WHETHER IT’S BUILDING or selling one, for those in the real estate and construction industries, there’s just no place like home. While promoting oneself can be just as hard as battling flying monkeys and wicked witches, red ruby slippers aren’t the only thing that can get advertisers to that fabled other side of the rainbow. There are a variety of products available for clients in the real estate and construction industries, and they run the gamut from tried-and-true market mainstays to high-end, custom-made works of art.
For Michelle Fey-Mitchell, vice president of marketing, and Mike Fey, vice president of sales at Fey Line, a vinyl promotional products company in Edgerton, Minn., the yellow brick road of success is lined with, well, vinyl. “My thing, certainly within the real estate market, is price point,” explained Fey. “Real estate agents often are looking for inexpensive items,” he added. Fey Line’s real estate items are mostly vinyl-based and are manufactured in the United States. “There are a lot of companies in the industry now that simply import the item and then imprint on the product, but we actually manufacture,” he added. Giving its clients a good quality product that can be quickly produced, as well as one that is not prohibitively expensive, is key to Fey Line’s success. “We’re made in the USA and so anything that we do, we can do fairly quickly,” added Fey-Mitchell.
The company focuses on the general products of the real estate market they’ve found to be effective. Fey Line’s real estate products range from ring binders and document holders to daily planners and business card caddies. “For real estate, we look at products that can be used in a variety of ways,” explained Fey-Mitchell. Yet, just because an item is common doesn’t mean it can’t be trendy or new. “Well, I would hope we have the ability to be trendy,” she added. By taking an everyday item and putting a non-traditional spin on it, Fey Line has found success with its magnetic coupon holder. A thank-you gift that real estate agents can give to their clients or prospective clients at open houses, the magnet is not only a useful place to store coupons, but it also is a great way for agents to display their contact information. “It’s probably more of a non-traditional product but it’s worked in that industry,” Fey-Mitchell said.
Standard vinyl items have become a success for Fey Line due to their durability and broad appeal. “People you’re dealing with are looking for good, quality products, something that’s going to last a long time, something that’s going to stick around a long time,” noted Fey-Mitchell. With the magnetic coupon holder and the company’s photograph holder, Fey Line has found success in broad appeal items. With the photograph holder, real estate agents are able to give their clients a picture of their first home as a gift, which they will hold on to for years to come. “The best thing to do is provide broad appeal,” said Fey. “If it’s too narrow a focus, you’re going to see it in the sales you generate.”
For the more upscale home buyer, Richard Wolen, president of Corporate Keepsakes, Rudolf, N.J., may have the promotional item distributors are seeking. Corporate Keepsakes makes hand-crafted metal sculptures from recycled steel and copper that are meant to be displayed in either the home or executive suite. Since each piece is hand-crafted, no two pieces are the same. “More often than not, [customers are] looking for something that is unique and different,” said Wolen. “And I think that is what separates us from other companies in the industry because there are a lot of companies that are doing the same thing. You walk up and down the aisles at any trade show and you’ll see many pieces that are repeated, but when they come to our booth, most people stop and look and they say, ‘Oh! This is very interesting. I’ve never seen anything like that before.’”
Corporate Keepsakes produces three types of items for this market. The first is a wine bottle caddy shaped in the form of a tradesman, which can hold a bottle of wine, bath oils, barbecue sauce, water or any similar item in a 750 mL bottle. “We have found that wine specifically is a very upscale image and that people like to display it in their bar or in their family room or in an office, for that matter,” said Wolen. The second item is a desk sculpture that can incorporate pens or pencils, business cards, or other office supplies. The last items, a series of sculptures called Stompers, are a smaller version of the company’s regular sculptures with larger feet (hence the name), standing at about three-and-a-half inches, as opposed to the regular seven-inch version. For clients that can’t afford the more expensive original sculptures, Stompers were introduced as a more affordable alternative. Wolen said these items range between $10 and $14 (depending on quantity), a dramatically lower price point than the larger items.
All these pieces can be targeted to various trades within the construction industry and Corporate Keepsakes produces versions presented as carpenters, electricians, plumbers, bricklayers and painters. The most generic sculpture, the carpenter, wears a hard hat and has a toolbox in one hand and a hammer in the other. “We’ve used that with a lot of construction companies and we’ve put the logo right on the toolbox,” added Wolen. “It has a lot of generic application and that’s the most important thing.” The carpenter model can be easily adaptable to other tradesman by switching out the hammer for another trade-specific tool. “By having a hard hat and by having a toolbox, those are the basics to almost any trade and then by being trade-specific, it’s something that’s really unique. When people see it, it’s something they respond very favorably to,” he said.
Wolen considers each of these hand-made pieces a work of art, but said they are not for everybody. “You’re talking about a product that has a retail value of ninety or a hundred dollars, and that’s why it’s really an executive gift,” he explained. “By and large, we have found that it’s a very limited niche market within the promotional industry because most people still focus on the mass merchandise. They still focus on the pens and pencils and the T-shirts and the hats. But for those people who do receive it, it’s something they value and something they really appreciate.”
