I’ve only been blogging for a couple of months now but I’ve seen the benefits and I’m definitely a believer. Because we track everything we do, we can directly attribute a significant increase in our web rankings on Google to our blog efforts. Jerry, who manages our Web, IT and SEO and Robin who heads up our Promotional Services are also frequent bloggers on our site.

From my perspective, there is no shortage of marketing related topics to write about. I find it somewhat therapeutic as a matter of fact and enjoy putting my digital pen to paper as a regular part of my weekly ritual. At this point, we haven’t seen direct comments in response to our blogs but they are being read and shared. As we gain more experience in this venue and with time, we hope our efforts will be helpful to others and that eventually we’ll get more interaction and collaboration on the various subject areas posted.

This past 4-day week we had two sales leads that materialized as a direct result of our web marketing. One where we weren’t the right solution (company was looking for canned newsletter content) and one that was right up our alley and turned into an appointment. Not all that significant maybe, except that 1 branding/web appointment for us can turn into 20-50,000 dollars of immediate work and a customer for life.

In the B2B environment, I believe getting your web ranking higher organically is (at a minimum) like having another full time sales person on the road and at a fraction (3%) of the cost. Similar to adding a new sales person it takes time to see the results. In this past economy it can be 6-9 months before you see the benefit…but there are soft benefits in the meantime. Now more than ever, the purchasers of your services are forming opinions of your organization based on your presence on the web. Your message needs to be clear; your look professional and when someone searches, ending up on the first page in your category doesn’t hurt.

Today there are so many choices including custom USBs with 8GB memory to stainless steel water bottles to high end brand name golf shirts like Greg Norman and Nike. You can now logo everything from sunglasses to digital frames to measuring tapes to kitchenware.

Interestingly enough, writing instruments are still considered the most commonly used promotional products (about 54%) followed by shirts, caps and bags.

The average length of time people keep an item is 7 months and the reason they have kept it was due primarily to its usefulness.

Bags were reported to be used most frequently, on average 9 times a month, and delivered the most impressions, with 1,038 per month on average.

Analysts have now established a “cost per impression (CPI)” and not surprisingly, promotional products are the least expensive cost per impression at $.004 cents. The CPI for a national magazine is $0.033, a newspaper ad is $0.0129, a prime time TV ad is $0.019, a cable TV ad is $0.007, a syndicated TV ad is $0.006 and a spot radio ad is $0.005.

Customers should keep this in mind when they are considering advertising options. Promotional products are still a proven method to increase brand exposure and drive sales at a reasonable cost. They continue to be part of the integrated marketing solution we deliver here at Palmer Marketing.