At Adelsberger Marketing, we typically focus on digital marketing for our clients, but we also recognize the value of physical items in marketing. Whether this is something for inside the company or something to give out to the community, both have some finer points to consider. Let’s jump in with internal use first. As a business owner, I love giving my team new swag. Well, why? I think it accomplishes several goals. One, it makes culture practical. One of the great values of swag is that it can allow you to make the components of your workplace culture practical, like making stickers or clothing that emphasizes the core values of your organization. Two, it can make you feel like part of a team, sort of like sports jerseys. Swag can help people feel part of a larger group. Feeling like you belong is an important part of great workplace culture. It can make them feel valued. Giving gifts is a great way to help people feel like they are valued somewhere. And it can be used for recognition. Some companies use special gifts to recognize special accomplishments or longevity in a position. While we get some indirect marketing benefits from equipping our staff with swag, we also see it as a valuable tool for marketing our business as well. Top of mind awareness can be created by swag. It’s hard to measure top of mind awareness, but it certainly plays a role in customers’ purchasing behavior. We’re in Jackson, Tennessee, and there’s actually two safari parks close by. But I bet if I polled our community, 9 out of 10 would only know about one of them. And it’s actually one that is a few minutes further away from us because they invest heavily in top of mind marketing. Swag, when selected and used well, can help you create top of mind awareness in your target market. It’s a physical reminder of your company. We love to give our clients and friends things that make them think about us when they use it, whether that be a sweatshirt or maybe even socks. And it’s late marketing through affiliation. If you do a good job with Swag, People will wear it in the community or they’ll give you a shout out on social media for it. You gain a few marketing points by affiliation with those folks or just as a visible recognition of your brand in the community. Either way, if you’re trying to do internal or external with physical gifts, here’s a few things that you should think about. One, make it unique. Thinking beyond just your logo on things, engage a graphic designer to create something fun for your brand. But also, sometimes unique items will leave more of a mark. Also, make it useful. If the item is useless to the target, it will end up in the trash. Thinking through how people will make it useful will make it a better gift for those people. Or make sure that it’s target market adjacent. So if you have dog people who are customers, maybe create some dog toys. And then quality items. Getting good quality items will increase the likelihood that others will utilize it and therefore increase your ROI on the purchase. A good pen will be used more than a cheap one. Here at Adelsberger Marketing, we’re ready to help you think about building culture with swag. But if you’re really getting into ordering some new gear, I would point you to our friends at IMS Promos here in Jackson. They will hold your hand through the entire process, and we’ve gotten some great sweatshirts and socks from them in the last year. My question to you would be, what’s your favorite piece of corporate swag that you’ve gotten, internal or external? I’d love to hear about it. Send me an email at kevin@adelsbergermarketing.com, and stay tuned for future episodes of the Content Machine podcast, where we’ll talk more about marketing culture and leadership in the small business environment.
