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Companies use promotional merchandising to get the message out when they bring new products or services to the marketplace or host a special event. Corporate merchandise, also known as branded merchandise, can also be used to recognize or reward employees and customers.
Promotional merchandise and corporate merchandise can make a great addition to a marketing plan and help companies and organizations achieve goals more efficiently. It also creates positive feelings in consumers and generates sales and customer loyalty. Following the receipt of promotional merchandise, 42% of consumers reported a more favorable impression of the advertiser, and 62% of consumers did business with the advertiser.
Corporate merchandise also has a very low cost per impression, just .004 cents on average. That’s largely due to the fact that most people who receive promotional merchandise keep it for about 7 months. The trick is to produce something that people find useful. 81% of people will keep promotional merchandise they find useful. Another benefit of promotional merchandise is that 84% of recipients can identify the advertiser after they receive a piece of corporate merchandise.
Shirts are the most often produced item in the promotional merchandise sector, but writing instruments are used most often—about 64 times a month—and bags generate the more than 1,000 impressions in a month.
While promotional merchandising and corporate merchandising is an important part of a marketing program, the concept of merchandising also has a variety of other meanings. Merchandising promotes and sustains commercial activity. Think of the end-cap displays you see at the grocery store. The graphics used on those displays catch consumer attention and encourage purchasing.
It also refers to the variety of products available for sale and the display of those products in such a way that it stimulates interest and entices customers to make a purchase. In clothing stores, product is merchandised in groups so that the purchase of one item spurs the purchase of a coordinating item to complete an outfit.
Merchandising can also pertain to the development of seasonally relevant merchandise, such as St. Patrick’s Day shirts and holiday sweaters, as well as product related to major events like the Super Bowl, motion picture releases and the like.
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