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Current Specials
Imprinted Seat Cushions For Stadiums are Great Fundraisers
As football season for pro, college and high school, we start to get more requests for football related promotional items. Along with the popular imprinted mini footballs, megaphones, thundersticks one item is very popular year after year: Imprinted Stadium Seat Cushions
Nobody likes sitting on freezing metal watching a football game, well…maybe some do, but I’m not one of them. Lots of people bring foam seat cushions to their local football stadiums when they go to watch a game. For those that aren’t familiar with them they are just a simple 1 foot square piece of foam encased in vinyl that people put in their seats for comfort or even dryness if it just finished raining.
While some of them have the team mascot or team name, there are tons that are given away by local businesses. Imprinted stadium seat cushions are very popular giveaways. They are usually available in the team colors and provide a very large imprint area, usually the entire square foot area. Some of them are even kept for years and continue to advertise the business that gave them away. Some become collectors items if they have the season schedule on them and maybe get autographed by the players or the team has a really good year.
Imprinted stadium seat cushions are also great for fundraisers. It’s very common for the booster club for the sports team to sell advertising on the stadium seat cushions. The one square foot area can be divided into smaller sections and the sections are then sold to the local businesses. Usually the sales of the ad space covers the cost of the imprinting and may even create a little bit of profit. The real fundraising comes in to play when the boosters sell the stadium cushions to the people coming to the stadium. It’s usually all profit. It’s a WIN-WIN-WIN situation: The business get advertising, the boosters make money, and the customers get a comfortable place to sit.
You can find more information on ordering imprinted seat cushions at www.TradeShowItems.com
Imprinted mini footballs are great this time of year
Along with the wallet sized football schedules that we have been selling tons of, we have seen a large increase in the number of imprinted mini footballs.
These are the footballs that are normally thrown into the stands during football games by the cheerleaders. But, like all good ideas, they are growing in popularity in the normal advertising business world.
Everybody loves football, and it’s right around the corner now, even though Favre will be donning the green jersey for a new team. Imprinted mini footballs are a great giveaway to give to kids, sports fans, beach goers and everyone else who likes to take a little bit of time to play games or throw around a football.
Click on our mini football in the sales item column to check out our line of imprinted mini footballs. With over 200 color combinations I’m sure you’ll find one that matches your needs.
BIC Pen Sale Pricing Updated at PenDeal.com
We have just updated our custom imprinted pens site www.PenDeal.com with the newest pricing from BIC pens.
Many imprinted items producers have had to raise their prices over the last few months. Most producers import their items for imprinting from overseas. The huge increase in fuel costs has made it much more expensive to ship items from Asia and other parts of the world to the United States.
Lucky for us BIC makes everything at their plant near Tampa, FL and doesn’t rely on imported material. This allows them to keep their pricing low.
Please visit www.PenDeal.com to check out the 3rd Quarter BIC pen sales pricing.
FREE Artwork on orders over $500
TradeShowItems.com now offers FREE ARTWORK on all orders over $500. This is a great deal that can really speed up the order time and make ordering much easier.
The biggest hassle in ordering advertising specialties is getting the artwork “camera ready”. With today’s digital lifestyle everything is handled by email these days. Everyone thinks they can just email an attachment with a jpeg, gif or scan of their logo and it will be fine. I really wish it was, it would make my life so much easier. However, almost every factory now requires artwork to be “vector” drawings with fonts changed to curves and outlined, and other things that normal people don’t have the capability to do. Most factories now only accept artwork created in Corel Draw or the more popular Adobe Illustrator.
The price tag for these 2 programs is pretty high, and the learning curve is even higher. They are also upgraded every year or so which requires having to learn all the new features. They are basically programs for artists and graphic designers, and most of my customers (including me) aren’t.
TradeShowItems.com will now convert anything you send them: jpeg, gif, scan or anything else and have it coverted to the correct artwork file. This can be a huge time saver, unless you have a graphic artist on staff or can find one that will do the work for less than free.
Please visit www.TradeShowItems.com for more information.
Wallet Football Schedules Are Here
The 2008 NFL football wallet schedules have finally arrived.
They are consistently a top seller on our www.TradeShowItems.com website. Right now we are running a BUY 2 GET 1 FREE SALE. That cuts the price down to less than 30 cents each, and down to 11 cents each at the highest quantity.
For those that aren’t familiar with these items they are credit card sized wallet calendars. They have a sliding insert that you use to line up the current weekend and the it will show all the football games scheduled for that weekend.
They are very popular with the sports crowd and can be used by almost any business because almost everybody likes football. Sports bars and construction companies are always our biggest buyers, but we also get orders from restaurants, civic groups and basically everybody. This is also one of our favorite promotional items.
