The good news is that the weak pound has caused a surge in export orders, meaning that the manufacturing sector in January saw its swiftest growth for  a decade and a half according to the PMI (Purchasing Managers’ Index) but while that may mean a quicker lift out of recession, there are still tough decisions to be made in business.

As everybody tries to limit spending, whilst wooing new customers or trying to persuade existing ones to increase their order books, corporate gifts and promotional items can play a substantial role in helping create an atmosphere of growth and hope. There are three steps to creating a cost-effective promotional scheme:

1.    Be sure about the target audience – you need to identify the right people (CEOs or purchasing managers? Mid-level decision-makers or top level executives?) and then choose a promotional item that meets their daily needs. High level executives will not use promotional pens but might see value in a top quality printed bag bearing your company details, while frontline staff will use all the pens you can supply them with but giving them bags would be an over-investment that probably wouldn’t bring enough return on your expenditure to be worthwhile.

2.    Refine the message you wish to project – and bear in mind that this isn’t just the slogan you use, but the medium that carries it: an organic fair-trade T-shirt tells a story about your company’s values and aspirations even before you label it with a message. Baseball caps convey speed and youth, so if you’re in the business of fast service, giving embroidered baseball caps as promotional gifts could be an excellent idea.

3.    Set your ROI and measurement systems – how will you know

•    Who received your promotional item?
•    What use they made of it?
•    Whether it converted into a new or enhanced income stream?

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Offering a range of promotional clothing as business gifts can be good for business as it helps you deliver a promotional or customer loyalty campaign by providing a worthwhile reward to customers without having too much effect on your budget.

There are two classic ways to run campaigns using clothing as rewards or incentives. They are:

Scaling up incentives

This is where people get a reward of increased value depending on how much they spend. The lowest reward might be some sweatbands or a visor, then, for a higher spend, a baseball cap or an embroidered beanie hat. At the next level of spend you might reward your customer with a printed T-shirt and at the top level of spend they might receive a custom printed hoodie or fleece. This kind of incentive can also run as a loyalty campaign where the customer gets to save up ‘stamps’ or ‘vouchers’ for each purchase they make and then trade them in for a promotional clothing item. The more loyalty tokens they have, they better the garment they get as a reward.

Launch campaigns

To create media and customer interest you can use promotional items around the launch of a new product or service or to promote an existing one. Media goody bags can be a good idea here, but journalists are very unlikely to use promotional clothing so cans of soft drink overprinted with your promotional message, notepads, pens and gifts like printed umbrellas may be a better idea, all packed into a screen-printed bag that carries your launch message.

Take care to ensure that you don’t spend more on a promotional campaign than you will get back in increased publicity that you can convert into sales and make sure that any loyalty scheme rewards are durable and of good quality as customers soon feel cheated if you’ve given them shoddy clothing that doesn’t last.

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It’s fascinating to realise that many people will judge your company or business by the promotional items you give away.

There are two forms of judgement – rational and emotional.

1.    The first is when people decide if your post-it pads are cheap and nasty or smart and useful, whether your brand-printed baseball caps are stylish or tacky. It’s largely value-free and based on facts.
2.    The second kind of judgment happens when they use their emotional intelligence to estimate your company by nature of the promotional items. For example, do they feel flattered or insulted by your offering?

This is particularly important when opening new business contacts and relationships – if you give them a mug with your business details on it, are you saying they are the kind of person you expect to be always stuck in the office? Alternatively, does a vest imply that they are sporty and maybe slack off work to go running or to the gym? Does the screen-printed bag you gave them suggest they are a valued customer or are you saying that you think they are the kind of person who walks around with a rubbishy plastic bag they should replace with your gift?

When picking out the perfect promotional product for a certain occasion, you need to consider the emotional intelligence that your clients will bring to bear. Some items: key rings, pens and calendars, sweatshirts, and memory sticks, are emotionally neutral while others: intimate garments, literature, cosmetics etc are very personal and may carry a heavy emotional load.

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It’s important to pick the right kind of promotional materials to support your business – there’s an almost limitless range of promotional gifts, giveaways and goods on offer, so how do you know which will work best for you?

Begin by thinking about your customers as well as your business – what item would be most valuable to them? Examples include:
•    Insurance/finance/customer service based businesses – these can give away desk best items such as calendars or post it pads.
•    Retail businesses – for retail operations, giving away reusable printed bags can be a fantastic way of building loyalty in customers and getting free advertising as people carry them around everywhere.

