Strategic Branded Merchandise Yearly Planning

If you want to guarantee that the items you give away have meaning, purpose and resonate with the end user, then you need to set time aside with a designated branded merchandise expert, like the Green Giftz team, and plan out your year. Branded merchandise has always been an impactful and integral part of sponsorship, promotions, marketing campaigns and corporate culture. Great businesses and brands implement a strategic approach that ensures their merchandise is part of their core values and growth strategy.

To effectively use branded merchandise to its full potential, you will need to think about your yearly goals, budget, events, hiring plans, and establish standards to measure the impact overall. Here are some tips for yearly branded merchandise planning.

Create A List Of All Events (Yes, Even Virtual Ones)

While we cannot be certain what the new year holds in terms of in-person events, we know for sure that virtual events and webinars are here to stay. If you are not gifting a swag box to attendees prior to the online event, and even after, then you are behind on the times. A swag box delivered to attendee’s doors with a QR code and hashtag provides you with trackable data to prove the ROI for your branded merchandise!

Grab a printable calendar or purchase an option for your team with their names and company logo and set aside time to go month by month and plan out every single event that could utilize branded merchandise. If January feels hard, keep going. By the time you get to December the creative juices will be flowing. Here are some ideas:

• Team Sledding Event: Hand out hot chocolate bombs and branded camp mugs to warm-up at home afterward. Your team would look great in matching hats, gloves, and scarves!

• Yearly Sales Planning: This is typically a large event for most companies and is the only time their remote and regional reps join together. As a multi-day event, whether virtual or in-person, your team needs fuel. Send everyone a goodie box with candy, salty treats, a notebook, pen, and coffee grounds to keep them going!

• Retirements and New Hires: Your employees always deserve to be recognized. But after 2020, they deserve it even more. An award for retirement is nice...but what about a lifestyle gift they will use for years after they have retired? Same goes for new hires! You want your employees to feel invested in your brand from day one and the best way to achieve it is by sending them branded merchandise they will wear and appreciate!

Implement An Effective Strategy

You'll want to create and use custom products in a way that communications reliability, connection, your core values, and your brand story. To achieve this, have a clear understanding from day one of who your target audience is. As you go through your calendar and outline events, make a note of who will receive each gift. How do these audiences differ? What message should your branded merchandise convey to each audience?

Defining their persona(s) will help create branded merchandise that resonates with their demographic. In certain cases, co-branding alongside big name brands, like North Face, Patagonia, Miir or Corkcicle, can be an effective approach that works well if the brand is popular among those target audiences.

Maximize Your Budget

When looking through your yearly branded merchandise calendar, consider areas where other departments can "dip in" on your orders to stock up for their needs. Cross-departmental ordering is the best way to ensure you maximize your budget. For instance, if you have an employee event where you would like to order 10 Patagonia Jackets to recognize top achievers, check with your Executive Admins and see if they need a gift for C-Level and Executive officers within your business. It is the perfect time to add on a few extra to utilize within other areas of your business.

One of the best examples is employee onboarding boxes. While you may only need 10-20 new hire boxes in a year, the items inside, and the boxes themselves, could be utilized for additional purposes. In what ways can you maximize your orders of branded merchandise across multiple departments?

Prove The ROI

This is the most critical aspect of creating awesome branded merchandise from a business (and budget) perspective. It's important to start with the end goal. For each event or instance on your calendar where you could utilize branded merchandise, ask yourself these key questions and consider your goals:

• Do you want to build brand value?

• Is the goal to increase brand recognition?

• Will this giveaway be utilized to increase sales or inspire conversation?

• Does your sales team need to send this item to help convert clients?

• Is the end goal to recognize great achievements by employees?

How do these goals factor into the messaging? It is important that you and your team can have metrics for the different goals that you aim to achieve with your branded merchandise, to truly maximize your return on investment!

One of the best ways to track your spend is via QR codes and hashtags. If one good thing came out of 2020, it was the return of the QR code. Create your own and pop it on the back of promo items to have recipients scan and learn more about your offerings.

Strong branded merchandise engages loyal clients and potential buyers in a way that traditional marketing cannot. The long-term cost-per-impression on quality merchandise cannot be beat with digital marketing spend. Swag need not be expensive! With adequate planning and thoughtful strategic discussions, cost-effective branded merchandise will become your best marketing and HR tool.

Ready to create desirable branded merchandise that wows your team and converts your prospects? Contact Green Giftz to speak with one of our experienced project managers to get started. Let's grow your brand together.