Click on the sample above for more information.
What to give your trade show booth visitors
This is probably one of our most asked questions.
You first have to decide what your purposed for being at the show is. Are you there to build your name recognition? There to sell something or get someone to open an account? There to get people to sign up for a salesperson to visit later? There to get their email address so you can send them more information?
Each reason would probably require a different promotional item. We are just going to discuss the first one today and we will cover each one over the next couple of days.
There to build name recognition
If you are there trying to build name recognition, then hand out stuff with your name on it. I know it sounds pretty simple, and it is. Look at the way the big companies do it: Pepsi, Budweiser, Sears. When you go to a trade show that they have a display at, do they try to sell you a bottle of Pepsi? No! They might have you try a sample of a new drink they have, but they aren’t going to make you buy it. I bet you will walk away from their booth with a T-shirt, hat or something else with their name on it. You will become a walking billboard for them which will raise their name recognition.
It’s the same with their TV commercials. Do the commercials end with an 800 number to call to order a case of Pepsi? No. They just do it to get their name constantly in front of you.
So…… If you are there to build name recognition for your company then hand out things with your name on it that people will see. Let them become walking billboards for your company.
There to sell something or get someone to open an account
This is different than building name recognition, you are trying to close the customer right there. You need to offer your potential customer an item that they perceive as having high value. I can’t count the number of times customers have called me and asked for some cheap item to give people at an upcoming trade show. After asking the purpose of them being there, and finding out it’s to “close”, I’ll ask what there budget is per customer. Some people have answered under $1 per customer. If you are selling something of great value, a $1 item might almost be an insult to a person. If someone is going to open a $10,000 stock market account, buy a $15K boat or something along those lines, do you really think a $1 item is going to persuade them? I’ve asked my customers if they thought standing in front of their booths offering $1 bills to people to buy a boat would sway anyone. They obviously answered no. Then I ask why they think a $1 item will be any different. I can’t give recommendations here because every case is different. If you would like some recommendations please contact us at support@TradeShowItems.com.
I’d like to add that this is for “closing” only. I don’t recommend high dollar items when you are just trying to build name recognition.
Promote Your Site Offline With Promotional Items
Promotional Items, also known as Advertising Specialties, are the giveaway items businesses use to promote their company. Although many are given away, many can also be sold at either a break even point for the business, or maybe even a profit. Look at the number of shirts the next time you go to the mall. How many Nike, Coke, Budweiser or other company names do you see people wearing? Those companies have the brand name recognition that makes people want to pay to wear a shirt with the company’s name on it.
Almost every Advertising Specialty made today has a website name imprinted on it somewhere. It has become a very cost effective way to promote your website offline. Take a look at the pens you come in contact with from now on. I’ll bet you will see a website address on most of them. Although pens are probably the most popular Promotional Item, you can imprint your website address on 1000’s of items. Anything that will be kept on or near a desk has great potential to advertise your website. The closer you can get your item to a computer the better.
The reason you want your imprinted item near a computer should be obvious, you want them thinking of your website when they are at a computer. That’s why restaurants that deliver send you refrigerator magnets in the mail. They want you to call them when you can’t find anything to make, or when you just don’t feel like making anything. Oil change companies put static cling stickers in your car to remind you of oil changes. Car dealers make sure the keys they give you come with a keychain with their name on it.
Computer monitor calendars are probably the best item to promote your business near a computer. They are very inexpensive and are kept right near the computer screen. With the new ability to start them with July, you are almost guaranteed to have your website address in front of your potential customers for almost a year. Also, since they stick to the monitor they are less likely to be borrowed and never returned like a pen.
USB memory devices, mouse pads, computer monitor clips, CD holders and other computer related items are also good choices to promote your website address. Even a simple coffee cup that is turned into a pen holder, or maybe a candy dish, will keep your website address in front of your potential customers.
Choosing The Correct Trade Show Items
Choosing the correct trade show items, gifts, or giveaways are one of the most important decisions you need to make before attending your next trade show.
The first thing you need to decide is the purpose of the trade show gift that you are going to give to people. Do you want the gift to build brand recognition? Is there a “call to action” on the giveaway? Is it something that will be unique enough to draw attention to you booth to increase the traffic?
Another thing you may want to consider is giving away something that will attract attention to the people as they walk around the rest of the trade show. Walking sticks, bags to carry other items around in, food and drink, hats or other items are all gifts that other people will see and may ask the person “Where did you get that?”, and hopefully the person will send them over to your booth.
That is why a lot of trade show booths give away canvas bags to people walking the floor. Just imagine, all of your competition’s items and names are all hidden inside the bag while the person walks all around the floor showing off your name on the outside of the bag to everyone else.