Then think about what would most help your staff to develop and support your business:

•    Promotional clothing can be used as part of an employee appreciation programme that encourages good staff performance – printed polo-shirts that bear the company logo and job title of the employee can also be used to indicate status – a better quality polo-shirt can be attained by delivering a certain level of service or making an agreed number of sales.
•    It can also be used to promote your business to customers by giving it as promotional gifts especially if you can use to as prizes for customer competitions or as an incentive to get people to visit your stand at exhibitions or trade fairs. Baseball caps are a great incentive for this kind of customer attraction scheme.

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A survey is being carried out to find out what people think of the uniform worn by North Wales Police officers. The new uniform was introduced by their former chief constable and features baseball hats worn with black polo shirts with embroidered logos and combat trousers.

What the survey aims to discover, is whether different uniform clothing makes officers appear professional and/or approachable. And people are not slow to come forward with their opinions. Conservative MP David Jones has already stated that he’s not in favour of baseball caps, ‘The traditional helmet or flat cap looks significantly more professional,’ he said, adding that, ‘It would be very helpful to the police in terms of generating respect from the public if they were to adopt a more traditional uniform.’

There seems to be an age split in the informal responses – younger people think the more casual uniform looks more ‘practical’ and ‘up to date’ while older people think the uniform should convey ‘respect’ and ‘authority’.

It’s a vital concern for business to understand how elements of workplace clothing are viewed by customers and the general public. If polo shirts look casual to most people, they may not be the best choice for a courier or security firm that wants to give the impression of professionalism and safety. On the other hand, if a work jacket gives the impression of being similar to a military or police uniform top, it can escalate levels of hostility if it’s being worn by nightclub door staff or those supervising crowds at public events.

Picking the right clothing to express the aims and ideals of your company can help people have confidence in your staff.

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Most of us are familiar with the kind of promotional clothing used by fun runs and other events, like concerts. Right now the internet is packed with a variety of T-shirts that have been designed to raise funds for the victims of the Haiti earthquake. But many items of promotional clothing, like printed or embroidered T-shirts, have more value than just their fund-raising potential.

•    First, these items of clothing commemorate an event or person – this gives them a sentimental value.
•    Second, if they are well-designed garments, they also have a chance of developing ‘collector’ status – this is where something that was designed to recognised a current event ends up becoming a nostalgic emblem.
•    Third, items like embroidered caps or printed messenger bags have recently developed cult status: this happens when the design is iconic and much copied, but the original item is coveted for its rarity and brand status.

A business can’t necessarily aim to develop these kinds of value in their clothing, but it can always aim to choose designs, colours, styles and qualities of clothing that might help it achieve added value in its chosen staff uniform or promotional clothing.

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The Hen Night of the noughties is going to be a completely different animal to that of the first decade of the new century. Why?

•    Brides are older
•    Pockets are lighter
•    Second marriages are more common
•    Same sex ‘weddings’ are the biggest growth market in the wedding field.

So how do you organise one of the ‘new’ Hen Nights?

First, the traditional Hen Night on the evening before the wedding is dead – anything from two to five weeks before the big day has become standard, to allow everybody time to recover.

Day is the new night – daytime activities have become much more popular, especially with older brides and same sex couples – and a lot of these activities are charity related: sponsored swims and runs etc. If you incorporate a ‘doing good’ component in your ‘feel good’ Hen event, get some printed caps showing the name of the bride and the charity she’s raising money for. You’ll often find you get a lot of public support from passers by which is a lovely way to celebrate. Daytime fun also means that your group doesn’t get too drunk too fast which is good, and allows everybody to get to know each other better.

If you’re organising a pamper day or spa weekend, why not have some personalised items? Personalised bags containing inexpensive supplies of nail varnish, face packs, massage oil etc are fun to share – if you pick a different theme for each bag (hair, feet, fingernails, eyes, lips, legs etc) you can each carry out beauty treatments for the rest of the group.

The drinking part of the party is always fun, but make sure that you carry a fully-charged mobile and everybody has your number – it’s really easy for people to get separated, especially if they’ve had a drink or two and then you have the hassle of tracking them down. One hen party had the organiser’s mobile number embroidered in tiny letters on their celebration t-shirts – it meant that even if somebody got lost (or passed out) the organiser could be contacted.

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There are a few basic rules to choosing uniform clothing:

•    Consult your staff – they are the ones who have to wear what you select, and they may not feel happy about wearing something too outrageous.

