Smart ideas nab attention: tie gifts in to marketing plan.

• Author: Quesnel, Joseph
• Position: Special Report: Corporate Gifts & Event Planning - SRC Sheldon Reproduction Centre

A Thunder Bay printing company is convinced corporate promotional items can supplement a marketing strategy and make it successful, but only if they are targeted correctly.

SRC Sheldon Reproduction Centre, a business offering office supplies and printing services, has expanded its product base and now provides promotional items, also known as "corporate gifts" or "company giveaways."

"Promotional gifts are a natural tie-in to marketing," Simpson says. "We've been consulting with our clients since their infancy."

Simpson says the company's long-time relationship with its client base allows it to understand the client's needs and its target market.

SRC Sheldon tries to move away from traditional promotional items, such as pens and rulers, arguing that corporations have to be more aggressive and smarter in getting the attention of their target clientele. For example, Simpson says that a successful product so far has been the corporate golf ball. So much executive work, she argues, is done on the golf course.

"If it takes five hours to go through an 18-hole golf course, just think, that's five hours that they're chasing your logo," she says. "It's a little tiny ball and they've got their eye on it all the time."

Understanding one's client base, she says, is key to making promotional items an essential part of a marketing strategy. One of SRC Sheldon's former clients was a police association.

The association wanted to target small children with a safety message. After some thought, SRC Sheldon came back to them with a proposal to make removable tattoos for the children, with safety slogans on them, a strategy that appealed to them and worked. According to Simpson, companies must also strategically follow technological change in the office to market their promotional items. Useful items like mouse pads are very effective because they recognize the centrality of the computer to the modern office. The average corporate employee nowadays is sitting in front of a computer for most of the day.

"It's always in front of them. Why not use that?" Simpson argues.

The best way to proceed, says Simpson, is to properly match promotional items with the target market.

"We're not going to recommend a corporation to give away expensive...