Month: June 2020

Categories
Branding

HOW TO EMPOWER YOUR EMPLOYEES AS A BRAND AMBASSADOR

Your employees are more than just a workforce. They are the lifeblood of your business and the way you engage with them has a significant impact on how they perform their tasks. As a brand ambassador, it’s your responsibility to rally your employees and empower them to achieve the very goals your company is aiming for. This is because proper employee engagement is key for driving company growth and performance. When you are actively engaging your employees, they feel a sense of recognition. They resonate with your vision and they’ll be motivated to do their best every time they step inside the workplace.

You’ll forge employee loyalty and they’ll want to stay with the company for longer. They’ll ensure that customers are always satisfied. And most importantly, they’ll act as advocates for your brand in an organic fashion. In here we’ll be discussing how to empower your employees and what it does to your brand’s overall image.

It all starts with a good HR

Empowering your workforce and developing them into great ambassadors has more to do with just a good HR. It’s great for marketing for a number of different reasons such as:

  • Increasing brand awareness.
  • Molding the public’s reception of your brand.
  • Recruiting exceptional new talent.
  • Facilitating the company’s culture.

This is because your employees embody your company image as a whole. In essence, your workforce is your brand. You’re getting one of the best forms of marketing through your employees like recruiting top talent, leaving glowing remarks of your company in job sites, and advocating your brand through social networks.

Here are the 5 ways to empower your workforce and transform them into brand ambassadors for your company

  1.  Your company vision should resonate with your employees.

“People don’t buy what you do, but why you do it.” It’s a quote made popular by British-American author Simon Sinek who believes that successful companies operate by this very principle. The reason behind starting your company is what connects most with your employees and customers. If they can relate to what your brand means,  it’ll be so much easier for them to believe into what you’re doing.

The first step in developing your workforce into brand ambassadors is to share your goals with them. Your company’s vision should resonate with your employees for them to effectively advocate your brand. Workshops and seminars are a great way for your employees to be on board with you on achieving one common goal.

  1. Ask for employee ideas, suggestions, and feedback.

It’s important to foster a collaborative work environment where your employees feel more involved with the growth and development of the company. Don’t hesitate to ask feedback about a certain project you have in mind or solicit their suggestions to further improve a product or service. Your employees bring different experiences and expertise to the table and all of these can prove valuable when you’re brainstorming for new ideas for your company.

This kind of employee engagement empowers your team to be more united in achieving your company’s goals and visions. A team that feels heard and valued will help create a work culture that’s driven to succeed, and that is what motivates your workforce to become brand ambassadors.

  1. Activate your brand through promotional products.

A successful brand inspires customer engagement and drives them to take action upon interacting with your brand. This experience starts with your employees as they are at the forefront of customer engagement. By making use of modern, up-to-date promotional products, your brand will leave a good first impression to your potential customers. This means making use of branded swag and apparel to put your employees at the heart of the brand experience.

A workforce that loves to wear their company apparel and wearing it outside of the workplace is an effective way of increasing brand awareness. Your employees should feel motivated with your promotional products so that potential customers will be drawn to your brand upon engagement.

  1. Make it easy for your workforce to become brand ambassadors.

A proven formula for developing your employees into great brand ambassadors is by incentivizing and simplifying. Create quality content that makes it easy for your team to share. Provide your team with promotional products and high-quality apparel that they’ll love wearing outside of the office. Kickstart a staff referral program so your team can recruit top talent when hiring new employees. Recognize the efforts of high-performing employees through rewards and bonuses.

This process of incentivizing and simplifying brand ambassadorship will help build employee motivation and develop them into effective advocates for your company as a whole.

  1. Lead by example.

Perhaps this is the most important part of creating a work culture that is driven by ambassadorship. As the leader of the company, your actions have the ability to either inspire your team or demotivate them entirely. It’s important that you lead by example and pave the way for your employees to follow your path. A good leader brings his subordinates along with him and he takes full responsibility for the company without pointing fingers at anyone.

