If you're considering using promotional gifts to market your business or promote awareness for your message, you've probably already figured out the top five mistakes that people make when ordering and using promotional gifts. There are some other mistakes that aren't quite as obvious as ?not using them? or ?forgetting your contact information?. We've been in the business of supplying promotional gifts for a long time, and these are the second top five mistakes that we've seen people make when ordering and using promotional gifts.



1.Pigeon holing promotional gifts as ?giveaways?.

If you only think of promotional gifts as something to give away to your customers, you're missing out on some incredible marketing opportunities for your business or organization. Promotional items are also ideal for creating a second income stream for your club, pub, restaurant, school or store. They can be used as part of a loyalty programme where customers earn points by buying products from you. Promotional items make great incentive gifts for your staff, and can be used to make a more professional impression anywhere that your staff is seen. Thinking that their only use is to give them away at trade shows is a grave disservice to yourself.

2.Ordering promotional gifts from the wrong company.

As in any other business, there are promotional gifts suppliers who will give you excellent service, high quality merchandise, on time delivery and just about anything else you could ask for. Before you choose to do business with a particular supplier of promotional products, take the time to do some research. Ask around to colleagues who have used promotional gifts in their own campaigns, and check out the affiliations of those companies they recommend. The top promotional gifts suppliers in the UK often carry items that you just won't find anywhere else, and offer service that is unparalleled.

3.Ordering promotional gifts without a plan.

Your marketing campaign ? promotional gifts included ? is only as good as your overall marketing plan. Before you start choosing promotional gifts on the basis of the coolness factor, be sure that ?cool? is what you want to project. The promotional gifts that you choose for a particular campaign should be carefully chosen to appeal to the market segment that you want to reach.

4.Forgetting to build in a way to track results.

Yes, it should be part of your plan. Tracking the results of your promotion is important. If you can't tell what promotional gifts worked the best, you'll find it difficult to duplicate that success. Always decide how you will measure the success of your promotional gifts while creating your marketing plan. Will you gauge success by increased sales? With a survey to test increased visibility? By number of responses to question cards? The more closely you can track your results, the better equipped you'll be to tailor your campaigns more closely in the futre.

5.Ordering too few promotional gifts.

It's always better to have a few leftovers on hand than it is to run out midstream. And there are some promotional gifts that prove to be so popular that you'll want extras to hand out to return customers.