Best Promotional Merch Ideas

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In the corporate world, it is often customary to have branded pens, notebooks, or mugs. While having your brand on a pen is cool, we think you can do better! Much of the branded products you will find at a conventional office space are stationary and almost expected, but we believe that having more interesting merch brings excitement about your brand for both employees and clients. Promotional merch is also used to spread brand awareness and it can also be used to work with social media influencers to promote your services or products. In this article, we will show you a few ideas for cool branded merch ideas to fit your brand.

Remember! It is not about just having promotional products but about having the right promotional products that are geared towards your audience. Therefore, it is important to do your research before creating an item to promote your brand.

Unconventional Event Swag and Promotional Items

Robo-cube puzzle fidget toy

Robo-cube puzzle fidget toy

Magnetic interactive fidget pen

Magnetic interactive fidget pen

Hexagon spinner fidget cube

Hexagon spinner fidget cube

Ball of Whacks fidget toy

Ball of Whacks fidget toy

Fidget Toys are the new stress balls! Everyone loves a good fidget toy to entertain themselves while taking a mental break from your desk job. Especially now that more and more people are working from home and encounter more distractions than before. In addition to the improved learning benefits, fidget toys can also reduce anxiety and stress, enhance dexterity, improve coordination and fine motor skills. Besides the benefits, a fidget toy makes for a great promotional item for potential clients or current clients as it keeps your brand on their minds, but also, who doesn’t love a cool gift? Check out ‘Fidget Toys Are Not Just Hype’ - Scientific American

Conventional and Practical Branded Products

Supersweet Coffee & Tattoos

Supersweet Coffee & Tattoos

Panton blue light glasses

Panton blue light glasses

Verve Coffee Shop

Verve Coffee Shop

Ultra-portable speaker

Ultra-portable speaker

Promotional items are also great if you are looking to do a virtual giveaway. Depending on your business, you may be looking for more traditional items that can be used to promote your brand but still motivate people to want to participate. Promotional products such as t-shirts, hoodies, speakers, notebooks, and coffee mugs are more of the traditional branded merch and can seem boring to some but if you have a good design that also ties in your logo, chances are, people will want them. What is better than a free t-shirt? A cool free t-shirt. Incorporating giveaways can be an excellent way to get people excited about your event, while also spreading brand awareness in untraditional ways.

8% of promotional product recipients remember the name of the advertiser on the products. 85% of the recipients do business with the advertiser on the product. 83% of people like receiving them.
Praytell agency Promo Box

Praytell agency Promo Box

Why Promotional Product Work

Promotional products are a powerful marketing tool because they allow a brand to connect with consumers by engaging their senses. Branded items are one of the only forms of advertising that allows consumers to interact with a brand on a physical level, promotional products often create more memorable brand experiences and promote brand recognition.

Family Industries has worked with brands such as Praytell Agency to create a one-of-a-kind promotional items box which included a pair of bombas socks, a thermal mug, stickers, and a scarf. All products and the box itself contained a print of their signature logo.


How to Design The Right Promotional Item

When creating your own promotional items, it is tempting to try to pack as much information as possible, but we suggest you prevent overwhelming the design with too much text. Keep these points in mind when you're designing your promotional products to create memorable gifts.

Less Is More

Keep it simple, use your brand logo and a catchy tagline, website, and if you’re able to fit it in, a phone number or a social media handle.

Use Your Brand Colors

Choose a product with your standard colors to maintain consistency in your style and to improve the chances of brand awareness. If a product option is not available in your colors, select a neutral color that will allow your brand identity to shine through your logo and text, instead.

Usefulness

You will want your product to be useful time and time again. Novelty items such as fidget toys are great to raise a smile or promote a healthy work-life balance, but depending on your audience perhaps more traditional items such as travel mugs, t-shirts or flash drives are the best options. Do your research!

Key Takeaways

Promotional products are essential for your business, over 50% of adults use at least one promotional product regularly, and 85% of that group will eventually do business with the advertised company. Additionally, the cost of a promotional item compared to regular advertising is much lower, and corporate gifts build relationships and brand loyalty.

Author: Irene Floridia - Content Creator


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A Guide to Branding in [2023]

Author Irene Floridia, Content Creator

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Thinking of starting your own business? Looking to improve your customer satisfaction or ensure customer retention? We have a guide on how to improve your branding efforts and new ways to enhance brand awareness in the fast-paced environment of consumerism.

What is Branding?

Branding is the process of researching, developing, and applying a specific set of criteria to an organization so that consumers can associate the brand with the product or service.

