Organisations that hand out promotional products have been given a unique insight into the industry with a guide from one of Britain’s leading suppliers.
Businesses, charities and other groups in the UK alone spend a staggering £1BILLION a year on free marketing gifts.
But knowledge of the specialist area of marketing is limited – with the public often lumping it together with general advertising.
Redbows, a leading UK supplier of marketing merchandise, details the rise of the industry from 1789 when items were first made to celebrate George Washington’s presidency.
The Promotional Merchandise Handbook, written by Redbows managing director Dawn Koffler, is available for download from the Redbows website.
It is split into three main sections which cover the promotional merchandise market, strategic promotional marketing and the production process.
Appendices give useful industry links and websites, research by the British Promotional Merchandise Association (BPMA), a comprehensive project checklist and information on the Redbows company.
Dawn said: ‘The UK promotional merchandise market is very dynamic, with a £1billion turnover.
‘We thought the new handbook would be a really good way of sharing the knowledge we have built up over the last 10 years and believe our comprehensive checklist will be useful to both new and experienced buyers of promotional merchandise.’
The pdf guide details how the industry developed when free gifts were handed out to mark President George Washington’s election victory which took him to the White House.
An overview of the UK market is included and in particular the role of the BPMA who run a Charter Supplier and Charter Distributor scheme.
The role of promotional merchandise within strategic marketing and the marketing communications mix is covered and in particular key success factors and models that can be used to test product selection and the imprint messages against campaign aims and objectives.
The final chapter covers artwork considerations, origination charges and the options for printing process available for imprint application onto the chosen promotional merchandise.
For more information visit the Redbows website and download the handbook or view as an online PDF at:http://www.redbows.co.uk/handbook
