Awareness

According to the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI), out of the customers who received promotional products, about 76% of them could recollect the name of the brand or the product even after several years. This higher recognition of the brand is achieved only in case of these products. This statistic clearly states that promotional items are the best cost effective means of increasing sales and brand awareness.

Sales Promotion

Brand recognition, loyalty and trust, attraction, repeat purchase, new customers, and ultimately, increased traffic in business boosts the sales of your products. To make a customer purchase a item and then make repeat purchases is more achievable using promotional items. About 20.9% of people purchase a product after using the promotional items, whereas only 13.4%, 7.1%, and 4.6% of people purchased the product after viewing advertisements in print media, TV and online advertisements respectively. In fact, according to the PPAI, about 84% of the people believe that promotional items are very effective in boosting sales.

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Sell Your House Quickly – A Matter of Presentation

Selling a house quick can be very tricky in the current market but do remember that there are a considerable number of people who are buying now in order to take advantage of the fallen house prices.

Keep in mind that 95% of people buying a house are after a home and not an investment or development project. For this reason they can’t see beyond the presentation. You must have heard of the popular proverb “First impression is the last impression”. You must make sure that your property makes a good first impression to your prospective buyers.

You really have to ensure your house is in an excellent order. This is a lot harder to accomplish than you may initially think. When you have been living in the house for many years it is so easy to get used to the way things are and stop noticing the important bits that outsiders see immediately. Take another look at that crack in the ceiling, or the damp patch with mould growing in the corner, or the mould in the grout around the bath or the broken drainpipe outside. All these are simple jobs to rectify but are all stored away in a potential buyer’s first impression.

Call an estate agent and ask for an appraisal. It costs absolutely nothing and you will be told exactly what areas need improving. Here is what you should look out for:

OUTSIDE

It is amazing how most people overlook this part. It really is where the first impression starts so it must be as best as it can possibly be. Make sure you mow the grass and keep the garden nice and tidy even if it is only a small garden. You can make a small garden look cosy rather than small. Only keep items which will enhance the garden. Ornaments which you may think look nice may not be to a potential buyer’s taste such as gnomes.

Have a good look at the outside walls of the house. Are they looking worn and need a little TLC? If so, call upon friends and family to give it a bit of a paint over.

INSIDE

People buying houses with the desire to turn in into a home for themselves are particularly attracted to kitchens and bathrooms. These are the two most important rooms in any house. Even if you don’t have a fantastic kitchen or bathroom you can certainly make them look more appealing by cleaning the taps and any fittings making them shine brightly. Clean all furniture with perfection and don’t forget the cupboard doors, fridge doors, microwaves, dishwashers and any other loose piece of equipment around. Make sure your stove shines.

All doors around the house must look like they are always in use. In other words, they must be well oiled. Creaking doors give a bad impression to prospective buyers. It gives the impression that the house has not been well taken care.

Plants in the right places can add vibrancy and a glow to your home. This little touch will make it feel like a home for the prospective buyers. All these simple changes will help make your house sell quick. Of course this involves some labour on your part but will make all the difference.

Alternative Option

There is an alternative option if you find you do not have the time to do all the work to the house yourself. If you are really desperate to sell your house quick you can have the option of selling it to an investor. Investors are the remaining 5% who purchase property and they don’t worry about the presentation at all.

Investors can buy your house in as little time as 10 days or even to suit your own deadline requirements. They also pay for all the legal costs. A short term sell and rent back agreement can be arranged if you find you need a little extra time after completion. Sales can be done so quickly that you find you are not ready to move. It happens a lot.

If you are selling due to financial difficulties and do not want to move but are being forced to then the sell and rent back option is definitely for you. You can take advantage of the sell and rent back scheme which will allow you to sell your house and rent it back at rents which are set to the current market rates in your area.

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Sharpen Your Negotiating Skills

When you think about it, life is a series of negotiations. The American Heritage Dictionary defines negotiate as conferring with another or others in order to come to terms or reach an agreement. You negotiate with others far more often than you may realize–negotiations that include interactions with family and friends, getting the best deal on a consumer purchase, and a wide variety of business activities.

Though effective negotiating does come more easily to some than others, it’s a skill that anyone can learn and everyone should. Though the consumer culture in the United States doesn’t leave much room for negotiation–you’re not, for example, likely to be able to dicker over price in a major department store–there are still plenty of opportunities for negotiating. The clerk at Bloomingdale’s might not have the authority to give you a discount, but the owner of a small store certainly could. And if you’re in business, you’ll find yourself negotiating on a wide range of issues on a daily basis, from prices and terms with vendors to salary and benefit packages with employees.

Fundamentals of negotiating

There are three fundamental components of negotiating: listening, obtaining information, and overcoming objections, and they occur simultaneously. To be a good negotiator, you don’t need to be pushy or overbearing, you don’t need to be the loudest or most forceful speaker, and most importantly, you don’t need to be offensive. Successful negotiations come from understanding these three components and using them in a way that results in a win-win transaction.

Good listeners place as much or more emphasis on what others are saying than on what they themselves are saying or planning to say. You can develop your own listening skills by changing your attitude from one that is self-centered to one that focuses on the other person. When you are truly focused on what the person you are negotiating with has to say, the information gathering process is enhanced. And that brings us to the second component of negotiating: obtaining information.

In order to propose an acceptable agreement, you need to understand what both parties need. You already know, of course, what will work for you; asking good questions and then listening carefully to the answers is a very direct and quite effective way to find out what will work for the other person.

Finally, as you negotiate, you will have to overcome objections. Many people fear objections, but a good negotiator welcomes them. Why? Because what is often perceived as an obstacle is really just a request for more information. When people seek more information, it usually means they are looking for reasons or ways to make the deal work.

Objections typically come in the form of questions but may be statements. If possible, find out what’s behind the objection before you respond to it. You may discover that it’s not really an objection at all.

Good negotiators are not adversarial or challenging. They listen, gather data, and address concerns, then offer a proposal that will work for all parties. Develop and refine your negotiating skills and you’ll find that every aspect of your life will become much smoother and more rewarding.

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