Mention the idea of promotional products to most people in the business world and chances are the only response will be a collective sigh of boredom. Of course this isn’t difficult to understand, what with recent decades having brought along small armies of fuzzy bugs, crappy key rings and other apparent corporate ‘gifts’ that for the most part were as useful as gout. As such, it’s hard to get too excited about the subject in general these days, though there is at least one shining light among the gloom that’s unlike any other:
How exciting can a business calendar be? Well, the simple answer is very exciting indeed…at least as far as long-term marketing tools go, anyway. To design fantastic corporate calendars and hand them out to anyone of importance to your business could have the very real potential to give your business as a whole a welcome boost. It’s almost impossible to classify these kinds of gifts in the same category as the usual novelties that find their way into the bin more often than not, but what exactly is it that makes a good business calendar such a powerful tool for nudging your brand in the right direction?
1 – Something They Need
Well, right off the bat it’s worth bearing in mind that even in the digital age, there aren’t many offices or workplaces across the country that don’t still rely on traditional calendars day in and day out. As such, to offer a business calendar as a gift is to offer something that’s of genuine use and value – gift that’s guaranteed to be appreciated instead of just being tossed in the garbage right away. The very best corporate gifts have always been those that are useful – a calendar just so happens to be one of the most useful business tools in the book.
2 – A Full Year of Marketing
There really aren’t many tools or tricks of the trade than can result in your brand and your message being displayed proudly in the office of another business for a full 365 days in a row. This is the kind of marketing gold that money alone cannot buy, yet comes as standard with a good corporate calendar. If you come up with a design they’ll genuinely want to hang in the office, this means your name and your business in lights on the office wall for a whole year. And every time anyone looks at the calendar, they’ll be given a gentle reminder that you exist and how awesome you are for giving such a great gift.
3 – An Interactive Gift
But the promotional benefits for your business don’t just begin and end with gentle reminders when the calendar is glanced upon either. Far from it in fact, as the very nature of a calendar is such that it will (hopefully) be used several times a day on each and every day of the year across the board. This means all the freedom in the world to add more brand-related content and snippets on the pages that will be interacted with over the long term, once again cementing your name as a brand leader in your field. And of course, the more the name of your brand gets drilled in the heads of those using it on a daily basis, the less likely they ever are to forget who you are and what you do.
4 – Imagination
Another way in which a corporate calendar can give your business a boost in the eyes of peers and partners alike is by displaying your creativity and imagination. It’s far too easy these days to just order a shipment of pens, pencils or anything else with your name and logo attached – it takes far more thought and creativity to create a fantastic calendar from scratch. As such, if you’d rather be known as an innovative business rather than just another face in the herd, a good way of making it happen is to put your name to a corporate calendar.
5 – Inspiration
Last but not least, if you play your cards right in terms of imagery and general content, there’s a strong chance you’ll build a kind of inspiring association with the content of your calendar. Or to put it another way, if you manage to make it so that when the recipients of the calendar lay eyes on certain imagery or products they immediately think of you and your brand, you’ve pretty much hit the nail on the head. This means being extremely selective, careful and indeed clever when it comes to the images you choose – each of which should in some way be relevant to who you are and what you do.
