Wholesale Promotional Products: all you need to know

Wholesale promotional products are an exciting and successful way to draw the clients’ attention to your brand or company. Just go to any supermarket and you’ll find a lot of these products. And you surely remember a toy or some novelty that came along with another item you bought. There are many types of promotional products and different ways of manufacturing them, too.

Some questions arise: are they really useful? Which are the different types of promotional products? Where can I get them? Who make them? Is it good for my brand? Keep reading and you’ll find out the answers for these questions as well as the offer that we, at Martin’s, have for you.

Types of wholesale promotional products

Firstly, it’s safe to say that virtually any promotional product can be given (or explicitly sold) wholesale. With this in mind, there’s a whole world of options when speaking about promotional products. Some basic promotional products include custom t-shirts, coffee mugs, personalized pens, custom pencils and tote bags, and keychains.

They’re basic not because they’re bad or just too simple, but because these wholesale promotional products are the most famous, since a lot of companies and brands give them away and they’re useful for day-to-day life. Dig through your room, office or place of work, and you might find some of these products with the brand stamped on.

This said, there are diverse types of promotional products (They can also be called premiums), each one with a specific purpose, and, of course, a different impact. Promotional products can be divided into three categories according to how they are handed out: free, self-liquidating and in- or on-package. [1]

Free premiums

It refers to those promotional products that are given when a customer purchases an item. This means that if you acquire a certain product, you will receive a reward, for example, many coffee shops, like Starbucks, or fast-food establishments, like ice-cream parlors, offer their clients a free product when buying something specific.

This strategy is useful to boost a new company product or some other product that the seller wants to put up, since the clients feel compelled to take the product that will give them another one. And that’s where the promotional product fulfills its role.

Self-liquidating premiums

When a customer has to spend a definite amount in order to get a reward, we’re talking about self-liquidating promotional products. A good example of this is when a store announces that if you spend some money with them, let’s say $50 USD, you will receive a gift, like some other product related to the business in question.

Self-liquidating promotional products come in handy when a business wants to boost up their general sales. That’s why there’s a money-goal the clients need to reach in order to get the reward.

In- and on-package premiums

These are the promotional products that are included with the package of the main product. This strategy is very popular amongst daily products, especially food-related, like cereals or snacks. The promotional product might come inside the package (in-package) or along with it, usually in another package, both joined by a bigger container, like a box or bag (on-package).

This kind of promotional product is usually marketed with the aim of increasing sales of the main product by making it attractive. A good number of in- and on-package wholesale promotional products target children.

Customized products

A category apart, since the three previous are related to how the promotional product is placed, customized wholesale promotional products are an excellent opportunity to bring your client close to your brand. In what sense are we referring here to customized? Obviously since any product has stamped or printed a brand we could say it’s customized.

Let’s bring back, however, the basic products we’ve mentioned, like coffee mugs, keychains and pens. They’re not customized in a way that they don’t cause the same effect that a product that is unique in a sense that it belongs to your brand.

When we mention here a customized promotional product, we’re referring to that kind of item, one that makes curious your potential customers, one that will be cherished for an important period of time, one born from creative ideas that will encourage an emotional connection and will leave a positive mark on your clients so that they will think of purchasing your products again.

We at Martin’s are specialized in this kind of products. We help our clients to find the most adequate, useful type of wholesale promotional product, for example, for seasonal sales (Halloween, Christmas, Valentine’s) or new releases. You can check out some of the products we’ve manufactured in many commercial lines and be sure that we’ll find the perfect and best-designed promotional product for your brand.

Effectiveness of wholesale promotional products

In 2018 alone, promotional products generated more than $22 billion USD in sales, just in the United States [2]. That’s an impressive figure and it alone would convince almost any businessperson that wholesale promotional products are an excellent option for their brand because of the good advertising they represent.

Customized wholesale promotional products have proved to be an effective advertising way, since the customers feel the need to collect them all. A paradigmatic example would be The Coca-Cola Company with their Christmas promotional products: anywhere Coca-Cola had was present, people treasured the promotional seasonal products. You can make a quick search on Internet and find sites that sell or auction these products for collectors.

We can find another example of successful customized wholesale promotional products on toys. A lot of toy manufacturers can help companies with this endeavor, amongst them, Martin’s assists you from the very beginning to the end of your project, taking care of every detail.

One of the most successful promotional products examples all over the world can be found in McDonald’s Happy Meals. First conceived as a way to improve the families with children dining experience, at the end of the 70’s they started to expand internationally offering a surprise gift, usually a toy, for the kids. Quickly, Happy Meals became a McDonald’s signature product and other brands, usually movie companies, began to include their promotional products inside the Happy Meals boxes.

Mexican food company Bimbo launched some years ago these wholesale promotional products called Olocoons [3]. They were small plastic toys in the shape of monsters, each of them had a distinctive smell. As an in-package promotional product, they were conceived originally for the brand and sparked a fever that had Mexican children buying Bimbo products to get them all. The Olocoons even had their own miniseries on TV!

As a last example, we have another originally Mexican promotional product that went beyond the country borders, tazos. In this case, Sabritas, a snack foods company, included these circle-shaped plastic or metal products inside their products. First introduced in 1994, these promotional products benefited from licensing, from Looney Tunes, to Pokémon, and Yu-Gi-Oh!, they were a very successful promotional product in many places around the globe [4].

The three cases exposed previously have in common one trait: the companies searched for a customized wholesale promotional product. Putting aside that we’re speaking of big super popular brands, we should admit that their strategies let them increase their products sales and associate, maybe forever, their promotional products with their brand.

