Decorated water bottles is one of the thousands of products in the promotional product (swag) industry, as well as one of the more popular. When branding your water bottle, first select the perfect water bottle which fits your budget and audience. Second, create the design and select the imprint method. Did you know there are at least seven different type of inks used to decorate water bottles?
Here are seven inks methods used to decorate water bottles:
- One to five color screen print: This is the most common way to decorate. Each color will add an additional run charge and screen charge to the cost.
- Gloss or matte ink: A tone-on-tone look can be achieved with gloss ink on a matte finish or matte ink on a gloss finish to create a subtle yet elegant look. Take a look
- Metallic or glitter ink: Add some sparkle to your logo. Here is an example.
- Etch Ink: On a clear glass or plastic bottle a frosted ink creates an etched glass look.
- Elevated Ink: State-of-the-art process with a clear, gel-like ink which is used to create a 3-D effect, giving it an embossed look and feel. Take a look at an example of elevated ink.
- Mirror Ink: On a glass bottle this imprint method allows your logo to be seen from the inside out. Here is an example
- Chalk Ink: A chalkboard ink allows you to write on the surface with chalk. This is a great way to write names as shown here
March 18, 2021
Bethany Black
standart
Generally speaking -- and particularly with B2B promotions -- the primary objective of a dimensional marketing program is to land a face-to-face meeting with the targeted decision maker.
Every salesperson will tell you that it’s not easy. Gatekeepers abound, the intended recipient is busy, and he or she typically gets all sorts of come-ons weekly or more often.
Free gift offers can work. But most do little to exploit the curiosity factor and, at the risk of sounding cynical, the greed factor.
Yes, there are freebies that are enticing. However, there’s a third factor that shouldn’t be ignored. For lack of a better definition, we’ll call it “involvement.”
This is not about involving the target with some intriguing gizmo or whatzit. It’s about captivating the target with the promise of getting the complete promo item – but only if he or she agrees to meet.
The promo products world is replete with multi-part items that are essentially useless without all the parts in place. So one strategy is to tease the recipient with parts...and then offer to “complete” the item at a meeting (“Let me show you how we can put it all together for you!”).
For just one example, imagine that your free gift offer is an RC race car. In mailer #1, you send the batteries that would be needed for the remote control and the vehicle. In mailer #2, you send the remote control. And in mailer #3, you send the decal set.
Admittedly, this would not be a cheap promotion. But properly romanced, it could secure that all-important meeting.
Smaller-scale/cost concepts are out there, too. It’s up to your imagination, your budget, and more. Yet the principle is the same: Involve the target with “Where’s the rest of it?”...and then land the meeting.
The point here is to promote with “parts” and then draw interest for the “completion,” meaning get the opportunity to pitch.
That takes us back to earlier conversations about program planning and, implicit in such, the value of working with promo product program professionals. You can go online and shop for every kind of tangible advertising product and every price point. But will it work? And how will you use the products to generate sales openings? And............well?
March 5, 2021
Bethany Black
standart
I must confess: Refrigerator magnets are my all-time favorite promotional products. Alas, those inexpensive versatile items get little respect.
Are they wildly creative? No. Are they typically unique? Not really. Do they boast a high perceived value. Nope. But do they work? Absolutely.
It’s not that they necessarily generate immediate response. The power of the fridge magnet is in its keepability and, yes, affordability. As promo products go, those items are comparatively dirt cheap to purchase, hand out, or mail. But more important is their messaging capability.
If some business sends you a fridge magnet in a plain ol’ #10 envelope, you’ll open the package to get to the gift inside. You may have already guessed what the surprise is, but you’ll rip open the envelope anyway.
Will you read the enclosed letter or flyer? Maybe. But if you’re like most people, you’ll keep the magnet.
And where will you put it? Chances are you’ll stick it on your refrigerator, which in most households is the family bulletin board and address book. In fact, many often refer to that “message board” to find the phone number of a particular business.
You know the information is there, because you see it every time you go to or walk by your fridge. In other words, that magnet is a 24/7 billboard.
It’s also incredibly cost effective.
Say a business sends out fridge magnet mailers at a cost of $2.00 each (creative, production, list, fulfillment, postage). You put the magnet on your fridge and then see it an average of three times per day. That’s roughly 1,000 impressions per year.
However, your spouse or domestic partner does the same. As a result, your little billboard is producing 2,000 impressions yearly...for a cost per placement of just $2.00. You do the math.
So the next time someone mentions fridge magnets, don’t treat the idea like it’s a Rodney Dangerfield.
January 27, 2021
Bethany Black
standart
Creative, Dimensional Marketing, Frequently Asked Questions, Prestige Promo News, Promotional Marketing
How Long is a Piece of String?
A silly question, yes? And the answer can only be, “twice as long as half its length.”
Yet over the years, I’ve had many prospects and clients who pose similar queries, such as “How much does a promotional program cost?” or “How long does it take to get this product?” or “What do you charge for a brochure?” The answer is always the same: “That depends.”
What necessarily follows is a bank of questions about the company, its products or services, what has and hasn’t worked in the past, what their objective is, ad nauseam.
Sadly, some prospects quickly grow irritated by the questioning, failing or refusing to realize that no agency, marketing group, or promotions business worth its salt can and will provide viable recommendations and cost estimates without those answers. Otherwise, they’ll be firing off the client’s budget in the dark...and that kind of blind budget shotgunning is destined for failure.