Create a brand experience that you’re proud to advocate. Show your employees why your company is worth advocating for. If they see that you’re working hard to promote a meaningful brand, it’ll trickle down to your entire team and they’ll be motivated to do the exact same thing. Lead by example and show your employees why your brand is worth advocating for.

Conclusion

Remember, your workforce is your brand and how you lead them will ultimately dictate whether or not they will serve as great ambassadors for you and your company.  Help your employees grow and watch your brand reach new heights you’ve never imagined reaching. If you are interested in corporate wear in Perth, then contact us today for an obligation free consultation.

Categories
Corporate Gifting Promotional Product

WHAT IS INCENTIVE MARKETING & HOW YOU CAN UTILISE IT

You’ve probably heard of the term ‘incentive marketing’ before and you’ve come to wonder what exactly is it. As the name suggests, it’s a form of marketing strategy that uses an incentive program where gifts and rewards are given. It’s a powerful tool that many companies use to help increase their brand awareness and motivate their customers to achieve certain goals. Here’s an example that you may be familiar with. “For every 10 coffee drink you buy from us, you get 1 for free. So what are you waiting for? Join our coffee club now!”.

This gives coffee shop drinkers the ability to join the coffee club for free because there’s a reason behind it (the free coffee). They get rewards based on their performance which is buying 10 coffee drinks in order to get one for free. Many coffee shops implement this loyalty program where they give out incentives when a customer reaches a certain goal. When customers are recognised based on how they perform, you’re guaranteed to have a return customer. They’ll keep coming back for more because they know that there’s a gift or reward waiting for them.

Whether it be through a one-off promotion or a customer loyalty program, putting out special offers to convince customers to purchase your products will help build your brand recognition. Incentive marketing provides business owners with an opportunity to grab the attention of their target audience with special deals and offers. Essentially, what you’re doing is you’re using prizes and rewards to advertise your products. If done correctly, you’ll be able

Here we’ll be discussing in full detail what incentive marketing is and how you can utilise it to help boost your brand’s visibility.

Why is incentive marketing important?

One of the main benefits of utilising incentive marketing is that you can reach a segment of consumers that may end up considering the products/services that you are offering. It’s a valuable marketing strategy that can help increase foot traffic and garner enough interest for consumers to actually buy into what you are selling.

Incentive marketing can foster customer loyalty which is important for any business. In today’s world, incentive-based programs have become a must-have since consumers have come to expect a form of savings opportunity or loyalty offerings for the businesses they frequently engage with.

How you can utilise incentive marketing

Knowing how to effectively utilise incentive marketing is key if you want to see tangible results. Here we’ve compiled a quick guide on how to properly use incentive marketing to help promote your brand.

  1. Be smart when crafting your incentives.

Although higher value promotional product gifts can be a great incentive, it’s not the only approach to get return customers. It’s easy to just give free stuff to customers whenever they achieve a certain goal, but try to think about other methods that offer a good cost vs reward tradeoff and diversity your strategies.

Your incentives should be linked back to your business. For example, you can incentivise your customers by giving them a 20% discount with their next purchase when they spend $150 or more today. These types of incentives will not only prompt your customers to purchase things at the moment, but also encourage them to buy again in the future because of the discounts you provide.

  1. Your incentives should be able to solve problem points.

When crafting your incentives, think about how it will solve an issue or problem that consumers face in your industry. When you provide a solution-based program to your customers, they are more likely to be satisfied with your products/services because you are directly addressing their needs. Some companies heavily advertise a product and once it goes out on the market, it doesn’t quite fit the bill.

You can help remedy this issue by incentivising your customers with a money back guarantee. For example, you can say “If our product’s performance doesn’t meet your expectations, we will provide you with a money back guarantee.”

  1. Keep your incentives simple.

If you really want to build an effective incentive marketing strategy, then you have to keep things simple. Overcomplicating your incentives can make it quite hard for consumers to understand what you’re actually offering. It’s best to incentivise your customers in the simplest and most direct way possible. We find that one-declarative sentences are the best forms of incentive marketing. Here are some examples

  • Buy two shirts, get the third one for free.
  • Register today and receive your one-month free trial.
  • Place an order by tomorrow and get a free USB Charger (Which could be customised with you branding)

You can get creative with your incentives, just make sure that it’s easily understandable from a customer’s point of view.

