Look Mom, I Did It Myself!

“The bitterness of poor quality remains long after the sweetness of low price is forgotten.”  - Ben Franklin

Back in the early 1980s when I owned a commercial printing company, typesetting was an integral part of most of the work we did. Choosing typography, designing marketing literature, editing and proofing to perfection was expected on every project. Clients were hyper particular about everything. One client even noticed that the period at the end of a sentence was not round! 

My graphic designer had a wealth of experience and understood how design and layout had an impact on what customers would read and react to in graphic communications.

Then something that was called “desktop publishing” reared its ugly head! All of a sudden the very same supercritical clients were displaying proudly the horrible sales sheet they created on their 6-pin printer, proclaiming, “We did it ourselves!"

It seems that a generation had grown up receiving praise for attempting without regard to success or quality of the endeavor. Doing it yourself became more important than succeeding. As the decade continued so did printer technology, greatly improving the quality of the printout but not improving the quality of design or impact on the recipients. Eventually clients realized that now that everyone has a laser printer, it was the quality of the finished work that was important - not doing it yourself.

Welcome to the Promotional Products Media industry of the 2000s! A Google search for “custom T shirts” results in 215 million results! Search for “imprinted products” and you will get 25.7 million. We are experiencing the equivalent of the 6-pin printer, the results from promotional advertising are not as important as going online and doing it yourself.

Ben Franklin’s quote at the top of this article was a more eloquent way of saying you get what you pay for. When a client works with a promotional products media professional they get a wealth of accumulated information regarding product selection, message creation, delivery options and competitive pricing research. What they don’t get is the satisfaction of doing it themselves and the belief that they have saved money.

Keep in mind that a promotion that does not work is the most expensive promotion that can be done, regardless of cost! Make sure your clients know and understand this. The next step is to help them “do it themselves”.

As the online deluge of promotional products availability descended on us, so did some great tools for us to use to help clients DIY! Many suppliers now have client friendly catalog websites. Zoomcatalog is a resource that adds to the availability of literature. The continually updated e-flyers on PromoCorner is a sensational resource.

Utilizing these resources, let your clients know that you will send them links to safe, reliable, high quality sources for their promotional needs. That you will coordinate whatever is necessary and manage the order for them once they decide what they want to use. Make sure you explain that the online jungle of promotional products is a dangerous place with more stories of disappointment and money lost than successes.

And also point out that you may have access to better pricing than what they see in the online catalogs. Basically keep things like EQP to yourself until necessary.

Beware of the clever client.

There are many business people that are totally aware that they do not have the knowledge, resources and talent to handle their own marketing. A few will pick your brain, accept your assistance and then source or attempt to source products cutting you out of the transaction. If you have been selective in introducing your client or prospect to only suppliers you know do not sell direct, this clever client is left to fend for themselves in the promotional products jungle. And, they only get to do this to you once!