Believe it or not we are now entering the final quatre of the years. Q4 can be very important for a lot of businesses as they aim to position themselves in the market going into the Christmas period. Having worked with a number of e-commerce companies it is clear that businesses spend a lot of money in the fourth quatre of the year. Many of the businesses are spending money on paid advertising, which is excellent for tracking return on investment and effectively manages the demand as you pay only for when people visit your site however paid advertising can be expensive in competitive markets. If you run your paid advertising at the same time as your competitors you are bidding against your competitors which will increase the cost per click. One area that you will not much for is brand keywords. Brand awareness is very important for any business but you do need to create a buzz about your business to create brand awareness.
Go head to head or change tactics? You have an option whether or not to go head to head with your competition and bid higher than them on money keywords or change tactic. An alternative tactic would be to reduce the amount of money you spend on digital advertising and try some traditional methods until you have established your brand. One of the options that you have available is promotional merchandise. You may think that promotional merchandise is old fashioned but if you think about large companies such as Royal Bank of Scotland, Premier League Football Clubs and theme parks that still use promotional merchandise then you can see that these companies can see the worth in promotional merchandise. It is not just large organisations that benefit from promotional products, small companies such as plumbers and garages can benefit. Best option for promotional merchandise?As winter approaches (and it is predicted to be a cold one!) the best option for merchandise is either a promotional mug or thermal travel mug. Working in the city I am beginning to see a lot more thermal travel mugs, which seem to be replacing the traditional flask and having your company logo on the side of one of these thermal flasks would be a great idea. If you want to go for a traditional mug then this is also a great idea. British people drink on average a total of 165 million cups of tea each day which is the equivalent of 602 billion cups of tea per year! Considering this statistic if your brand is on a mug in an office in Britain you can guarantee you will be getting some exposure. Word of mouth can spread using these traditional marketing method along with making your business seem more established to the consumer.
Guest Post by Daisy Shenton – Offering marketing advice to businesses including promotional merchandise and promotional mugs