You have heard the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, not necessarily so when it comes to promotional marketing. Sometimes it is important to market your name and logo through the use of promotional items such as promotional umbrellas.



If your logo is a picture or graphic of something that represents what you do or sell, then as people see your name and the logo together over and over again, they will start to know that the logo is your business without the business name. A couple of examples of companies whose logo is as meaningful, and maybe more meaningful than the business name, are the McDonald's Golden Arches and the Nike simple little checkmark.

When a symbol or graphic become well known as your company, you have what is called brand awareness. If you feel brand awareness is important for your business then you need to develop a plan for how to make it happen. This plan needs to set a goal for brand awareness such as - within two years our business will be recognized and known when our logo alone is used.

When you have set your goal you need to set strategies to help you reach the goal. There are several typical strategies companies use to gain brand awareness including:

1. Develop the logo and put it on everything ? stationary, invoices, receipts, business cards, signs and in all advertising materials such as promotional umbrellas.

2. Purchase promotional items for people will take away from the store that will continue to market you name and logo months after you have distributed the items. Promotional umbrellas are a great product to do this long-term marketing. They are appropriate for all seasons and they are functional. Two things that make a perfect promotional give-away. If you buy the larger promotional umbrellas you can make your name and logo even bigger and that will make them easier to see.

3. Anytime you write the name of your company for an ad, a sign you put in your window or, even for a donation to a charitable organization, always use your name and logo. It is a good idea to have notepads made up with both so that when you need to jot a quote down, make a referral for someone or whatever, you will always be marketing your name and logo together.

Once you have done what you can to get your name and logo printed on everything you can think of, it is time to think about how you will know when customers see your logo by itself that they know it is yours and what you do. This is a little more tricky but not impossible.

One easy thing you can do is take a base-line. What this means is that before you get into full swing with your name and logo being on everything, do a survey and see how many people can look at your logo and tell the surveyor what company the logo represents. You can do this by hiring a neutral individual to stand on a street corner (do not let them be holding one of your new promotional umbrellas with your name and logo on it) for a couple of afternoons or at the mall or grocery store and show people three different logos and three different company names and see how many can match your logo with you name.

After two years/your goal, repeat the survey and compare. If you planned well, your logo will have earned brand awareness.