Do you prefer this?

One recent business meeting involved an overnight stay, dinner and a day time conference room hire at an expensive hotel just

Or this, to promote your brand?

outside Manchester. Despite the large investment in the meeting the only pens available were the typical clear coloured Bic pen. Now I do not have a problem with a clear Bic pen. It is highly functional. However, having recently stayed at the hotel in question, and been extremely impressed with the restuarant and facilities, I cannot recall its name.  The clear branded pen is still in my possession. So if the pen had carried the name of the hote,l I would easily be able to recall the hotel’s name.

A branded A4 sized conference folder would also have come in handy. I have been to several meetings since the one mentioned above. On any occasion a simple and inexpensive card folder would have been re-used and reminded me of the excellent service and experience that i had at the hotel.

The organisation starts well before the event by making sure you have secured the best possible space within your budget. That the stand and materials are suitable for the event. The collateral you need to take along will include a stand, giveaways such as promotional pens and promotional bags and talk through materials such as brochures and leaflets. That you have the right personnel in place.

Before attending ask yourself the following questions.

• Make sure you know your audience.
• What are they looking for?
• What type of businesses do they come from?
• What are their needs at the particular exhibition or conference?
• Do you have your approach and pitch worked out?
• Can the pitch be adapted to different types of stand visitor?
• What is your key objective for the event? To generate direct sales, to pick up leads, to enhance awareness for your brand organisation?

Managing an exhibition or conference stand can be seen as a chore or an exciting exercise where you get a chance to interact face to face with customers and gain real feedback about the performance of your products or services.

Lastly, one really valuable exercise is to take time to visit competitor stands. How do they present themselves? What promotional materials are they using? Each exhibition should be seen as an opportunity not just to market your business but to also learn more about your customers and market.

With UK GDP for Quarter 4 2010 being revised downward to -0.6%, the new target for 2011 looks like being 1.8%. What impact will this have on the many small businesses that are our clients? So far, 2011 has been good for the promotional business. Many promotional product categories have recovered from their lows in 2009 and 2010. Larger orders are being placed for items such as promotional bags as the exhibitions and conference market recovers. Many businesses have adapted to the tougher conditions and the VAT rise has passed without too much pressure on margins.

The downside is that there are already a number of new taxes and regulations in the pipeline. National insurance being one of those. Many small businesses are tired of the endless series of new regulations – particularly those concerning workers rights. Remember small businesses are the economies engine for growth. The Chancellor needs to work with his colleagues in government and encourage them to alleviate the non-productive pressure that forces small businesses to delay growth and investment.

Otherwise things are looking very bullish for the promotional products sector.

It is not just the level of website traffic that is up. It is conversions, or more precisely enquiries. On a client website with a typical conversion rate of 4 or 5%, the average conversion rate for this week stands at 8%. According to client, telephone enquiries are also up on last year. Leads and enquiries are the lifeblood of any B2B marketing operation. So this is good news for businesses in the promotional field.

In recent weeks searches for promotional pens and conference bags have held up well. More expensive pens are a particular favourite as personalised gifts at Christmas. However, enquiries via the phone and e-mail have all gone rather quiet. With effectively a day and a half of normal business activity before the big close down it seems any new orders will have to wait until 4th January 2010.

Promotional Golf Umbrella

This is the website of Printed Promotional Gifts we are a small promotional merchandise business.

The website is in its early stages. Printed Promotional Gifts will eventually cover a wide range of promotional and branded products that can be used to build brand awareness, communicate key sales and marketing messages and help build relationships with major customer groups.

Promotional merchandise is a key feature of professional sales and marketing. We aim to cover the most important product sectors of this valuable market. These include promotional bags, promotional pens, promotional umbrellas and promotional mugs.

We are interested in developments in the marketing of promotional products, promotional giveaways and corporate gifts.

These include the following promotional items:

Conference Bag and Promotional Mug