|
|
Welcome
to Fresh Promotions new website. Our plan is to make this site
a one-stop-shop for promotional ideas and concepts as well a news
source reporting on the great promotional products and ideas we
hear about in our travels.
Fresh Promotions deal with a wide range of companies, Australia wide, from some
of the largest like Ford, Fosters and NRMA through to mums and dads after 10
t-shirts for their staff or people who buy 100 engraved pens to give out at their
daughter’s wedding. This blog will include our impressions and opinions
of the great, and not so great ideas we see cross our desks every day and the
different ways companies approach promoting their brands and rewarding their
clients and staff.
28th March 2008: Fresh Promotions Economic Activity Index
While our cities are full or public servants crunching figures in the hope of putting their finger on the current economic trends far simpler would be to apply the new FPEA index (Fresh Promotions Economic Activity Index). When the news is bad in the papers traffic on our sites falls, and when the headlines are positive the market for promotional items becomes bullish. The reality is that canny marketers should be putting the foot to the floor in times of economic uncertainty. First it is a fail safe against falling turnover and secondly it i the time to take market share from less adventurous and entrepreneurial competitors. And if you're looking to get more bang for your marketing bucks during an economic slowdown there would be few better ideas than diverting some of your mainstream budget to promotional products and branded merchandise. For many years research has pointed to the use of promotional items as the most cost effective marketing spend available.
4th July 2007: Another (Financial) Year Over
It's the first week of the new financial year and we're having a welcome breather as the phones and email enquiry has slowed a little. With a huge rush of last minute orders in the last week of the 07/07 Financial Year our print and laser engraving departments are fully booked for the next two weeks branding products for a wide range of clients across Australia, the Pacific and the Middle East.
Looking back over the past twelve months it's interesting to pull up the spreadsheets and look at the spread of products which have proven most popular. As always pens are at the top of the list, but garments are close behind. The big mover of recent times has been ceramic mugs, where our increased range of available product and styles ha led to a constant surge of orders. Our new niche promotional mugs site www.freshmugs.com.au has also been a hit with online shoppers, attracting over 2000 visitors in its first live month and receiving over 50 orders for a total of over 30,000 mugs sold. That's 1000 per month. Australia must love its coffee..
15th June 2007 Great New Products Coming
Barely a day goes past without Fresh promotions being offered new and interesting products by wholesalers and importers. Now that the new Network is up and running and our proprietary software has been completed the development team will be moving towards the objective of adding 100 new and innovative promotional products every week. We're growing so fast, the level of enquiry is so great and we're being asked to look at so many major sales promotions projects that we have not had the resources to keep adding to the site.
Our newest staff member will be spending three days a week with nothing else on his plate but continuing to build this promotional items site into the best in Australia.
1st June 2007:
The Collective Unconsciousness
Carl Jung the noted student and eventual critic of Freud coined a term "Collective Unconscious" when his experience with patients over many years suggested that we are all connected to a universe reservoir of information and experience. I'm not sure that Dr. Jung had any experience in the promotions caper but on a daily basis we see evidence of his theory.
The bets are on every week around here as to which item will win the "Obscure Product of the Week" title. And every week there is one. Last week we had at least ten calls from people looking for "Metallic Silver Umbrellas". This week no calls on the subject, and probably only a couple for the first 4 months of the year. This week there's a hankering for "Green Stress Frogs". What gives out there? Whatever it is go with your instincts. If you sit up in the middle of the night, nudge the wife/husband/partner awake and declare "I've got it...... Green Stress Frogs are what our company needs..." our advice is to go for it. Don't look to the negatives of a potential idea, as long as your budget is manageable and the break-even is reasonable give it a whirl. In our world dominated post-modernist thinking there is no right and wrong anyway. If you've got Green Stress Frogs on the brain it could well be that the rest of the public has too and just hasn't realised yet. Go the Green Stress Frogs
29th January 2007: The Fresh Network - A Big Year Ahead
In 2006 Fresh Promotions was recognised as one of the leading promotional product supply companies in Australia.
With over half the top 100 companies in Australia as clients in 2006, January 2007 has been the busiest start to a year on record. This site is now officially, across the board, the top ranking promotional products site in Australia.
In 2007 Fresh Promotions will launch the first integrated promotional marketing network in the world. The plans in place will guarantee Australian business a complete range or promotional marketing products and services through a broad range of easy to navigate and logically constructed sites.
Bookmark this site, and come back regularly to see what changes are being made.
PROMOTIONS BLOG 9th November 2006
The big question we're hearing 50 times a day at the moment is......
"How quickly can you deliver"
The Melbourne Cup has been run, won and filled with champagne. The last excuse
before Christmas is over and the race is on to get everything finished.
An eery lull settled over the office fifteen minutes before to the great race.
The phones started ringing ten minutes after the cup was finished. The bet in
the office was the people who backed the winner would be ringing to order their
Christmas presents. We asked everyone how they had fared on the punt. Nobody
backed the winner but they were keen to order. Somehow as Delta Blues crossed
the finish line a lot of Australian businesses realised the party was over and
the responsibilities of the festive season were upon them.
