Time to Plan Your Holiday Promotional Items

Sometimes it’s easy to forget lead time and shipping time when deciding to send out gifts to your customers, or set up a promotional campaign for the holidays. If you’re doing a full out promotional campaign for the holidays, your planning should have begun in midsummer. If you haven’t really begun to think about your holiday gift giving and promotional items yet, here are some suggestions to help you choose the best promotional items for your needs.

Customer Acknowledgments

One of the most common purposes for using promotional items during the holiday season is to send best wishes to your customers and thank them for their business throughout the year. If you do mostly business to consumer sales or service, you may simply choose to send a holiday greeting card, but if you do, you’ll be missing out on a great opportunity to promote and advertise your business. Even a gift as simple as a personalized promotional calendar printed with your business name will keep your logo and business in front of your customer every day of the year.

Executive Gifts for Your Staff

Many companies choose to give gifts to their professional and executive staff during the holiday season. There are dozens of types of promotional items that make excellent holiday gifts for professional staff. Some of the most appreciated are company jackets, personal organizers or planners and stylish laptop or executive bags. Since these are gifts for your staff, there’s no concern about having your company logo on them. In fact, personalizing these gifts with the company name or logo makes them more valued as gifts – it’s like saying, “You’re part of the family”.

Corporate/Executive Gifts for Customers and Business Contacts

If your company chooses to give corporate or executive gifts to business contacts and corporate customers, you’ll find a wide range of promotional items that are appropriate for gift-giving. The best choices for holiday gift giving are promotional items that are meant for personal use. Gift-boxed branded items such as Swiss Army Knives or Slazenger sporting equipment make distinctive and memorable executive gifts. Most experts suggest that your own corporate name should be kept small if it’s included at all on these gifts.

Holiday Promotional Items

Many businesses offer special promotional items at the holidays as sales incentives and gift rewards. These might include stress toys in the shape of holiday ornaments, Christmas trees and stars, or coffee mugs with a special holiday message to your customers. Coffee shops might choose to make an annual Christmas mug available during a limited period, for instance, and a confectioner might package their candies in a special promotional holiday tin.

Whatever your reason for using promotional items during the holidays, you should be aware of time lines. In order to get the best possible experience and be sure of getting your promotional items on schedule, you should order early and confirm your order well before the holidays. Holiday times are among the busiest times for promotional items suppliers, so time lines may be stricter than usual.