Standing on the street corner handing out pens might be a useful way for a community website to be announced, but for a business a lot of the pens will be being passed to people who just aren't going to be your future customers. What do you do if you are, for example, a business to business supplier or car electricals?

Look for shared customers

The answer is surprisingly simple - look

At first glance promotional pens printed with your company logo, name or contact details can seem quite expensive. If you have been approached by a company offering to supply you these goods, the prices are usually quite high. But consider that they are leaving room to offer you a discount and are also probably offering you a higher end range, then a quick bit of shopping around can produce something that's much cheaper.

There's a good range of inexpensive options

Plenty of charities, surveys and the likes are happy to give out free pens whenever they send out their mailings. These are usually the cheapest pens on the market and could be a good place to start. From just a few pennies each, including having your details printed on the pen, with a little imagination they can be great for getting your details over to the public.

Obviously, if you are advertising a high class business, then the basic stick ballpen might not be quite the right image, but you can quickly find better looking pens, without having to spend a small fortune.

But why pens

Giving out business cards and flyers might seem a good idea, but how many just get thrown out with the rubbish straight away? How many are thrown away without being read? With a pen it is something useful - it's something that the recipient is more likely to want to keep and then every time they see or use the pen they will be reminded of your business. A marketing tool is only good for as long as it is on the person's mind - by giving them something they want to keep, it's on their mind a lot longer.

Then the imagination

So you have your minimum order of 500, 1000 or more pens. What are you going to do with them? This is where if you get it wrong it will become an expensive exercise.

Depending on your target market, there are many different ways of finding your public. If you have a shop or restaurant you might like to just simply pass out the pens to existing customers so that they remember you for next time. But this isn't attracting much new custom.

Standing on the street corner handing out pens might be a useful way for a community website to be announced, but for a business a lot of the pens will be being passed to people who just aren't going to be your future customers. What do you do if you are, for example, a business to business supplier or car electricals?

Look for shared customers

The answer is surprisingly simple - look

Plenty of charities, surveys and the likes are happy to give out free pens whenever they send out their mailings. These are usually the cheapest pens on the market and could be a good place to start. From just a few pennies each, including having your details printed on the pen, with a little imagination they can be great for getting your details over to the public.

Obviously, if you are advertising a high class business, then the basic stick ballpen might not be quite the right image, but you can quickly find better looking pens, without having to spend a small fortune.

But why pens

Giving out business cards and flyers might seem a good idea, but how many just get thrown out with the rubbish straight away? How many are thrown away without being read? With a pen it is something useful - it's something that the recipient is more likely to want to keep and then every time they see or use the pen they will be reminded of your business. A marketing tool is only good for as long as it is on the person's mind - by giving them something they want to keep, it's on their mind a lot longer.

Then the imagination

So you have your minimum order of 500, 1000 or more pens. What are you going to do with them? This is where if you get it wrong it will become an expensive exercise.

Depending on your target market, there are many different ways of finding your public. If you have a shop or restaurant you might like to just simply pass out the pens to existing customers so that they remember you for next time. But this isn't attracting much new custom.

Standing on the street corner handing out pens might be a useful way for a community website to be announced, but for a business a lot of the pens will be being passed to people who just aren't going to be your future customers. What do you do if you are, for example, a business to business supplier or car electricals?

Look for shared customers

The answer is surprisingly simple - look

But why pens

Giving out business cards and flyers might seem a good idea, but how many just get thrown out with the rubbish straight away? How many are thrown away without being read? With a pen it is something useful - it's something that the recipient is more likely to want to keep and then every time they see or use the pen they will be reminded of your business. A marketing tool is only good for as long as it is on the person's mind - by giving them something they want to keep, it's on their mind a lot longer.

Then the imagination

So you have your minimum order of 500, 1000 or more pens. What are you going to do with them? This is where if you get it wrong it will become an expensive exercise.

Depending on your target market, there are many different ways of finding your public. If you have a shop or restaurant you might like to just simply pass out the pens to existing customers so that they remember you for next time. But this isn't attracting much new custom.

Standing on the street corner handing out pens might be a useful way for a community website to be announced, but for a business a lot of the pens will be being passed to people who just aren't going to be your future customers. What do you do if you are, for example, a business to business supplier or car electricals?

Look for shared customers

The answer is surprisingly simple - look

Then the imagination

So you have your minimum order of 500, 1000 or more pens. What are you going to do with them? This is where if you get it wrong it will become an expensive exercise.

Depending on your target market, there are many different ways of finding your public. If you have a shop or restaurant you might like to just simply pass out the pens to existing customers so that they remember you for next time. But this isn't attracting much new custom.

Standing on the street corner handing out pens might be a useful way for a community website to be announced, but for a business a lot of the pens will be being passed to people who just aren't going to be your future customers. What do you do if you are, for example, a business to business supplier or car electricals?

Look for shared customers

The answer is surprisingly simple - look

Standing on the street corner handing out pens might be a useful way for a community website to be announced, but for a business a lot of the pens will be being passed to people who just aren't going to be your future customers. What do you do if you are, for example, a business to business supplier or car electricals?

Look for shared customers

The answer is surprisingly simple - look in your area for another business with a similar customer base and ask them if they would be happy to pass out your pens to their existing customers whilst the customers are visiting the shop. Offer to do the same back or refer customers to them and suddenly you both share a powerful marketing tool.

Obviously, this is not going to work for competing businesses, but a logo designer, website designer, printers, solicitors and accountants might work well together as could a car electricals with a car parts supplier or service station and a hotel could distribute for local tourist attractions.

Get your pens out in bulk

Swapping with other businesses to promote each other, whilst helping each other and making your customers pleased at getting a freebie might be highly targeted, but it could be a little slow. So what do you do if you have a website with general appeal and want to get it known quickly?

How about sponsoring an event, or at least providing prizes? Look for a local race and ask them if they are giving out goodie bags. If so, how many and would they like pens to put in each bag? Or go to a local school, dance school etc and offer them pens to give out as part of their prizes at prize day.

Whatever you do, do it

Whatever your imagination dreams up distribute your pens, just make sure that you do something. There's no point having 5,000 sitting on your desk - they need to be out there getting your name known. Even if you just go around your existing customer base and give them each a dozen pens and ask them to pass them onto their friends who might be interested in your services, do something to make sure that the pens work for you!