28th October: Specialty Manufacture
There’s a lot to be said for producing a unique promotional product. At
least ten times a week clients call looking for something specially made to suit
an idea they have, or as a variation on a promotional idea. Through our contacts
in Australian manufacturing and in Asia we are often able to accommodate these
requests. But like most things in business the viability of depends on having
a realistic budget and enough lead-time.
A week or so again a new client called looking for our help in manufacturing
a specialty bag which would be given away to donors as part of a national promotion.
The client had sketches of the bag designs, but it went further than that. A
particular pattern had to be printed on the vinyl, individual colour patterns
were required for the piping and handles and there had to be three overall colour
variations.
It was a very complicated job, and probably 20 times the work involved just printing
an existing bag. The job is now in production, but a succession of manufactured
samples and example prints have to be shipped to us from Shanghai, approved by
the client and returned to guarantee the quality of the final product.
One of our philosophies at Fresh is to take on new jobs which are out of the
ordinary and see them through to completion. We do it because that’s how
you learn new things on projects like these, it’s a good way of cementing
a business relationship and the stress involved is worth it if the client is
happy with the results.
If you have any unusual product requests or our advice on sourcing specialty
promotional products don’t be afraid to call and have a chat.
24th October
Getting in Early for Christmas - Please!
It’s interesting how different companies look at the Christmas gift-giving
frenzy. We have clients who started searching and ordered their gifts in July,
while the order books from past years show that there are others who order on
the 20th of December. Maybe it’s just the difference between boys and girls.
I can remember going shopping on Christmas eve and grabbing anything which was
stacked high in Myers’ doorway. I can remember buying 15 copies of the
same novel.
It’s the same deal with promotional gear and corporate gifts. We have a
range of products which can be delivered in 48 hours, but if that’s the
timing you need you’ll be choosing from a narrowed range of goods.
This is the time of year when a lot of our sales promotion clients are also gearing
up and briefing in work which will be delivered early in the New Year. Promotional
campaigns which will be running at the end of January or at the end of the holidays
needs to be planned and approved now. especially as a lot of clients are looking
to have a holiday at that time of the year and leave projects in our hands to
produce and manage.
At Fresh Promotions, we’re always trying to help our clients out. A lot
of the time this is very annoying when somebody has procrastinated about a product
for three weeks then needs them next Monday. If it can be done we will do it
and put it down to advertising. But we can only do so much. For your own sake
shop early and often.
Friday 13th October
Christmas Rush is On!
54 messages on my mobile last Thursday. All calls which came through while I
was talking to somebody else. The laser engraving machinery and print shop is
running full time. 246 unique visitors to this site yesterday and over 3500 page
downloads. Yikes. Contact from all over Australia. A bank even called from Hong
Kong wanting to buy 1000 printed umbrellas. We told them we were in Australia,
but they still wanted to do business. Our Hong Kong agent is dealing with them
direct.
And our end of year advertising has just started. What’s going to happen
when the catalogues hit and our Google listings for the new site kick in? We
changed all the page titles recently and Google wiped us. Now its leaping back
in the rankings and the level of inquiry is building. The resident geek claims
we’ll be top ranking on most terms by the middle of next week.
Luckily we have a plan to cope with the end of year rush. Type and talk faster.
My Dad always used to say “If you want something done, ask a busy man”.
We’re damn busy, and we’ve never missed a deadline. Maybe the Old
Man was right
10th October 2006
Beware the Conservative Approach
Remember the old Target campaign? The ads on TV which showed a red
and white target being stretched and manipulated to graphically highlight
that month’s
sale or the product special on offer?
Unanimously that campaign was cited by big company marketing managers and advertising
experts as being the best campaign on TV. It ticked all the boxes; the branding
was there, the logo appeared in every frame, it appeared to be creative and catchy.
Then why did Target continue to under perform if they were doing everything right?
At Fresh Promotions we always thought those ads were lame. If you visit Target
they actually have a good range of quality product which is competitively priced.
What does an all red and white campaign which is always touting an upcoming sale
tell you? Home brand. Generic. Cheap. It doesn’t say fashion, it didn’t
tell the story about the range of product available and it showed the classic
big company obsession with logo and pms colour instead of telling consumers what
they wanted to hear.
So what’s this rave all about? Don’t take the easy way out. Get the
basics right, but remember nobody cares about your logo. They care about what
you can offer them. Leave the reproduction of your logo to Fresh Promotions,
but look for a promotional idea which will click with your market and say something
favourable about your brand. If you take the conservative approach there will
always be a reason to knock a great idea on the head. If you want a big return
on your investment try something new and don’t listen to the office whinger.
Success in marketing favours the brave.
7th October 2006
Trials and Tribulations of Internet Marketing
We’ve had a stream of calls over the last six months from companies offering “SEO” services.
