From Printed Pens To Cadillacs - Promotional Items

A free article on Advertising

By: Gareth Parkin

What do printed pens and pink Cadillacs have in common? They’re among the thousands of items that have been used as promotional items, giveaway gifts whose main purpose is to get people to buy – or sell – more products. Printed pens are perhaps the most ubiquitous of all promotional products, handed out like mints at any sort of event imaginable by every sort of business ever imagined. The pink Cadillac is, of course, the most famous and coveted consultant incentive offered by cosmetics company Mary Kay. It may be the single most well known sales incentive in the modern world. From printed promotional pens to pink Cadillacs, sales incentives are an integral part of motivating your sales force to outdo themselves week after week.

Most people think of printed promotional pens as handouts to potential customers, a way to keep your name on the minds of the people who buy from you. They are certainly one of the most common and well-known promotional gifts on the market. Every salesperson knows that handing out printed pens with the company logo on them is a great way to open a sales conversation or close a deal.

Using printed pens as part of a sales incentive program can be a little trickier. After all, it’s hard to motivate someone to higher sales by offering them one of the pens that they’re encouraged to hand out for free to potential clients. When you’re considering ways to motivate your sales force, consider what will be valuable to them.

How do printed pens fit into their daily lives? They drop them off with customers as thank you gift, hand them out at events to increase their visibility and offer them to the girl at the reception desk so she’ll remember them the next time they drop in to chat up the boss. Printed pens are one of the tools that they use for selling, and like most tools and incentives that they hand out to customers, their cost nearly always comes out of your consultants’ pockets.

The key to using printed pens as part of sales motivation is to give them in bulk. Instead of handing over a pen as recognition, include a box of two dozen printed pens for free with every order over a certain amount. The gift is recognition of their hard work as well as an aid to their continued selling efforts. For every dozen pens that they hand out, they know that they’ll realize higher sales in the long run. Reinforcing their use of incentive items provided by the company is a great way to increase the visibility of your products while recognizing the hard work that your sales consultants do every day.

If your company doesn’t use printed pens as part of their brand recognition efforts, including them in an employee incentive program is a great way to start. You can include a box of pens printed with the company logo and contact info in starter sales kits, and reward prolific employees with printed pens that include their own name and contact info along with the company’s to increase their sales calls and visibility.

When designing sales incentive programs for your employees, don’t forget the value in giving them promotional gifts that help them make more money. Printed pens are just one of the many tools that you can use to motivate your sales force this way.

For further information check out the UK’s leading promotional gift suppliers online today!