  1. Think about which gift you will reward to your customers.

If you do decide to incentivise your customers in the form of gifts, then you need to choose the right type of product that will give them satisfaction. The most popular incentive rewards are tech-related gadgets and devices. Power banks definitely come in handy and is something that most people can appreciate as a reward. You can also hand out novelty items depending on the preferences of your target audience.

Whatever rewards you choose to give, make sure that it fits with your brand image and is something that your customers will get plenty of use from.

Conclusion

Incentive marketing can help you draw in more interest from potential consumers all while fostering customer loyalty from your regular clients. If done correctly, you’ll be able to increase foot traffic to your business while also building your brand recognition. Follow these steps to help you utilise incentive marketing to its fullest extent.

Categories
Corporate Gifting

TOP 10 PROMOTIONAL PRODUCTS FOR ON THE GO PROFESSIONALS

As a professional, you’re always out and about. There are meetings to attend, conferences to go to, and corporate retreats to be a part of. Sometimes a business-related event might even expose you to your target audience such as community outreach events and trade shows. This provides you with the perfect opportunity to market your brand and one of the best ways to get started is with promotional products. If you’re looking to increase your brand awareness, you need to get your name out there.

You have to inform people about who you are and what you’re offering to the table. When a merchandise is labeled with your company’s name and logo, you’re essentially making your brand discoverable. Utilizing promotional merchandise while you’re out on the road will help expand your overall audience and may even help you land new customers/followers on a certain area.

For the on-the-go professionals, we’ve rounded off a list of 10 promotional products that we believe will help boost your brand’s reach while you’re away from the confines of your corporate office.

10 promotional products for professionals that are always on the move.

  1. A power bank.

Most professionals never leave their home without carrying a power bank. It’s a convenient and reliable source of power that keeps your mobile devices juiced up whenever you need it. Power banks are perfect for handing out as promotional gifts or giveaways since it appeals to almost everyone in this tech-oriented age. One power bank that we love to use is the Erg Power Bank which comes with a 4,000 mAh battery packed in a light, ergonomic package, making it a handy essential for on the go professionals.

  1. A key finder.

Key finders work well as a promotional merchandise because think about it; it’s so easy to lose a key inside a suitcase that’s full of clothes and important documents. It’s a smart imprinted item that should be in any professional’s pocket so you’ll never have to worry about where your keys are! You can print your brand’s name or logo on the key fob to get your brand out there.

  1. A pair of earphones.

If you do a lot of traveling, you know full well how important a good pair of earphones are. Earbuds and headphones free yourself from the noise of the outside world while blasting to your favorite tunes. It keeps you in the zone and allows you to concentrate on the task at hand. Customised earphone cases with your brand’s logo can be handed out as freebies in marketing and sales.

  1. A jacket.

Jackets are an essential clothing item for on the go professionals. Sometimes business meetings and auditoriums can get quite cold which is why you need a good jacket to help keep you warm. Our favorite jacket is the Bonded Softshell Jacket. It combines both style and functionality by using a hi-tech 3 layer breathable fabric. Slap on your brand’s name on the front and this jacket is sure to be immediately noticed at any seminar or meeting.

  1. Tumblers and bottles.

Tumblers and bottles are always a fan favorite and you should always be carrying one around with you. Drink bottles are frequently used around the office and most of your brand’s followers would surely love to have one. You can choose to laser engrave your brand’s logo on the cap and have the brand name printed on the front. Metal tumblers like the OCDR18 500ml Stainless Steel Tumbler are our top pick because of its foam base pad and its stainless steel finish.

  1. A USB flash drive.

Being able to access important files and documents is important for any business professional. That’s why a USB flash drive is a crucial device for you to carry around when you’re doing plenty of traveling. These are also a great choice for corporate gifts with your brand name printed on both sides of the device.

