This month an online shopfront with a difference has opened – it’s for Pope Benedict XVI’s September trip to the UK and offers a series of mementoes: an embroidered baseball cap like the one the Pope has been seen wearing himself this summer, keyrings and fridge magnets and a range of T-shirts including one that can be personalised to include the name of the individual’s local church.

Several commentators have remarked on how similar the highly detailed printed T-shirts are to heavy metal designs and colour schemes it’s hoped they will appeal to a wide range of ‘pilgrims’ to help cover the £7 million cost of the visit.

The church is not alone in merchandising for the trip: the National Secular Society also has an online presence offering T-shirts with the slogan ‘Pope Nope’.

If your business is merchandising for an event or promotion, try thinking about how you offer your merchandise – you can use the angle of local identity, perhaps by promoting your locality, alongside your business, offering T-shirts with maps to local parks but including your shop.

Try point of sale branding if you have a physical location too, such as on sunny days giving away a baseball cap with your telephone number on it, or a rain hat or umbrella on rainy days. You can even offer a random prize for people buying in your shop or ringing up, every sixtieth customer, or whatever, can be sent a promotional T-shirt with their order, and you can give unrecognisable information about each winner (eg their first name and initial of surname, to keep within data protection rules) on your website.

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It may seem insane to be thinking about promotional jackets now – given our tropical weather – but it’s the perfect moment to consider revising your uniform so that you have jackets that meet the needs of your staff and the needs of your company.

Staff requirements from promotional jackets

1.    Easy to wear: clothing must allow the wearer to move easily, especially when undertaking tasks like loading vehicles, putting out stock, moving items of equipment etc
2.    Washable: any garment has to be fresh and clean, so ensure your choice of jacket can be machine washed so that your employees have a chance to launder their outerwear easily
3.    Breathable: in some environments a thick jacket is necessary, in others a lightweight one is better. Consider zip lining jackets or ordinary fleeces that can be worn under a waterproof jacket to allow staff to adjust their outer clothing to the conditions they experience

Brand requirements from promotional jackets

A jacket embroidered or printed with a company logo allows a brand to advertise itself, but it needs to be:

1.    substantial – so that it lasts for several years: anything too lightweight won’t be a worthwhile return on the company’s investment
2.    appropriately designed – an embroidered logo looks stylish, lasts well and gives an impression of seriousness and longevity. On the other hand, a bright over-printed jacket gives an impression of youth and freshness
3.    worn! Seriously – a jacket that the staff hate just won’t be worn in public and that means your promotional budget is wasted.

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What Is Transfer Printing?

Transfer printing allows the conversion of a high resolution image – maybe a photograph, line-art or painting – onto transfer paper. Unlike home transfer printing, the commercial quality transfer paper creates a much more detailed image of higher quality. While images can be printed form a wide range of formats such BMP, Tif Gif and Jpeg, the final result is more dependant on the quality of the original image than on anything else which means that the quality of the original is essential to getting a good garment result.  Using a commercial heat press and silicone release paper, the image is then transferred to a garment.

What Are Its Advantages?

Transfer printing is both fast and low in price.
It’s a good way of getting hold of small numbers of printed garments like T-shirts
There is no limit to the number of print colours.

What Can It Be Used For?

Transfer printing is ideal if you have a school competition for which you want T-shirts – schools have used this service to create portrait T-shirts for debating clubs or for inter-house competitions or to commemorate a sporting success by having a team photo printed rapidly onto a small quantity of celebratory long-sleeved T-shirts to give to the team players.

It’s also ideal for printing short run items for workplace promotions. Several companies have an ‘employee of the month’ campaign which includes items like printed aprons or other items of work clothing, which are given to the winning team.

The Drawbacks To Transfer Printing

Transfer printing can only take place onto white fabric.

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Many companies, or even colleges, end up as brands.  Laurie Essig, over at True Slant, is bemoaning the way the college she attended, Franklin and Marshall, has become one of the most wanted casual clothing brands in Europe and Japan, without the actual clothing line having anything to do with the college at all!

At the same time, HMV are hoping to turn around a declining market share by creating an ‘entertainment-inspired’ clothing range that launches in June. The line will feature rock and film imagery on music themed T-shirts aimed at the 18-30 male market and checked shirts and scarves for ‘festival-chic’ women. It’s the spearhead of a strategy that will move the company away from its traditional lines of CDs and DVDs into more ‘lifestyle’ sales.

So while your business might not seem to lend itself to establishing a strong clothing brand, it’s worth considering if the next Caterpillar boots trend or the rapidly building craze for cowboy hats could launch from, or help support, your business.  There’s a current desire for retro style aprons which any catering or hardware company could tap into, by creating branded pinnys for sale. And skinny leg jeans are being supported by husky work shirts, which is a great chance for engineering and trade businesses to put their workforce into fashionable uniforms that can also be sold or given to clients as a goodwill gesture.

