Okay, you have to be wondering what this story is about. If I told you that one of our clients came to us and reported that last year their sports team schedules resulted in $1.2 million in sales for them, you’d think that was pretty unbelievable, right?  Well, incredibly, it’s true! Our client spent a few hundred dollars on sports team schedules and by our estimates had easily a 120 time return as result of the sales made directly attributable to the schedules (his words not mine).

What is the point? The point really is that you need to have promotional marketing products in your marketing mix. The client explained to us that his client told him that when he was ready to make a purchase, he couldn’t find his phone number. He had hunted around for a business card and couldn’t find that either, and when he was about to give up and call someone else, he remembered that he had our client’s sports schedule on the refrigerator!

Many of us have no way to predict when our clients might need our services next. Maintaining top of mind awareness is therefore critical to “staying in the mix” when our customers need our services again. When we’re absent from that top of mind awareness, our clients are likely going to reinvent their purchasing decision by doing research on the internet or asking friends–bad news for you.

So having something in our marketing wheelhouse that has “shelf life” is essential. If you think about your marketing alternatives, you quickly see that there aren’t any other mediums like a promotional product that will accomplish this.

This client earned tens of thousands of dollars in commissions on this sale. He can spend a few hundred dollars a year for the rest of his life on sports schedules and still have a huge return on his investment…and who knows what could happen if he gets another sale or even a referral?  Either way, investing in promotional products have a lot better odds than buying a lottery ticket!