Branding is generally an action taken before the launch of a brand to ensure there is a cemented identity and to then establish standards for the product or service provided. This action also helps determine who the consumer for this product or service is to then tailor marketing efforts so as to target a specific group of people.

The Importance of Branding

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The importance of establishing a brand is arguably the most important first step in starting a business. It gives your organization an identity, it makes your product or service memorable and it encourages consumers to support and trust your business. Being able to define your business and its purpose can have a big impact on the ability to build a consumer base. Most often, branding can be the deciding factor for consumers when they make a purchase decision.

In a 2015 global Nielsen Survey, almost 60% of shoppers said they actively buy from brands they know, and 21% said they bought a product because they liked the brand.

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How To Create A Brand Strategy

  • Establish Target Audience

    • Branding leads to awareness, recognition, and revenue; this outcome stems from customers. The first step in constructing a strategy, as a business, you will need to understand who your audience is and that is how you will understand what will resonate with them. Who does your product serve? Who is your ideal customer? Read about what is Brand Awareness.

  • Mission Statement

  • Define Features and Benefits

    • There are most likely other businesses or services in your industry, and it’s important to set yourself apart from them to engage consumers and convince them that you are the best option. Ask yourself, what is the one thing that your business has that no one else has? take some time to write down unique values, benefits, and qualities that set you apart from the competition. Read “How to Develop a Unique & Memorable Brand Identity”.

  • Create Visual Assets

    • Some will argue that this is one of the most important steps when building a brand. People are attracted to well-thought-out designs, this means having a good logo, color palette, attractive typography, iconography, and other visual components. To create these elements, building a brand guideline is helpful to create a composition and use of your visual assets.

  • Find Your Brand Voice

    • How your brand communicates with the consumer is important, think about what this voice would sound like if it were a person. The brand voice is particularly important for a well-rounded marketing campaign, social media, blog posts, and your brand story. How you communicate with your targeted audience sets a tone and should be consistent throughout all of your written content.

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How to put your branding to work

Social Media

All posts, cover art, and branded imagery should reflect your brand. Using your logo as your profile image will make it easier for customers to recognize your business. All of your content such as blog posts, product copy, captions, and videos should reflect your brand voice.

Packaging

If you have a physical product, your packaging should reflect your branding - this means, design, color pallet, fonts, size, and feel. Detailed packaging helps build confidence with consumers as it reflects on how much you care about your product. Packaging also assures the buyer that they have purchased something that is high-quality and this way you can build brand trust and loyalty.

Businesses like Family Industries can help create packaging with logos and preferred color pallets as well as fulfill your orders directly. Not only is Family Industries a screen printing shop, but they offer a variety of different services from branded apparel tags, to stickers and soft enamel pins to be included in your package.

Marketing

Marketing such as advertising, both digital and print, are tools used to establish brand awareness and introduce consumers to your brand, therefore, it is critical that they reflect your branding. All this work on your brand identity should make the marketing ads creation process easier - by following your brand style guide, you will already know how your ads should look and what type of copy to write.


Pro Tip: Overall consistency is key to brand recognition, brand trust, and loyalty.


For questions, send us an e-mail at quotes@familyindustriesla.com, or give us a call at 323.227.1547 and we'd be happy to help.

Our showroom at 2755 Fruitdale Street, Los Angeles, CA 90039 is open by appointment only from 10 am - 4 pm Monday through Friday.

Author: Irene Floridia - Content Creator

Promotional Gift Ideas For 2022

As we welcome the new year, you may be thinking of ways to improve your business or step up your game in one way or another. Swag bags or promotional gifts may be a good way for you to maintain engagement or improve your brand visibility.

We will take you through all the promotional merch ideas for 2022.

Key Features

When looking for the best promotional gifts for your business, it’s important to keep a few things in mind. Certain criteria may apply better for your type of business, however, overall we believe these features will be helpful.

  • Small Items

  • Portable Items

  • Adaptable for Remote Work

  • Easy To Ship

  • Sustainable / Eco-friendly

  • Home & lifestyle-themed

  • Health and wellness-themed

  • Unique and on-brand

All the products below can be branded in different ways with a business logo, a graphics design, branded packaging, and more.

Check Out Best Eco-Friendly Merch

Swag Box

A swag box is commonly used as “Thank You” gifts or “Welcome” gifts for agencies or service providers for clients. Swag boxes are unique in the sense that you can pick and choose what type of items to include and the personalization aspect is much more pronounced.

For example, you can put your logo with your company colors on the box itself and include items that also display your logo, company moto, or tag line.

