Christine B.

For many business people, spreading around business cards is the one and only method of self-promotion. However, the modern businessman/woman fails to recognize the power of mind altering promotion, while the tradesmen-on-a-budget have already discovered avenues to imbed themselves in the minds of their clients.

The marketing secrets that differentiate large companies producing soft drinks, pharmaceuticals, or cars from those that have a great new product but fail to break into the market, is mostly a difference in marketing budget. This, however, does not tell you anything; the marketing budget is merely a means to an end, and here the goal is to create product recognition and ‘brand power’ so consumers choose only you when faced with a need for your product or service. This goal can be accomplished by bombarding potential customers with the company logo and name. Adding some information, like a slogan, creates more information by which the customer will remember the company and adds to your brand power.

This is why consumers think of only one or two products when they feel a pizza craving, when they are thirsty or when they need to call a plumber. How can a small company, like for example a single self employed handyman, instill as much recognition and “brand power” for himself as a giant pizza restaurant chain? Simple; using small scale promotional tools to which the consumer is constantly subjected.

Instead of a business card, give out a magnetic badge with the contact information relevant to your business. Magnets are stuck to fridges and office furniture. In short they are placed in highly visible areas and people look at them over and over again, until they have unknowingly created a link in their brain between a problem or product, and your company. People will look at the magnet or bag you gave them more often than they look at billboards, and these corporate gifts are just as effective, if not more effective, as the large marketing campaigns.

While business cards are stored away and lost, promotional items like badges, magnets and corporate gifts are readily displayed and used. A magnet is never just put in a drawer; it is stuck to office furniture to hold up notes and other papers. As a result, your promotional item is continuously marketing your company and you will be the one the client calls when they need your product or service. After all; you phone number is readily available on their desk.

Using items such as badges and magnets to promote yourself or your business will ensure promotion that reaches beyond the few seconds a client stares at your brochure or business card. Without realizing it, the client subjects himself to be being influenced by you. When your advertising budget does not reach as far as GM’s, and you cannot rely on billboards and prime time television spots to do the trick, bombarding your clients in the office and at home will have the exact same effect. While people flip away from the commercials, they walk to the fridge to grab a drink and stare at your promotional magnet. Creating a business card or subtle advertisement of your products and services that can be readily used by your client, and serves a purpose, will create a much higher payoff from your marketing efforts. After all; people like useful gifts and will rarely throw them out or store them away. While you have to keep printing new business cards because of their short lifespan, your batch of business-cards-on-a-magnet will have a lasting impact and create profits, brand power and customers over and over again!