The date of this writing is 15/10/18. It will likely be published slightly later. Here’s what’s important about that: from this very moment, there are only 79 days left in the year. That’s less than three months. It’s less than 12 weeks. We’re just a few weeks out from the holiday onslaught of the end of the year, and here’s the question: have you started thinking about 2019 yet?
Now is the time to sew seeds which will bloom in the new year. Take a subject and round out a strategy. In this writing, let’s look at promotion. Whatever your business, you need it.
Are you an individual artist trying to expand the level of gigs you perform? Promotion on social media and among your peers is necessary. If you’re taking the next step up and renting out a theater for a performance, it may be worth your while to pay for some radio marketing and take out an ad in the local paper that’s strategically situated to affect the largest number of people.
Additionally, for such a show you would want to sell merchandise of some kind, or even give some away to act itself as an organic promotion. A thousand free bumper stickers with a viral enough message can lead to the sale of the bumper sticker and increased awareness of your entertainment brand.
Widening The Perspective
The same holds true for larger enterprises. Promotional items can really do a lot to increase your viability and sustainability in the market. Over time, what you spend in such gear will be overcome by Return On Investment (ROI) from the effort. But certainly, you want to be strategic. You want to design effective promotional items fit to the right customer.
As an example, beer cozies, wristbands, pens, sunglasses, t-shirts, stress balls, and all the known accouterments of trade shows and conventions can be effective. Still, such promo items are only going to be effective to a specific clientele. Big fish likely aren’t going to be so successfully drawn in. For them, you want something more stylish.
A challenge coin from Embleholics can be an excellent promotional in this regard. Whether it is handed out internally to employees who outperform expectations, or to prospective clientele as a badge indicating the quality of service from your business, such items are very good for promotion.
Also, this raises a point: don’t be afraid to promote internally. External promotion is certainly recommendable, but internal promotion helps give your most important assets—those on your operational team—confidence in your brand. They’re more likely to “go that extra mile” if they really believe in the occupational “race” they’re running.
Additional Considerations
Something else that was briefly mentioned earlier and deserves a closer look is promotion via social media. There is a golden opportunity here which may not be permanent. Facebook, Minds.com, Twitter, Gab, LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, etc.—these are all primarily free outlets for promotion and advertising given proper management.
Social Media Optimization, like Search Engine Optimization (SMO and SEO respectively), has a core place in modern marketing and promotion. You want to design content that is relevant and can be shared. Think of it like promotional items of a mental nature. Instead of a stress ball, you give readers a solution to a certain problem which includes links back to your primary website.
So the key to all these strategies is value. Whatever promotional strategies you pursue are most likely to be successful should they, in some way (large or small) provide value to your target demographic.
Items like pens, cups, shirts, challenge coins, and wristbands are good, so is SMO and SEO content. Plan in 2018 for 2019, and you can get yourself situated ahead of competitors while simultaneously honing the effectiveness of your promotional outreach strategy.
