Brand investment.4 ways to save money and time and reduce risk in promotional marketing.

SmartPapers™

At Staples PromotionalProducts, we’re dedicatedto helping you meet yourmarketing and promotionalgoals. That’s why we’vedeveloped our exclusiveSmartPapers™, expertguides that address real world issues facing businesses in every industry. This SmartPaper™ presents strategies for managing promotional spend.

Executive summaryAs we showed in our last SmartPaper™ about the the return on investment of promotional marketing, promotional products are one of the most cost-effective ways to advertise your brand. Yet, many companies could benefit from a more strategic approach to this type of marketing. Planning, resource management, spend consolidation and internal marketing can help maximize returns on any promotional marketing opportunity.

Staples Promotional Products understands your business must get the most from its advertising budget. As an industry leader and your brand partner, we possess the expertise to deliver creative promotional marketing solutions for any budget.

Spend wiser: Save money and time and reduce risk.In this document, Staples Promotional Products presents several best practices that can help organizations maximize their brand investment by managing promotional spend from the point of product selection to how prod-ucts are made available to end users. Understanding the target audience, invest-ing in quality products, consolidating internal spend structure and marketing from within are key to managing promotional spend. By following these recommenda-tions, any brand can promote more effectively while limiting potentially wasteful spending. Working with a solutions provider that shares these values makes the process of managing your company’s promotional budget even easier.

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Brand investment.

Target your audience.If your customers are like 83 percent of consumers, they like getting promotional products1. Luckily, with an average impression cost of just .005 cents2, providing branded products is among the least expensive ways to advertise. Yet effective management of promotional spending requires planning. As a tangible representation of your brand, promotional products should be aligned with your company’s overall marketing messages and relevant to the end-user. There is a difference between “forgettable freebies” and audience-appropriate tarketed marketing premiums that successfully advance your corporate message and align with your brand values. Rather than items that may generate momentary attention and then get thrown away, opt for useful, attractive promotional products, which are more likely to become long-term brand reminders3. Businesses that understand the wants and needs of their customer base have more success engaging their desired audience through suitable promotional products.

Case study: Hitting the mark.One of Staples Promotional Products’ clients is an automotive company with a clear understanding of the target customers and car owners. Sixty-six percent of the brand’s customers are pet owners. Using this information, the company worked with Staples Promotional Products and the ASPCA, in collaboration with the client’s marketing department and advertising agency, in the development of a cohesive campaign that integrated television, social media and pet-oriented promotional products to encourage customer engagement, attract new customers, and build brand recognition on Super Bowl Sunday, for less than the cost of a commercial during the football game. The company chose to sponsor a dog-related television event on the same day, which typically yields about 8 million viewers. In the two weeks leading up to the program, Staples Promotional Products helped the company utilize social media and e-mail to encourage customers to register their dogs online and pledge to take a walk on game day. The first 1,000 people who signed up for the promotion online would receive an assortment of branded products for dogs. Utimately, a whopping 55,000 individuals registered. In addition to brand interaction with all of those current and potential customers, the company received national media attention for its creative campaign. Some of the products from the original assortment were later made available on the company’s eStore, where they continue to be popular among consumers.

Control your brand image.Brand management is brand protection. By controlling what products feature your brand image and messaging, you control what your brand represents to the world. As your partner in branding initiatives, your promotional products provider should understand your brand and have practices in place that

4 ways to save money and time and reduce risk in promotional marketing.

of consumers said they liked

getting promotional products.

83%

of the brand’s customers are

pet owners.

66%

www.StaplesPromotionalProducts.com

protect your image. These practices relate to logo control, adherence to product safety regulations and attention to issues of social compliance. The instantaneous exchange of information made possible through digital technology and the Internet makes the action of sharing your logo with anyone worthy of consideration. For big brands, the possibility of leaked files and resulting counterfeit merchandise threatens to divert sales and dillute the brand image. For any brand, ensuring a logo is used in accordance with the company’s brand guidelines and reproduced in a high-quality manner is paramount. Responsible promotional products providers offer digital asset management capabilities, such as MediaBank®. Staples Promotional Products offers this state-of-the-art secure solution, which restricts access to logo files to only designated parties within our supply chain, thus ensuring your brand image is treated with the utmost professional care and responsibility.

Product safety and social compliance are increasingly important issues surrounding the sale and distribution of consumer goods. Each year hundreds of companies experience negative publicity, product recalls and even lawsuits related to items that are found to pose safety hazards or involve production methods distasteful to the general public. For example, in June 2010, the fast food restaurant chain McDonald’s, in cooperation with the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, issued a voluntary recall of 12 million collectable drinking glasses due to potential risk from cadmium used in the design4.

Experiences like this are costly and embarrassing for the brands involved. Purchasing items known to be safe and socially compliant from a reputable promotional products provider is the best way to avoid expensive recalls and related bad press. Your promotional products provider is your brand partner. Offering your company promotional solutions that are safe for the end-user and sourced and manufactured responsibly helps protect your brand’s credibility and bottom line.