Check Out A Guide To Creating Your Own Merch


Top Ranking

Promotional Items

Water Bottles

This doesn’t have to be a boring items, you can make it cool by choosing the right bottle. There’s various styles you can customize to incorporate your logo and any other aspects of your branding.

For example, JBL used a MIIR wide mouth bottle and added their logo as well as some artwork they created for this specific merch item. Water bottles are a great promotional item because there’s a lot of surface to play with and because it’s a functional product.

Portable Laptop Stand

This simple yet sleek design is great for remote workers or people that travel for work. Woox laptop stand is the perfect compact yet useful gift for clients old and new. With more people moving towards remote work, this makes a thoughtful gift that can be included in a swag box as it is small and light. It’s also an opportunity to laser cut your logo into and keep the your cost down.

This is also a very simple design that most merch agencies such as Family Industries can produce for you.

Learn more about How To Capitalize From Branding Costs

Personalized Socks

You can never go wrong with socks! Personalizing socks with your company colors and logo is an easy and budget friendly merch item to include in your swag box. You also don’t have to worry about size as much as you would with other apparel items.

You can also include ankle socks if the weather calls for it. Socks are generally a safe gift as it’s a common wearable item that all us use, and because of the size it’s an easy item to ship.


Wireless Power Bank

A wireless phone charger is a great canvas for your logo and it can be used by everyone with a phone. This is a great gift for a client or employees. Again, it’s a small item that can be easily shipped and it’s a highly utilized product.


Pourover Coffee Maker

Corporate gifts don’t have to be boring. A branded pourover insulated coffee maker is the perfect alternative to a coffee mug or a travel mug as this is one step above the traditional gifts. With this pourover coffee maker, you are sure to impress your clients.

Author: Irene Floridia - Content Creator

Looking to assemble your own promotional swag kit?

Look no further! Request a quote from us!


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Finishes That Take Your Brand To The Next Level

Custom finishes can be the thing that sets your brand apart from your competition. These customizations can range from small and simple to being a little more involved and a bit more expensive. We think that investing in details is the best way to take your brand to the next level. In this article, we will go through all of the custom finishes available as well as comparisons and options for smaller budgets.


What Are Apparel Finishes?

Custom apparel finishes are collar tags, interior tags, screen printed logos inside the garments, price tags, as well as packaging. Most of what apparel finishes refer to are markers withing the garment that shows off your brand’s logo and other brand characteristics.

Check Out A Guide To Branding

Examples of Custom Finishes:

  • Neck Tags

  • Custom Woven Tags

  • Fold & Bag

  • Sticker Application

  • Brand Info Tags (hanging tags)

Why are apparel finishes important?

Creating a brand new tag on your shirt is an excellent way to promote a business’s brand. Imagine including your logo on every tag knowing that everyone will check to see the size. Customizing the tag allows everyone to see your logo and details about your business in a unique and effective way.

Every piece of clothing comes with a tag already printed and it is usually on the back of the neck. The tag’s purpose is to provide the wearer with all the relevant information they need to know about the garment. But imagine replacing all that with your company’s logo, brand, and info. This can build brand loyalty.

Check out Guide To Product Packaging & Labeling

Neck Tags

Neck tags or collar tags are the most common types of apparel finishes. Neck tags can either be woven or printed directly unto the garment.

Woven tags are a little more involved as these are separate pieces that need to be sown unto the garment, therefore, adding more steps to your finishing services. However, tags look more professional and you have more freedom to add color.

Printed tags are done directly unto the garment, these types of tags are easier and can be more cost-effective depending on the amount of units you or your local screen printing shop are producing. This type of finish is typically done in a single color, which is recommended to ensure a good rate from your screen printer.

If you are looking to place a tag on the sleeve or the bottom hem, woven tags will be your only option. These placements can make a big difference when done right, this is usually a premium service that is provided by a merchandise agency such as Family Industries.


Hanging Tags

When you add hang tagging to your custom apparel, it gives your garment a professional look that is ready for retail. All you need to provide is the info for the hang tagging and where you want to place it, then a merch agency such as Family Industries will take over the rest.

Hanging tags are generally applied to hi-end apparel and allows for you to include more information about your brand such as your mission statement, your logo, and any other branding elements. As a merch agency, we supply and print all custom tags in-house, as well as apply the tags to your apparel.


Packaging & More

Personalized packaging such as poly bags or box tape can also elevate your brand presentation. Little details can go a long way when presenting your product. These types of finishing services can be an added bonus when deciding to invest in your business.

As a merch agency, we always recommend adding your logo to the package either by stickers or printed unto whatever the surface may be such as a box or tape.