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Recent research in the USA shows that women are three times better than men at remembering names and logos. This means that to get the best return on your promotional activity, it may be a good idea to focus on choosing items that appeal to women as that gives you a 75% higher chance of being remembered! Another report shows that women who see a brand name on TV or around the home are five times more likely to seek out that brand when shopping than those who don’t have exposure to that brand.

Promotional clothing can be an ideal way of marketing your company, goods or services to women but you need to ensure that you choose well-fitting, fashionable and comfortable items as women are notoriously fussy about what they wear and will reject anything ugly, old-fashioned or ill-fitting.

Simple T-shirt shapes in classic colours are particularly popular with women – white or navy are the most popular summer colours with grey and black being winter favourites. Remember that any colour that it’s difficult for certain people to wear (such as red for redheads) can limit the ability of your garment to be worn by large numbers of people and again, women are much more likely to reject popular casual clothing items in the ‘wrong’ shades.

Equally popular, and increasingly sought after, are caps and summer hats for children. It seems that as we become more aware of the effects of sun on young skin, women are taking the responsibility for protecting small people from UV damage and hats that keep the sun off kiddies’ faces are a real winner for summer promotions.

In winter, overprinted bags may be the best bet, as carrying shopping etc in bad weather can mean that a roomy and well-designed bag gets used for months on end.

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Investing in promotional clothing or high quality personalised uniforms is a big step for a small business – it means laying out a reasonably large amount of money for what often seems like no sales return. How do you choose which company should get that money and how can you try to turn your investment into immediate sales?

Choosing a uniform provider

Communications with the companies you’re choosing between can be vital – see how they handle your questions about returns and re-orders, alterations to your order or special needs such as unusual sizes. The way that a company deals with your initial order can be a real clue to how they are going to work out in the long term. If they take time to understand your needs, can make suggestions that will save you money, and seem to care about getting things right, that’s good. Above all though, are they prompt in replying to you and do they answer the questions that you ask? If not … be careful.

Make sure your chosen provider has a good range of top clothing brands, so that you can be confident your order will be printed or embroidered on clothing that will look good and last well.

Turn clothing into orders

Use your new uniform to publicise your business – even the smallest firm can write a press release saying that it’s got a new corporate look, take a digital photo of a staff member wearing the new uniform, and email it to the local press and the trade papers. If they don’t use it, it’s cost you nothing but if there’s an empty inch of space, an editor has to fill it with something, and now that most papers and magazines are also online, they have a real need to fill their pages with new information, so you could easily find you get good free publicity.

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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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If you have a workforce, whether of several hundred, or just two or three, offering them a high quality piece of clothing as a Christmas gift can be a great way of rewarding their hard work over the previous year and showing them that you recognise their contribution to your company’s performance.

Polo-shirts and T-shirts are ideal presents for a younger member of staff, and if you personalise the clothing with their name, it’s an added compliment because it shows that you know who they are! Take care though, don’t get T-shirts printed with Francis if everybody calls him Frank, or spell Robyn as Robin, that just offends people and makes them believe you really don’t know who they are, after all.

For older staff, or to distinguish managers or supervisors from the rest of the workforce, a personalised fleece is fantastic gift – it’s warm, easy to wear and fashionable and can we worn at work over other items of uniform without interfering with the member of staff’s ability to perform their task. Fleeces can be embroidered with a name or initials in the form of a monogram to give them an extra air of luxury.

For hip young things, a personalised hoody is a stunning gift. Hoodies appeal to people in the media and creative industries, where they have almost become a uniform item in the way that shirts and ties are in a more established business field.

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What can you give to every one of your customers this year that they’ll appreciate and use?

A good bag is the ideal early Christmas gift or item of promotional merchandise. Even people who do 99% of their shopping online will find themselves making shopping trips for something, often at the last minutes, and they’ll need a bag to carry their purchases home in.

Equally, this is the time of year when people convey files and other equipment from the office to work on at home over Christmas, and a sturdy bag is the ideal freebie to have given them, because it will encourage them to bless your company and remember your name as they stuff their new acquisition full of whatever it is that they fondly hope they will somehow find time for over the festive season.

So what makes a good bag? A good size, well made and nicely printed are your three criteria. If you want to be truly festive, pick Christmas colours: red, green and white, but remember that a bag that is too clearly Xmas-related may not continue to be used all year round. Make sure that your printed message is large, well-designed and attractive – tiny logos get lost on the side of a bag, and too much big block lettering can look clunky and cheap. Get your designer’s advice because often they know what works best and can help you create a bag design that will appeal to people and work for you for years.

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If you want T-shirts but don’t have the design skills or the budget to produce an image for them, why not use clothes2order to obtain just what you want at a really good price?

We now have a range of the most popular, funny, satirical and cute T-shirts in the world, pre-designed for you and available to order in a range of prices from the absolute bargain to the luxuriously personalised.

The great advantages of this system are several: the cost is the obvious one, but with pre-designed orders there’s also speed to consider and you can choose the colour and style of your T-shirt, hoodie, or whatever to match with your idea of how you want the final garment to look, to end up with a personalised garment that’s also one of the world’s favourite style tops.

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