Whether you’re publicizing your business, trying to woo customers back to the fold or introducing a new product, it’s important that your promotional campaign be planned out in advanced and part of a coordinated effort. The best campaigns don’t spring fully formed from a Saturday afternoon brainstorm. It takes work to bring together slogans, adverts, ideas and promotional items into a cohesive campaign that will capture the imagination and attention of your target market.

Start by identifying your target market

No matter what you’re promoting, the first step is identifying your target market. The market that you want to reach will define everything from the colors you choose for your packaging to the promotional items that you choose for campaign. Ask yourself who is likely to purchase your product or services – and be as specific as possible. The more specifically you identify your target market, the easier it will be to aim your promotional squarely at them.

Remember that the target market may not be the most obvious answer. For instance, if you’re selling office supplies, you know that they will be used by those who work in an office. They are not necessarily your target market, though. You need to target the people who make the decisions – in this case, purchasing managers. The promotional items used to reach them are not the same ones that you’d use if you were wooing secretaries.

Get to know your target market

Do a little market research. Now that you’ve figured out who is going to be buying your product, you need to get to know them. It’s impossible to choose appropriate and appealing promotional products without knowing what products your prospective customers will appreciate and use. Remember that promotional items are enticements – it’s important to choose enticing products to give away with purchase.

Decide how to spend your marketing budget

Promotional items can stretch your marketing budget and make every cent you spend more cost effective. While it may seem less expensive to send out 50,000 targeted marketing mail messages with no gift, the return on your investment may not bear that out. In fact, most research shows that you’ll get a far higher return on investment when you send out a more expensive promotional gift to a smaller number of prospective customers. The best way to assign costs for your promotional items is to decide how much you’re willing to spend to gain one sale, then multiply that by the number of customers you want to bring in. If a mass mail marketing campaign will return 1 response for every 250 pieces of mail, and a mass marketing campaign that includes promotional items will return 1 response in 50 pieces of mail, you can figure out to spend less and bring in more.

Choose appropriate promotional items

Now that you know what your customers will appreciate and use, as well as how much you can afford to spend on promotional items, you’ll have narrowed down the field on your choices. Choose several different promotional items, and let your marketing department work up campaigns based off each, then choose the ones that you like the best.