Stickers are the cheapest option if you are on a budget and adding more to the bag is also a good way to get your brand in front of other people and most customers like these details.

Check out Classy Ways to Use Stickers on Your Packaging

For a more economical way to add a personal touch, you can invest in a stamp of your logo. A stamp can be used in just about any surface which makes it easy to brand your packaging such as shipping boxes, tape, and packing paper or poly bags.

Author: Irene Floridia - Content Creator


Do you have more questions about premium merch printing?

send us an e-mail at quotes@familyindustriesla.com, or give us a call at 323.227.1547 and we'd be happy to help.

Our showroom at 2755 Fruitdale Street, Los Angeles, CA 90039 is open by appointment only from 10 am - 4 pm Monday through Friday.


Follow us on Instagram and Facebook

For FAQ, check out our site!

For any inquiries, send us a message!

OR

send us an e-mail at quotes@familyindustriesla.com

Do Trade Show Swag Giveaways Boost Brand Awareness?

Promoting your brand at an event such as a tradeshow or a festival is a must. Giveaways is a good way to engage with the event goers and boost brand awareness.


Trade show Giveaways

Tradeshows can be great exposure for brands in the service industry and giveaways or promotional items can aid other marketing efforts. Whether you call them promotional items, tchotchkes or swag, exhibitors at every trade show hand out countless trade show giveaways to attract and encourage attendees to enter their space.

Check Out 6 PR Tips To Gain Exposure At Trade Shows

The right trade show giveaways can help generate leads and support integrated marketing messages that will prompt attendees to tie that message back to your company long after the show has ended.

What’s The Right Trade Show Promotional Item?

The perfect trade show giveaway items communicate a company’s brand strategy and messaging to attendees. Before selecting a trade show giveaway item, first consider weather or not they support your corporate or brand image and campaign theme.

Check Out How To Build an Effective Tradeshow Marketing Strategy

Brand Alignment

  • Ensuring your branded merch has your company logo printed, etched, or chiseled on it. It does not matter how cool the giveaway is, you will lose out on business and exposure if the item cannot be linked back to your brand.

  • Your giveaway items need to in some way tie-in to your brand and most importantly, your industry. This will help the attendee connect the dots between the physical merch item to your service or business.

  • If you’re attending a themed trade show, select an item that goes with the theme to further strengthen your brand messaging.



Pro Tip: Once you’ve chosen the right merch for your trade show booth, the way you display your items and present your brand is just as important as the items being displayed. Approaching your display as another tool for marketing is a good way to ensure a successful way to show the value in your business.

Check Out Trade show booth design is a key element to engaging with attendees.




What Is A Valuable Trade Show Giveaway?

The most important function of a tradeshow giveaway is the ability for that item to resonate with your clients and prospects. While unique and fun giveaways are always a good way to generate overall interest in your brand, practical merch items can present more value to a trade show guest.

  • Think of a trade show giveaway item as something an event goer can immediately find useful such as tote bags, water bottles, sanitizer, or a backpack.

  • Some of the most valuable giveaways are the ones that will be used frequently like a cool keychain, wireless phone charger, or a phone case / phone wallet.

  • Apparel such as t-shirts are always attractive for people and it’s an overall low-cost product and the perfect canvas for your logo.

Budgeting For Trade Show Giveaways

Like exhibits, trade show budgets vary in size from exhibitor to exhibitor. You should be conscious of the costs associated with your trade show giveaway regardless of your marketing budget. A good rule of thumb is to use 10% of your profit towards marketing, out of the 10% allocate a certain amount to your promotional merch as needed. This will vary depending on your business model.

Check Out How Can Branding Costs Be Capitalized

Tips To Cut Giveaway Costs

  • Making sure you get the most bang for your buck, may mean that you will have to get a little more creative or find inexpensive alternatives.

  • Shipping can add up and can sometimes be an afterthought that puts you over your budget. Think ahead and use a local merch agency so as to be able to pick up your merch instead of paying for shipping and handling.

  • Having the right staff to represent you on site can be a way to ensure your promotional items are being handed out to every person and nothing goes to waste.

Author: Irene Floridia - Content Creator


Looking for The Best Promotional Merch printer?

send us an e-mail at quotes@familyindustriesla.com, or give us a call at 323.227.1547 and we'd be happy to help.

Our showroom at 2755 Fruitdale Street, Los Angeles, CA 90039 is open by appointment only from 10 am - 4 pm Monday through Friday.


Follow us on Instagram and Facebook

For FAQ, check out our site!

For any inquiries, send us a message!

OR

send us an e-mail at quotes@familyindustriesla.com