  1. A watch.

Today, watches aren’t just used for telling the time. These devices are also for other things like tracking your fitness and even managing your notifications. Bluetooth smart watches are all the rage right now and we find that the IPAC32 Bluetooth Smart Watch makes a great time-telling companion that you can use yourself or hand it over as a sales gift.

  1. A padfolio.

During business meetings, it’s important to take note of key discussions. Professionals should always have a padfolio on the ready to jot down notes, reminders, and messages. You can customise padfolios so that the logo and brand name appear on the front cover.

  1. A pen.

As a professional, you should always carry a pen with you for writing notes and signatures. Having a premium pen on hand exudes an air of class and professionalism. Brand name printed pens are a common promotional product handed over at outreach events and trade shows.

  1. A traveling bag.

For the on-the-go professional, a travel bag is the ultimate form of promotional merchandise. Conference bags keep your essential items organised and store all of your gear properly. The Double Curve Conference Bag is our ideal choice because it offers plenty of storage space in a professional-looking package.

Conclusion

Promotional products are an effective low-cost marketing strategy that on the go professionals should take advantage of. It provides instant brand recognition and allows you to increase your brand awareness no matter where you go. To further boost your brand exposure, consider bringing these products with you the next time you attend a conference or business meeting.

Categories
Branding Corporate Apparel

TIPS ON HOW TO DESIGN UNIFORM EMBROIDERY PROPERLY

Embroidery is a great way of giving your workplace apparel a unique look. It certainly adds to the design of the workwear and it helps create a thoughtful and professional appearance. Many business owners use workplace uniforms to effectively market their brand to a wider audience and embroidering does just that. Having your company logo embroidered on employee uniforms will help make your brand more visible to potential consumers. 

Embroidery isn’t just used on general workplace uniforms like a bakers apron or a builders hi vis polo t-shirt. Corporate wear can also be embroidered, things such as ties often come with company emblems or logo’s embroidered a little more subtly.

But, before you start embroidering your company’s work clothes, there are a couple of tips to keep in mind. These 5 tips will help you design uniform embroidery properly.

5 tips on designing uniform embroidery properly

  1. Use a simple design.

The first step in embroidering your corporate uniforms properly is to take a look at the design you’re going to use. Make sure that the design translates well into the work clothes once it’s embroidered. If the design has far too many details, it can make the embroidery quite blurry. Stick to a simple design to achieve a clean, concise look once its embroidered onto the uniforms.

  1. Choose the correct fabric.

Your choice of fabric will also affect the outcome of the uniform embroidery. Not all fabrics can hold up embroidery quite well. For example, materials like cotton tend to warp and buckle easily when embroidered while fabrics that have a thick pile like fleece can perfectly accommodate heavy embroidery.

  1. Match the thread with your fabric.

Depending on the work conditions, the thread used for embroidering can vary for a number of reasons. If the work clothes are subject to regular wear and tear, a durable thread like polyester will withstand frequent washing quite well. Rayon on the other hand, is much suited for retail workwear since it’s lighter and can handle thin, lightweight fabrics perfectly. Go with the thread that best suits your work clothes.

  1. Know where to place it.

Proper placement of the embroidery is key to increasing your brand’s visibility. The design and size of the embroidery will affect its placement on the uniforms. For large embroidery, the back of the uniforms is a good space to consider. For smaller embroidery, the front shirt pocket of the uniforms is a much better fit. Make sure that the embroidery doesn’t get covered up with other uniforms like aprons, etc.

  1. Be mindful of the pricing.

As the design gets more intricate and uses more colours, the price for uniform embroidery will go up. Small designs that have plenty of detail are also costly as well. Consider the size and intricacy of the embroidery so you can set an appropriate budget to help keep the costs down.

Conclusion

When designing embroidery for uniforms, it’s all about the small details. Your design should reflect your brand image properly to help increase your company’s visibility especially to potential consumers. Keep these tips in mind to help you design uniform embroidery properly.