The calls all follow the same pattern; they claim they are going to get us ranking
on the first page of Google, that we will make literally millions of dollars
from the work they are going to do for us, that our current website has a million
flaws, that they have other clients who are making so much money they don’t
know what to do with it, and they want a monthly retained plus link costs.
Does it sound convincing to you? Because it has never convinced me. I’m
always interested to talk to these people and try to nail them down on what their
plans are. We actually have an SEO on staff, and we do optimising for a range
of our clients where it is appropriate. I know from having invested heavily in
SEO that there are no simple answers.
A lot of our clients are suddenly interested in internet marketing as the returns
from traditional media continue to fall off. Also most business people now realise
that they use Google or the MSN search engine when looking for suppliers or business
information where they used to open the Yellow Pages. You don’t have to
be Einstein, (or Bill Gates for that matter) to make the connection that you
should be looking into your own visibility on the web.
The other thing driving the sudden upsurge in interest in SEO is the large investments
many companies have made in their websites and on-line presence. The great majority
of sites are invisible. Its a rational business decision to want to get that
investment working.
Because of the interest in SEO marketing Fresh will be starting a second blog
on this site about on-line marketing and our advice on how to maximise the return
on your on-line investments. Stay tuned. It will be up in the next week.
October 6th 2006
Promotion and Advertising as Part of a Company's Culture
I was chatting to one of our new clients at lunch yesterday, an amusing Canadian
guy sent over here as Asia Pacific Marketing and Communications Director of a
major mining company. He found Fresh Promotions through our advertising in a
Queensland business magazine and has since become a solid client.
We were talking about the relative needs of our companies in promoting and building
brand awareness. Our conversation went something like this....
Client: “You know Bill, in the USA if a company doesn’t
spend 10% of its turnover in promotion and branding it starts to shrink”
Fresh: “The average in Australia is about 2%”
Client: “Man, that is unbelievable! There must be a million
opportunities in Australia for aggressive marketers.”
Fresh: “You’re right, but for every aggressive marketer
there are 100 cautious marketers. Most companies look at advertising and promotion
as an expense.”
Client: “Bill, In North America, the most important investment
a company make is in branding and new business. If you’re standing still,
there will be someone getting ready to nail you.”
Fresh: “That’s interesting. I know from clients
we’ve worked with that a successful promotion or advertising campaign can
change the culture of a company. When the phone starts ringing, and the orders
start coming in, it puts a spring in everyones’ step.
Anyway, the conversation went on to Aussie Rules football, which I tried to explain,
but the poor guy still looked bewildered after my five minute summary.
The interesting thing is that in our smaller Australian market the level of competition
and aggression in marketing is scaled back. Major players control markets and
the rest find cosy niches. Conservatism rules. Plans are based around the "worst
case" model and obsession with minor details like logos and corporate colours.
But all the evidence we see in the trenches is that fortune, and cash flow, favours
the brave. Next time you have an idea for promoting your business, don’t
just think about it, do it. And if you want some advice on how
to get things moving, call Fresh.
Promotions vs. Traditional Advertising and Media
A lot of advertising and promotions companies claim to be experts
on how you should promote your business, but none of them have
ever promoted or advertised themselves. Some might have a rep
on the road or they might occasionally organise a direct mail
campaign, but in general the companies who claim to be experts
don’t practise what they preach and when they do it is done poorly.
On the other hand Fresh Promotions has given almost everything
a shot. We have an annual advertising and promotions budget
of 10% of turnover. We’ve spent
money which returned 20 times our investment. We’ve spent money and not
received a single phone call. That’s the nature of advertising. Anyone
who tells you differently is not telling you the truth. One week an offer can
get the phones ringing hot, the same offer next week leaves the market cold.
There is always an element of risk involved in advertising
or promoting your business, but that’s what makes it
exciting, and what makes it so satisfying when it pays off.
Unrealistic Briefs
Some time ago we were briefed by a major insurance organisation to develop a
sales promotion encouraging people to switch to them for their compulsory third
party auto insurance. The marketing manager looked me in the eye and announced
that the objective was to generate a minimum revenue ten times greater than the
cost of the promotion.
Try to make our lives a little easier, it's worth your
while
A few weeks ago we were asked to come up with some ideas for a promotion for
a company which must remain nameless. The conversation went something like this....
Client: We are promoting a new premium brand
and want to lift sales
Fresh: What’s your budget?
Client: Don’t know
Fresh: Who’s buying the product?
Client: Don’t know
Fresh: What sort of promotional products have
you thought about?
Client: Something silver
Fresh: How about a 320 Mercedes?
Client: You’re not taking this seriously
Sure, our rep’s answer was flippant but you can see that
we do need something to work with. Fresh Promotions has a reputation
for creative promotional concepts and products, but to get
the best out of us we need to know where your brand is going.
If you want us to do your marketing plans as well, that costs
extra and we'll need at least a couple of days to think about
it.
|
|
|
