How to Maximize Your Promo Product Business From Customers’ Events

As activities take place year-round, it’s important to understand your customers’ seasonality to help with their promotional products for events. At iPROMOTEu, we recommend planning three months in advance to ensure products are available for special kitting needs. This additional planning also allows more custom ordering options such as special-colored zippers and Pantone Matching System (PMS) colors, especially for these popular seasonal events:

Golf outings

  • Event timing: Summer
  • Begin planning: Spring

Conferences and expos

  • Event timing: Summer
  • Begin planning: Spring

Company picnics/outings

  • Event timing: Summer
  • Begin planning: Spring

Holidays

  • Event timing: Winter holidays (Note: Remember that companies may celebrate other holidays so plan ahead of those additional times throughout the year)
  • Begin planning: Fall

Sales meetings

  • Event timing: December and January
  • Begin planning: September

Event Planning: Questions to Ask

To capitalize on your customer’s event, you need to get a better understanding of how you can help. Aside from the standard event-related details like the location, date, timeframe, etc., we recommend these questions to gain a better perspective on the event. This helps you develop additional sales and branding opportunities for your customers.

How many people will attend the event?
Understanding the size of the event helps you recommend promotional products that are within their budget.

Where will the event be held? Is the venue inside or outside? Will the venue allow food and beverage accessories?
Answers to these questions provide context into added promotional product opportunities, such as light up straws for drinks or disposable or biodegradable cups for a coffee bar.

What’s the agenda for the entire event?
If the customer has promotional products for one portion of the event, there’s an opportunity to include for other parts of the agenda.

Are there sponsors?
Event sponsors will also want to showcase who they are and what they do. Reach out to the sponsors attending the event and potentially gain more business.

Is there a total budget or a budget for each event?
Full transparency of the budget is important to build a successful partnership with your customers. Clarify if the budget is for a specific portion of the event or if that’s what they are allotted for the entire event. A misunderstanding can lead to spending their total budget before tending to their other needs.

Who are the attendees?
To get a better understanding of the event itself, it’s important to learn about the target audience so you can provide promotional products catered to the attendees.

What’s been done in the past?
Have they held this event, or a similar event, before? This allows you to offer solutions that they haven’t used in the past or elevate what they have done.

Is there an event theme?
A cohesive brand and event strategy can play a major role in the promotional products you recommend. Identify ways to embrace the event theme while remaining on-brand.

Are there going to be speakers?
If this is your customer’s event, they may want to hand out gifts to their speakers. Recognize who will be speaking at the event and offer creative promotional products for them.

Are there specific requirements?
Based on the type of event—and the target audience attending the event—ask if these promotional products need to be made in the United States, come from minority vendors, or have specific eco-friendly standards.

Trending Promotional Products

Every event is unique, and your customers shouldn’t feel that you are recommending the same go-to products for all different events. Eco-friendly and name brand promotional products are some of the recent trends, especially with the consumer focus on sustainability and high-end, quality products.

In addition, trending colors include a variety of earth tones, neutral tones, pastels, and bold and bright. These colors show off your customer’s brand in a new, vibrant way without diverging too much from the brand itself.

The Shift Toward In-Person Events

The event calendar is filling up fast—and supply chain issues are still at hand. It is important to let customers know there may need flexibility in their selections due to those obstacles. Most suppliers are building deeper inventory on bestsellers, including new products and popular colors. But as you know, the industry isn’t habitual and neither are customers.

Ask About Recurring Events

It’s recommended that all Affiliates better understand their customer’s annual events and how they can support their efforts. Read your customer’s website, research newspapers/online media for articles about old announcements and events. Take the time to know your customer and get a bigger picture of the promotional product they need for events.

Additionally, a beneficial sales strategy is to try to discover something new about a customer every time you speak with them. You might learn about other events like an employee outing or customer appreciation party, or it could be an in-office celebration for an employee’s anniversary. The more you can learn and make an impact supporting all event types, the more credible and desirable you become.

Those interested in growing or starting their promotional products business as an iPROMOTEu Affiliate can contact iPROMOTEu for details.