As an example, Air New Zealand’s newest uniform look has been criticised by staff who say the flamboyant pink dresses makes them look like drag queens.  The new uniform is due to appear in 2011. An airline spokesman the new look as ‘contemporary’ and offering ‘greater expression of femininity’ but a flight attendant who spoke to New Zealand’s Dominion Post said ‘The flight attendants look like drag queens’.

•    Consult your clients – they are the ones will think well or badly of your business depending on the uniform you choose.

In 2008, Thames Valley Police replaced some traditional helmets with an embroidered baseball cap to meet the demands of modern policing. But it turned out to be a failure – comments on the hats included the suggestion that it was ‘inappropriate to be in a baseball cap when having to tell a relative that a loved one had died’. And other commentators said the caps was ‘too similar to other uniforms, such as Burger King’. So the new kit has been replaced by the old kit, and everyone seems happier.

•   Consult your budget – buying complicated uniforms can be expensive, especially if they don’t work out.

Instead of following Air New Zealand’s example, start by adding a  pink T-shirt with a DTG printed image on it. If your staff and customers are happy with that, you can expand the uniform line, adding a cap, then a jacket with an embroidered logo etc, but if it doesn’t work out, the experiment isn’t too costly and doesn’t result in a public relations failure.

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Famed British psychologist and magician Richard Wiseman has suggested four ways that people can stand a better chance of keeping their New Year’s Resolutions. They are:

1) Break your goal into a series of steps, focusing on creating sub-goals that are concrete, measurable, and time-based.
2) Tell your friends and family about your goals, thus increasing the fear of failure and eliciting support.
3) Regularly remind yourself of the benefits associated with achieving your goals by creating a checklist of how life would be better once you obtain your aim.
4) Expect to revert to your old habits from time to time. Treat any failure as a temporary set-back rather than a reason to give up altogether.

It all makes perfect sense, but how can businesses adapt his tested methods to achieve their own resolutions?

1.    Work with your team or staff to identify the sub-goals that lead to the big result. If dispatch need to be processing 25% more orders a year, can they work faster, or smarter by finding streamlined ways of doing their job? If sales need to sell 25% more can it be achieved by up-selling, cold-calling, converting more queries to sales? When you’ve identified each sub-goal, give it a deadline and have it printed on T-shirts for your team so that they know what they have to do to meet the goal.
2.    ‘We’re getting orders out by 3pm this month’ or ‘In February we’ll beat our competitor’s deals by 5%’ is a message your staff can wear and your customers can understand. It makes them accountable to everybody they meet and they will know they’ll have to answer questions on that target and how they are getting on with busting it, and that provides motivation. When they meet those sub-goals, give them celebratory T-shirts to show that you know they’ve done what they committed to.
3.    If you’re going to host a dinner at a local restaurant, or give everybody a productivity bonus when they hit their target, get that printed on T-shirts too: put the restaurant’s menu on the front so every team member is reminded when they look at a colleague that they’re working for something they really want. Alternatively, print aprons with the restaurant logo on and hang them up around the department to remind everybody of the great reward ahead. If it’s money you’re giving, have the amount embroidered on a cap that each supervisor wears so that the team get a constant incentive to work towards success.
4.    If a monthly target is missed, don’t yell and shout, just give the team a ‘better luck next time’ reward such as a vest or sleeveless T-shirt that thanks them for trying and encourages them to achieve more next month.

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If your business is not on the high street it may be struggling to get the level of public attention – and business – it deserves. But small businesses can easily use promotional clothing to boost their sales.

This Christmas, above all others, the average shopper is likely to be looking for a bargain. Money is tight and that means that people are seeking the best deal for the cash they have. And small businesses can actually offer more, not less, than their bigger rivals.

How about a free mince pie or foot massage for customers? Hire a couple of students from the local college who are studying to be beauticians for the massage, or catering students to provide food, and kit them out in promotional clothing such as aprons and caps trimmed with tinsel – then let them loose on your customers!

Or link to a local charity and have some ‘Special Edition’ promotional T-shirts printed – say that you’re going to donate 5% of every purchase over £50 to the charity and have somebody from the charity on hand to offer a thank you Christmas card to everybody who spends enough to reach donation level. People love to feel they’ve done some good for others and this creates a relationship in their minds between you and them.

Alternatively, organise something for kids – invest in some plain white T-shirts and fabric pens and ask them to design you a new logo or a Christmas themed slogan – then photograph each entry, display all the photos in your shop or office, and give a prize to the ‘winner’. The kids will never take off their hand-made T-shirts and will tell everybody they meet over Christmas how and where they made it – instant free advertising and lots of brand loyalty from tired parents who will remember that you kept their little darlings quiet for quite possibly the only time that day.

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