75% of buying decisions are based on emotion
By Denis A. Baldwin

An interesting statistic that I heard the other day was that "75% of buying decisions are based on emotions." This is more true than we think, and it's applicable to all forms of marketing.

I could go on and on about Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs and how it pertains to marketing. Infact, I probably will at another date. Lets just scratch the surface a bit though with the emotion of the buyer.

If you're talking about reaching your customers and their needs, consider your medium. Again, I could go on a tangent about the differences in using print vs. electronic medium vs. mass market vs mailers vs. everything else. Instead, I'm going to focus on promotional products marketing.

You're at a tradeshow. Your customers are all over. They come to your booth, you engage them in conversation and you want to leave them with a lasting token. What kind of promotional product gets you noticed and remembered? If you're a company that makes boats, a boat-shaped stress toy with your logo on it will be powerful in both a visual sense (a nice looking promotion with your logo) and a tactile sense (squishy = fun). This item might get thrown around their car for those high stress commutes home or left on their desk for fiddling with while on the phone or if could end up in their child's collection of toys where the client will see it when cleaning up after the child and the child will use it often in their playtime.

If you're looking for something with a more corporate feel, ask yourself what you use every day at your own desk. Do you use sticky notes? pens? pencils? a mouse pad? What are these items branded with at your desk?

Now consider the needs of your clients. Will they use the same items? Wouldn't having your name and logo at their fingertips 8-10 hours/day make for a good return on investment?

Promotions marketing is probably a blog within itself, but I'll be rolling out a few examples of these over the next few weeks to discuss how you can use promotional products to make an impact.