Self promotion is a cornerstone of any successful distributor’s sales arsenal. Bruce J. Felber, MAS, director of marketing and sales support for the Image Group, Cleveland, shared an example of a recent holiday-themed self promotion that did well for the company.
The Image Group created a successful promotion by taking a new and ultra-trendy item, conductive texting gloves, and inserting them into a direct mail holiday promotion that showed off the company’s creative design skills through a decorated holiday envelope. Felber, who took care to explain that he did not conceive or run the holiday promotion himself, crediting the company’s creative director Amy Thomas instead, nevertheless explained the basics of the self promotion below.
Promo Marketing: Could you briefly describe a promotion you consider one of your best?
Bruce J. Felber: We did a self promotion around the holiday time last year. We took a pair of texting gloves, which we had embroidered with our logo, put it in a Brandelope envelope and had it custom-printed in our [company’s official] green. We sent it out to our customers and some prospects at the end of the year. And lo and behold, not only did we get people giving us such great reviews, but we actually got two orders of texting gloves out of it.
Printed on one side of the envelope, real big and with a big green background, was a picture of one of the guys. He was biting his gloves to take them off so he could text, and the copy read, “Winter Bites.” And on the other side, it said “But thanks to this enclosed gift, now you won’t have to. This high-tech gift lets you use your touchscreen devices outdoors. Now you can keep your fingers on the pulse of your business without pulling off your gloves. They’re our gift to you, enjoy.” We put a greeting card on the inside. It was a real simple mailing. We put it right in the mail, put on a label and postage, and out it went.
PM: What was the promotion’s goal?
BJF: The goal wasn’t necessarily to sell promotional products, but to show that we’re a creative company. (All the graphics were done internally, etc.)
PM: Any other advice or insight you’d like to give related to this promotion?
BJF: I think, in general, that enough distributors don’t do self promotion. We need to practice what we preach. If our clients are going to expect us to manage their brand and promote their image and product line, then we have to do the same thing. I think too many distributors say, “Oh, this is going to cost too much.” (Laughs.) They don’t say that when the client wants something! So, I think, you just have to put your money where your mouth is. That’s the big thing—Self promotion works for the same reasons that we tell our clients. We kind of have to believe it ourselves.
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