By Shannon Mayerl, President of Top Promotions
In this age of technology, we have resources at our fingertips that can sometimes make us forget the advantages of working with an expert. Who hasn’t visited WebMD to self-diagnose an illness? Or done some day-trading on one of the many stock trading sites? Having these resources at our immediate disposal tends to commoditize services, but at what cost?
Why work with an expert? Chances are strong that you can search online and find the product cheaper than you have been quoted, and frankly, if cost is your only factor, go ahead and jump online and make that purchase, but buyer beware. The age old saying of ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’ can rear its ugly head.
There are over 600,000 items in the promotional marketing industry. As experts, it is our job to learn about your company, your goals and the specific objective of the promotional marketing item you are seeking. We then take your budget and present the products that we feel will best meet all these parameters. With so many products available, without expertise, you will likely end up with a product that isn’t the ideal match for your event, not to mention the rabbit hole you can go down wasting time browsing those 600,000 options. Time is money, so you may not be saving as much as you think doing it on your own.
The promotional marketing industry is deceptively complicated. It isn’t simply throwing ink on a T-shirt. There are decisions that if skipped or not understood could result in a product that does not meet your objective, and remember once it’s decorated, it can’t be returned, you are out the money.
In our global world you often don’t know just who you are working with or where that product might be coming from. Not knowing this could cause disaster in more ways than one. You place an order that you need for an event next week Tuesday, but you don’t realize the item is shipping in from China, great price but rather pointless if it isn’t going to arrive for a month. How happy will your boss be when the product they need for a presentation is literally stuck on a slow boat from China?
How up to date are you on government safety regulations and the associated marking requirements? Did you know that if you order a product and decorate it with a graphic containing a teddy bear, regardless of what the actual product is, the government now considers this a children’s item and it is subject to CPSIA 2008? Products can change designation simply by how it is decorated, or the intended use and these items need to be marked accordingly to be in compliance with federal law.
Most companies have standard guidelines for how their logo may be used, color pallets, layouts, size and more. Experts will know if a logo will look good on an item and at what imprint size. Sometimes bigger isn’t better and sometimes even maximizing the imprint will lead to sub-par print quality.
Working with an expert, what have you saved? Time, money, your (or even your boss’s) reputation, regulation and logo compliance and so much more. It is the expert’s job to know what you don’t know. Don’t make the mistake of undervaluing an expert, it can cost more than you think.