Consolidate internal purchasing.At many companies various individuals within the organization purchase branded materials – for special events, everyday use or seasonal marketing initiatives. Without a system in place to consolidate these types of purchases into discounted bulk buys, many companies risk overspending. Decentralized purchasing costs more than money – related administrative hours also add up. Fortunately, there is another way.

Staples Promotional Products offers clients the ability to consolidate purchases through an online ordering tool called Staples Promotional Products’ Book & RunSM solution. Think of this tool as a business-to-business

Brand investment.4 ways to save money and time and reduce risk in promotional marketing.

www.StaplesPromotionalProducts.com

equivalent to socially-driven group buy websites popular in the retail sector. Group buy websites offer discounts on products and services that go into effect when enough people collectively buy in. With Staples Promotional Products’ Book & RunSM solution, the same concept can be applied to a company’s promotional products purchases to net significant savings and prevent the risk of over (or under) purchasing.

Staples Promotional Products’ Book & RunSM solution enables businesses with decentralized spend to obtain an overall company cost savings by sharing same product needs through a web-based portal that makes it easy to accumulate purchases from various internal stakeholders. Adaptable to many corporate purchasing needs, Staples Promotional Products’ Book & RunSM℠ solution is an ideal way to collect orders for event-based promotions, such as golf tournaments, customer gifts or charity fundraisers. It works like this: Our clients select an item or assortment of products and a short order window. Orders are collected through a unique website which supports individual billing and shipping needs. As the required minimum is reached and the orders multiply, the per-item pricing decreases and creates an overall cost savings. The order minimum can be as low as one piece for the individual. The overall volume discount can be significant for all users across locations.

Case study: Reaching every location.A large healthcare organization with offices in several states recently utilized Staples Promotional Products’ Book & RunSM solution in conjunction with an annual breast cancer awareness campaign. By offering a centralized online portal, it was easier for end users from across the organization to place orders during a two-week window. Staples Promotional Products’ Book & RunSM solution helped the company double its participation for this event-based promotion compared to previous years. The promotion was also more successful than other similar campaigns the company has run. In addition to selling more merchandise, the company and its end users also experienced per-item savings. By harnessing the power of bulk purchasing, individuals saved 30 to 40 percent on the per-item pricing of some of the most popular products in the breast cancer awareness collection.

Promote your promotion.Whether your company utilizes a tool like Staples Promotional Products’ Book & RunSM solution or offers branded products through a traditional in-stock merchandise program, in order to yield better sales, it’s important to advertise – even to internal buyers. During the short window that a Staples Promotional Products’ Book & RunSM solution offer is available, it’s imperative to alert potential shoppers via e-mails, social media announcements and even paper fliers posted around your facilities. Especially when your company has invested in a collection of in-stock branded merchandise, spreading the word is vital to netting returns on your promotional dollars. General awareness e-mails and announcements released via social media on a regularly scheduled basis can help remind shoppers about your

Brand investment.4 ways to save money and time and reduce risk in promotional marketing.

Individuals saved 30% to 40%

on the per-item pricing of the most popular products in the breast cancer

awareness collection.

www.StaplesPromotionalProducts.com

available inventory. Your promotional products partner may be able to assist in the development of such e-mail marketing materials for a traditional in-stock merchandise program. Your solutions provider should also measure the effectiveness of your marketing, as well as gauge interest in individual products in your eStore, by utilizing reporting and analytics tools. Analytics tools can provide insight into the needs of key users within your merchandise program so that you can target them with relevant offers and information. The chart below shows a direct correlation between an e-mail marketing campaign and increased eStore activity for a Staples Promotional Products client with a traditional in-stock merchandise program.

Concluding summarySmart management of promotional marketing dollars is all about conscientious spending. To truly connect with your customers, determine what you can offer that would be meaningful to them as a representation of your brand. Invest only in items you and your promotional products provider can be confident are safe for end-users and your brand image. Avoid the possibility of overbuying – and ensure a bulk discount – through consolidated purchasing, and always make a point to actively promote your promotion.

As your brand partner, Staples Promotional Products can deliver creative solutions and exceptional values in promotional marketing. We have 65 years of experience in the promotional products industry and a global network that gives us the ability to source or develop the most effective promotional products for any business budget. We bring easy to your branding initiatives.

Brand investment.4 ways to save money and time and reduce risk in promotional marketing.

www.StaplesPromotionalProducts.com

Brand investment.4 ways to save money and time and reduce risk in promotional marketing.

Source listing

1. “The Effectiveness of Promotional Products as an Advertising Medium.” Promotional Products Association International. 2009. http://www.ppai. org/inside-ppai/research/documents/effectiveness%20ofpromotional products%20as%20anadmedium_saletool.pdf

2. “Global Advertising Specialties Impressions Study.” Advertising Specialty Institute. 2010. http://www.asicentral.com/asp/open/Research/ impressionsstudy/Ad_Spec_Impressions_Study_2010.pdf

3. Ibid, Global.

4. “McDonald’s Recalls Movie Themed Drinking Glasses Due to Potential Cadmium Risk.” News from U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. June 4, 2010. http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml10/10257.html