During the past month I have had a couple dozen “Happy New Year” calls with industry people. Some called me and I reached out to others. Invariably conversations eventually came around to discussing what trends will be influencing our Promotional Products Media industry this year.
We discussed that 3 out of 4 businesses expect to increase their marketing budgets, some had the opinion that promotional goods are receiving higher visibility due to political campaign use, and others believed that industry people will be promoting themselves better. We also discussed Traditional Marketing (non-digital) such as print, billboard, direct mail, etc..
These conversations were dominated by personal opinions and early experiences the first few weeks of the new year.
I decided to take a deep dive into what the marketing universe is predicting. I searched for non-digital marketing trends for 2025. I found lots of lists of trends to watch. Some with as few as 5 and others offering 20 or more. I read through one website after another, eventually deciding that visiting 30 of them was enough to make an observation.
Although the searching I did specifically looked for traditional (non-digital) marketing trends, every single one of the sites I visited still found it necessary to basically say better focus on digital! Also quite upsetting but not surprising, none of the sites, regardless of the multiple media they profiled, mentioned Promotional Products Media - except one!
Awareness Business Group went into detail about 10 non-digital marketing channels that are trending up. “Branded Promotional Items” was one of the 10 channels they wrote about. Most of their description was quite positive but obviously written by a reviewer rather than someone with more extensive industry knowledge.
My concern was not that Awareness Business Group could have been even better at describing our industry, it is that 29 others offering business trends, didn’t even know we exist! Let’s consider why we seem to be invisible!
Lack of Self Promotion - Many of the folks I had conversations with said they were planning on increasing their self promotion in 2025. Upon further investigation it revealed that for most, any promotion would be an increase!
For people in an industry that is all about helping clients get more visibility and business, we fail to do the same for our own businesses. Treat your business just like one of your clients. Establish a budget and follow all the same steps you would recommend to a client.
Lack of Physically Visible - Not one of the people I had new year conversations with participated in community business meetings, gave talks to civic groups, attended trade shows or took other opportunities to be face to face with potential clients. Being out in public is at the top of the list of how not to be invisible.
Lack of Business Identity Apparel - Unless you are in the steam room at the country club, you should be a walking example of the power of Corporate (business) Identity Apparel. Why have a Titleist® logo on your cap when on the golf course instead of your business name?
Lack of Communication - Answering the phone when a customer wants to order more stick pens, is not communicating! A periodic newsletter, special promotions email, interesting news articles and any other reason you can think of to have a short conversation will help your visibility.
Lack of Response to Public Statements - Every community has business publications as well as other media that periodically will have comments about use of promotional products. National news always considers our marketing to be unnecessary and a waste of tax dollars. If we do not respond we confirm that our industry is an easy target. We can’t simply rely on our association to carry all the water!
There are so many great things about promotional products that don’t get recognized by the public or reported on by legacy media, unless you put that info out there. We keep millions of bottles out of landfills, new mother kits packed in promotional coolers go home with baby to give everyone a great start, first aid kits in home and auto have obvious impact, billions of dollars are raised for charities using promo products as incentives and thank yous - the list is endless.
Only you can get our industry off the MIA list and back on the Alive & Well list. With upwards of 70% of marketing allocations going to some form of digital marketing, being invisible to the other 30% is not a viable business strategy.
Gregg Emmer managed Kaeser & Blair’s marketing, catalog publishing and vendor relations for more than 30 years. Prior to arriving at K&B in 1991 he owned and operated a graphic communication company featuring promotional products and full service printing. Today Emmer’s consulting work provides marketing, public relations and business planning consulting to a wide range of businesses including promotional industry suppliers, venture capital and market research companies. If you are interested in growing your business (or privately commenting on articles) contact Gregg at gregg.promopro@gmail.com.