This document outlines a process for developing an effective promotional marketing plan. It discusses defining the target audience, goals, objectives, timeline and budget. It also covers selecting promotional solutions based on their utility, desirability, and ability to generate impressions. Following this process and focusing on the needs of the target audience and goals of the organization will help ensure promotional marketing success.

1. Brett Cutler, Director of Enterprise Accounts
iPromo

2. Introduction
It’s important to get your promotional marketing off to a solid start. With a well-
planned foundation and a bit of forethought, this can be the year that your
promotional marketing really takes off.
The process I use is outlined here and will give you a solid foundation for
building the most cost effective promotional branding road map for the next 6
to 12 months. When properly executed this two-part approach will help any
company or organization achieve great results using promotional marketing.
- Brett

3. PART 1
Understanding the Company’s Needs

4. 5 Pillars of Defining Promotional Needs
Target Audience
Goals
Objectives
Timeline
Budget

5. 1. Know Your Audience
Organizations may often have multiple
audiences to cater to
• Customers who pay for goods or services
• End-users
• Dealers
• Value Added Resellers
• Distributors
• Employees – the heart of any business!
Understanding who makes up your audience and what motivates them is of
paramount importance to get them to purchase a product, attend an event, accept
a subscription, refer your service or continue to do great work that yields high ROI
and low churn in case of happy employees.

6. 2. Define Your Goals
Align your promotional needs to
the Big Picture
• Goals that further the Mission & Vision
• Broad and Overarching
• Actionable
• Foundation of all promotional efforts
Whether your Goal is to expand sales to existing customers, grow market
share, boost profit margins, or increase customer satisfaction, its achievement
should be one of the most key elements of your promotional plan.

7. 3. Set Measurable Objectives
Focus promotions towards
tangible results
• Objectives that drive organizations’
actions to achieve success
• Quantitative and Measurable
• Promotional campaigns include
o Gifts with purchase
o Loyalty schemes
o Incentive programs
o Employee incentive items
Promotional marketing can have a dramatic impact on specific targets. For e.g.
increasing average basket size by 15% in Q1, bringing product market share to 24% by
year-end, or raising customer satisfaction ratings by 15% by Q2

8. 4. Plan Your Timeline
Ready for the rollout?
• Understand when the campaign needs to
be in-market and operational
• Work backwards from the
launch/event/drop date
• Project manage the solutions that fit into
the timeline
• Simpler where a clear-cut deadline is
available – award night, trade show days
Whether we have a planned delivery date or last-minute requirement it is
important from the onset to develop solutions that will fit in the timeline, else we
run the risk of falling in love with a certain solution, but later encounter
disappointment when there is not enough time to develop it

9. 5. Manage Your Budget
Know what is reasonable to spend
• Like timelines, budgets must be managed and
planned ahead
• Most organizations don’t have unlimited
budgets
• Budgets might be flexible initially until actual
approval comes
Good solutions providers can be highly effective in developing programs, ideas, and
products with a variety of timelines and budgets. This allows the initial internal approval
process to proceed while shortening the time required for solution development once
budget approvals are received

10. PART 2
Locking in Promotional Solutions Success

11. 3 Elements To Success
Desirability
Utility
Impression-
ability

12. 1. Utility is Key
How useful is the solution to the target
audience?
• Consumers want products that are, first and
foremost, useful to them
o E.g. Power banks and charging cables have
higher utility value to a target audience of
heavy smartphone users
o E.g. A warm polar fleece blanket will have higher
utility value to a person in a colder climate
• 82% of consumers in U.S. will keep a promotional
product if its useful
The more useful the item is to your target audience, the higher the value they
will assign to it, and the more likely they are to take the action you desire

13. 2. Understand Desirability
How much does the target audience want your
promotional solution?
• Timeliness
o E.g. Providing a cool custom branded water bottle at the
end of a parade making it available at the right moment
and time
• Perceived value
o E.g. Giving a nice backpack to a new employee would have
a high perceived value
• Cashing on Trends
o E.g. Gifting PopSockets with your logo to a customer base
of millennials as PopSockets are a hot trend this year
Products that fulfill consumer wants due to their timeliness, perceived value
or viral popularity, work wonders despite being inexpensive

14. 3. More Impressions = More Visibility
How many impressions will your brand generate
over the product’s lifetime?
• Impressionability quantifies a solution’s true value
o E.g. Custom branded chocolate bar at a trade show may
grab attention but not have a lasting impact as it is
consumable and disposable
o E.g. A coffee mug as an employee gift may have good utility, be
highly desirable and offer a very large number of impressions
The cost per impression of a promotional product is better than that of TV,
magazines and newspapers at $0.004 per impression

15. In Conclusion
By understanding who the target audience
is, what the organization’s objectives and
goals are, working within the timeline and
staying within the budget, your ability to
create successful promotional solutions
will dramatically increase.
By measuring the utility value, desirability, and impressionability of the products and solutions to the
target audience, you are virtually guaranteed to find success in your promotional marketing. Working with
experienced promotional marketing specialists will help you to navigate the solution development process
much more effectively.

16. bc@ipromo.com
847.581.6616
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