This applies equally to the development of a dimensional marketing program and the mere ordering of some promo widget. In both cases, the primary consideration must be, “What do you want to accomplish with this?”
In other words, if you don’t know where you want to go, don’t hit the road until you do...or you may wind up hundred$ of mile$ from where you thought you were going.
If you’re an advertiser, you want a product/service provider who first asks you why. And if you’re on the opposite side of the budget, you need to ask that same question – if only to CYA should the advertising fail.
I love it when someone calls us for a quote on a gross of coffee cups, for example. I then ask them how they plan to use the product, and too often they just don’t know.
So that string? It needs to be quantified and qualified before its “length” can be measured.
October 22, 2020
Bethany Black
standart
Creative, Dimensional Marketing, Frequently Asked Questions, Prestige Promo News, Promotional Marketing, Rush Jobs
You Want it When?
There’s an old adage in the ad biz:
RUSH jobs take twice as long, cost double, are only half as good, and always have to be redone.
Some of that may sound illogical. But go back to Ben Franklin’s observation that “Haste makes waste.” (Then again, ol’ Ben also said that “He who hesitates is lost.” So go figure.)The point here is that planning is key. That applies to marketing campaigns as much as it does to life in general. Last-minute hurry-ups without appropriate pre-planning and scheduling almost always result in mistakes. Some are minor, sure, but others are not quite so accommodate-able.
Case in point is a poster that was produced for an international shipping enterprise in Southern California. My team hired a professional photographer who went out and burned rolls of full-color “2-by’s” shots. He did a great job, and we and our client were impressed.
Alas, as we were reviewing the proof sheets of the shooter’s work and, at that time, ahead of schedule, the client told us that we had to select the photo and go to print now...as in “Right now!”
We obliged, and the client chose the photo he wanted. Off the image went to the printer, onto the press the image went, and no one was at the end of the press output to proof the image because there just was no time for such.
The 24” x 36” full-color posters were printed and delivered, and all were happy. Well, that is, until we and the client got a good look at the vastly enlarged image. In the lower left corner of the photo -- and something that only time and attention and planning would’ve revealed if we hadn’t been rushed – was some guy urinating on the side of a building.
Now if we’d been able to “study” the 2-by proof sheet and loop it, as the phrase goes, we’d have spotted the pee’er. But we were on RUSH. So it went.
Even worse, the printed posters had been shipped out to key targets, contacts, prospects, and more before we’d noticed the visual “insult.”
There is a lesson here for not just the purchase and use of promotional products, but more directly on same per a program plan that accommodates and accounts for calendaring...and that avoids last-minute risks and the consequent budget and marketing image costs.
That client appreciated the value of promo products, and that poster was one of those products. But their sudden haste certainly made for image waste and budget waste.
So really, when and what do you want?
August 21, 2020
Bethany Black
standart
Remember that audio prompt from the early days of AOL? Boy, how things have changed...and how e-communications have inundated the marketing mix. And it’s not just email anymore. It’s Facebook and Twitter and all the rest of social media.
But for now, at least, email still seems to reign. Not fully great or remotely tangible, yet it remains a viable advertising option...uh, somewhat.
Email is fast, cheap, and easy. Heck, in per-addressee cost, you can blast out all sorts of messaging for 1/10th a penny on the dollar, compared with traditional direct mail promotion costs.
Does it work, though? And do its social media cousins work for your business?
Maybe yes, maybe no. Depends on way too much to detail here (e.g., market, product, offer, audience, locations, et al.).
The thing is though, where’s the memorability? And more on that, where’s the “openability”?
Think about the latter.
How many emails do you get each day that if they don’t automatically go to your Junk or Spam folder you then delete without reading? If you’re like me, the answer is plenty.
Yet if you’re like too many advertisers, you don’t see the disconnect when you look at how to promote your product or business. You generally ignore all the unsolicited e-come-ons that try to cram your Inbox, but you often turn to using the same kind of uninvited emails to advertise your offerings. Do as I say, not as I do?
This then leads us to tangible advertising...and the programs that can and do make them work. And that raises the issue of “surprise” and, more importantly, “curiosity.”
Be honest here. Are you ever surprised to receive some e-pitch? And are you ever curious enough to open the email or, even worse, click on some embedded link (yep, the fear of being hacked cannot be downplayed)?
Now what if snail-mail (or FedEx or UPS) delivers an envelope or box that obviously contains something dimensional? Do you “delete” it into the circular file? Or do you open it, if only to see what the heck is inside?
And if you do open it – like the average person most certainly will – do you then toss the enclosed item in the trash bin? Or do you keep it, whether or not you care diddly about the offer, pitch, etc.?
Chances are that you keep it, even if the promo item is stupid-laughable. But you still keep it, and therein enters “memorability” for the advertiser...and memorability that derives from the openability of the mailing.
Direct marketing experts will tell you that the #1 challenge in any direct mail promotion is to get the target to open the mailer. A dimensional marketing program can get those mailings opened and, yes, remembered.
Every day 24/7, you’ve got email. Ditto for your customers and prospects, and ditto for the ease of hitting .
But an actual physical envelope that has something “lumpy” inside? Would you trash it without opening the package? Would your targets do likewise with this new-is-old-is-new-again version of “You’ve got mail”?
March 13, 2018
Bethany Black
standart