Fabricating the promotional products

Now we’ve come to a very important matter: how and where you can get your wholesale promotional products. Whether you’re looking to make them for your own brand or you’re intending to purchase wholesale promotional products for resale, you’ve got to find a reliable manufacturer.

The first thing to do, and you probably are already doing it, is research. A lot of suppliers don’t work with every type of promotional products or they don’t supply customized promotional products. It’s important to know that there are vendors that acquire the wholesale promotional products for resale, so they might just print your brand on them, and there are manufacturers too.

If you’re looking for a huge business, a business fair might be a great option to find all kinds of suppliers, for example, K Fair is a very important plastics industry fair that takes place every four years.

China is home to a lot of wholesale suppliers of promotional products, two companies that stand out are Alibaba and Chinabrands.

Alibaba serves over 200 countries which makes it one of the biggest wholesale distributors of promotional products, in 2018 alone its revenue reached $37.3 billion USD.

Chinabrands has years on the market of promotional merchandise and offers affordable products with a strict quality control [5].

In the U.S., for example, three of the largest promotional products suppliers are:

• Imprint4less offers a good amount of type of promotional products.
• Wholesale Central, as its name indicates it, manages exclusively wholesale promotional products.
• Deluxe has around 5 million small business as clients and one of its perks is that they offer discounts on wholesale purchases [5].

Mexico also has an appealing offer when it comes to wholesale promotional products, it shouldn’t be a surprise if we think that Mexican market is a huge one.

In Martin’s, we know very well this market and we acknowledge that two of our big advantages rely on this: one is our closeness to one of the largest markets in the world, the United States, and the other is that we have very competitive costs when it comes to manufacturing.

Many companies in Mexico deal exclusively with promotional products. Some of them are Art Promos Mexico, CAPSA, Todo Promocional, Figuimex, ADN Group, Promosoluciones, and Promoartículos.

We know that it’s not an easy task to find a reliable wholesale promotional products supplier. As we’ve mentioned, there’s a difference between being just a vendor or a manufacturer.

An advantage of choosing a manufacturer is that, many times, you will access to a better catalogue of wholesale promotional products. Also, some manufacturers can offer you customized items. That’s the case with Martin’s. We do not only fabricate the promotional products, but we’re in charge of the whole process, from the very idea that our clients have in mind, until the distribution of the products.

The way we, in Martin’s, achieve this is by offering you top-notch promotional products, made through plastic injection molding, and letting our clients create their own items in a way they will cause a nice impact on their potential customers, so they will, in turn, remember the brand and probably become regular clients.

Tips and benefits of wholesale promotional products

According to a study by Promotional Products Association International (PPAI), in 2017, 89% of customers received a promotional product in a period of six months [6]. Let this number sink in for a moment. Clearly, it means almost every client out there has gotten a promotional product, but it also gives a hint of how much is invested in this type of items.

As an idea that became popular in the 19th century and was fully developed by all kinds of businesses during the 20th century, promotional products have proven to be effective. One last important thing to remember is that, while many consumers think of promotional products as free giveaways, you’re just not giving gifts, since you’re paying for them, you must think how are you going to get back that investment. That’s why you need to look for affordable options.

In Martin’s, we have everything you need to start marketing your wholesale promotional products. Quality, an outstanding customer service and affordability are just three of our many features. In Martin’s, we know how important is for you to invest on something that will be profitable, that’s why we help you with a feasibility study for your project before starting with the planning, designing and manufacturing processes.

We’ve worked for important and large companies such as Bimbo, Barcel, Marinela and Gamesa and our years of experience have our back. We’re always looking forward to collaborating with our clients to create an unique and special product that your clients will remember and cherish. In Martin’s, we believe that creativity can be channeled to accomplish our clients’ goals.

Here’s a list of tips and benefits you can have with us when using promotional products:

• Advertising has changed a lot since the spike of Internet and although it’s everywhere, it’s also commonly avoided, that’s why ad blockers have become so popular. Promotional products, in contrast, are the most welcomed for of advertising by all generations [6].
• Wholesale promotional products reach their intended audience, but they don’t stop there, they reach anyone who might see the product used or displayed. So, imagine you receive a beautiful Christmas-themed container, when someone notices it, they will ask where did you get it.
• Promotional items aid on establishing a customer-provider relationship, more than 90 percent of people remember where they received a promotional product [6].
• The longer a promotional product is kept the longer it accomplishes its goal of advertising. This resonates mostly in work spaces, where it reaches more people; nevertheless in houses they’re effective on developing regular clients.
• In that way, being displayed, used or shared, promotional merchandise increases the number of potential customers.
• In order to succeed with promotional products, you need to research about your market. This way, you will know your customer base and their needs.
• Make them collectible, in case you’re thinking of a very unique way to leave an impact by means of a promotional product, let it be customized, with different models. That way, your clients will be tempted to get them all. 

Contact us to help you get the most ideal promotional product for you and enhance your brand through it! Be sure we’ll be of help and your project will come true.

REFERENCES

[1] Premium (marketing)

[2] Annual sales revenue of the distributor promotional products industry in the United States from 2007 to 2018

[3] Promociones de golosinas que quienes nacimos en los 90’s amamos en la infancia (in Spanish)

[4] Meet the Guy Who Invented Tazos and Gave Meaning to School Lunchtimes

[5] The Top Wholesale Promotional Items Suppliers in [US/UK/China]

[6] Tipping the Scale. How Promotional Products Compete In A New Era Of Advertising