One Question To Ask When Choosing Branded Merchandise

When beginning nearly any conversation about branding and marketing, we would love to jump straight to the answers.  We would love to know where the journey will be taking us, so we can get started right away.  But answers are never the beginning.  Questions are.  Creating a list of questions can help guide you and your campaign to a much more effective place.  I created a list of 10 questions here…to get you started.

I find this to be especially true when you are created a branded merchandise campaign.

Branded Merchandise is one of the most effective tools you can use in your marketing tool box…but only if you use it correctly.  Just like any other marketing tools, if you don’t know what. you are doing, you can waste your resources.  But if you are intentional, and understand exactly who you are marketing to, there is often no better media than branded merchandise to get the job done.

That’s why questions are so important with branded merchandise.

It is incredibly important to know who you are trying to reach.  Branded merchandise is very targeted (or it should be).  So if you are targeting the right audience, in the right place, at the right time, you have marketing gold.  But how do you know how to do that?  Questions.

But while the exercise of going through a list of questions can really get your juices flowing, there is one question that I think really brings this idea home.  Once you go through the basic questions in order to identify your “perfect customer,” this one question really helps me know exactly what branded merchandise will help reach them.  The question is simple.

Where is your perfect customer when they realize they need your product or service?

When you answer that questions, can you see how that distills what you want to give your perfect customer…and where you want them to use it?  If you are a Pizza shop, you want to reach that family in their kitchen.  If you are a car repair shop, how can you get your information in the car?  Once you find out that perfect customer, and where they are going to realize they need you, a well thought out promotional item can reach them right there.

It’s powerful.

So spend the time. Ask the questions.  And if you need help going through this exercise.  We can help.

Written by: Kirby Hasseman

Kirby Hasseman is the CEO of Hasseman Marketing & Communications. Kirby hosts a weekly Web show called Delivering Marketing Joy where he interviews business leaders from around the country. Kirby has published four books. His most recent is “Fan of Happy.” His book, called "Delivering Marketing Joy" is about doing “promo right” and is perfect for people in the industry and customers. He also wrote “Think Big For Small Business” and “Give Your Way to Success. All are available on Amazon.