Categories
Uncategorised

USING PHYSICAL PROMOTIONAL PRODUCTS WITH ONLINE MARKETING CAMPAIGNS

Before anything else, I would like to discuss random access memory, or RAM for short. RAM is one of the two types of memory used in computers, smartphones, and tablets, and differs from read-only memory (ROM) in that it is designed for short-term storage and recovery of information. In computing devices, when a program is loaded, it stores information in random access memory so that it can be easily recalled if it needs to be used again. Only when certain information needs to be stored (for example, when you want to save a file) does the information from random access memory go into read-only memory and stored permanently. Once you turn off your computing device, the device shuts down, dumping all of the contents of the random access memory, clearing everything inside it.

Now, why bring this up here? My point is that, much like our computers and smartphones and tablets, we also use both short-term and long-term memory in our everyday lives. This has only been reinforced by our increasing use of the Internet and social media, both of which give us endless streams of information. The problem here is that, when it comes to consuming online media, people tend to simply scroll through their media feeds and only stop for a few moments when they see something that catches their eye.

For businesses who are trying to reach their customers online, being in your audience’s line of sight for these few moments is absolutely crucial to acquiring potential patrons. To that end, there are some businesses operating online who make use of ‘viral’ marketing strategies – high quantity, low quality ads that are thrown at the social media wall in hopes that at least one of them will stick. There is no denying that, in some cases, viral marketing does work quite effectively if you want to, say, spread word about an event or something along those lines. However, for online retail businesses, customer engagement is only half the battle. In this field, it is absolutely important to not only be recognised, but to be remembered by potential customers. Viral marketing methods are only focused on getting people to take a second glance, then move on; our goal is to not only be seen but to be recalled in people’s minds – or, like a computer, be moved from random access memory to permanent read-only memory.

So how can we go about achieving this? With the goal being to get potential customers to remember our brand, it is important to model our online marketing campaigns around ideas or objects that can remind them of our brand. One such method is through the use of promotional items. Now, it might not make much sense for us to use something that can only be used offline for a marketing campaign that is distributed online, but as many previous examples have already demonstrated, physical promotional items bring a lot of benefits to the table.

Before anything else, though, we have to define what these promotional products might be. If you are an online retailer or a manufacturer of a certain type of product, the products that you sell or manufacture can be used as a promotional item. For most other businesses, however, a great option is branded merchandise, which can range from cheap, small accessories like lanyards and keyrings to bags and even clothes. Despite being free to choose from a wide variety of products, you do have to remember that an effective marketing campaign has to be executed well – you cannot simply slap your brand name and logo on a product at random and expect your online campaign to work. Choosing the right products to use as promotional items requires you to do some research on your own, figuring out who your target audience ism what they might find useful or otherwise valuable, and choosing the product that helps push the image that you want your brand to have. Only then will you be able to tap into the many benefits of promotional products to your brand as a whole.

With all that said, let’s now try to formulate an online marketing campaign of our own. Giveaways, online raffles, and contests with promotional products as part of the prizes are becoming quite popular (particularly among online retailers and product manufacturers) as an effective online marketing campaign. The setup, of course, is pretty simple: gather up a set of promotional products, launch an online giveaway event on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, and let the event run its course. At the end, pick your giveaway winners, and distribute the items to them.

You might be thinking at this point, “This seems pretty standard so far, but I don’t really see the benefits here.” Let’s break things down, one by one. First of all, online raffles tend to reach quite a lot of people online because of the general prospect of winning a free item – after all, who wouldn’t want to win something for free? In addition, considering you chose the promotional products that fit the objectives of your brand, the giveaways that your campaign’s participants will receive will hold a lot of value in terms of utility and brand image. Lastly, one of the most important benefits of giving away promotional items is the fact that people who have them will have an item that continually exposes them to your brand, and although some people might not think too much of the product itself, they will no doubt recognise and remember your brand, and come back to you should they be looking for the products or services that you happen to offer.

Choosing the right promotional products in Perth might be difficult, but we at Bladon WA are here to make that decision process easier for you. We offer a huge variety of products that can be used as giveaways at events or promotional campaigns, corporate gifts, or as items that you can use in your business in general, and all of the products we have on offer can be customised so you can infuse your products with the spirit and personality of your brand. If you are interested in our services, reach us at 08-9240-7900 or sales@bladonwa.com.au today.