INDUSTRY BUZZ

How to Create Great Branded Merchandise

So you decided that you want to create some merchandise for your brand. That’s great! Branded merchandise is an excellent way to express your brand personality and values and helps to emotionally connect with your target market, employees and even other brands in your niche. As part of a marketing campaign, branded merchandise can either be a core component or a supplementary boost to create continued engagement. No matter what you use it for, branded merchandise will help to get your message out. 

In this article we are going to cover a few things that can help you create a branded merchandise collection that speaks the language of your brand and engages customers and employees with your values. 

What are the best kind of promotional products?

The best kind of promotional products are products that are functional and pragmatic. Products like water bottles, bags, journals, and hats are both useful and engaging. Not only do they keep the owner engaged in your brand by being useful and functional, since they are everyday items that are taken into public, there’s a high probability these products will engage others in your brand and can even be conversation starters. The more useful a branded product is, the more likely it becomes a topic of conversation, creating engagement and customer activation. 

Let your goals help you choose products

Before you roll out branded merchandise, it is important to have a strategy to create engagement. The last thing you want is to spend time and money on branded merchandise that doesn’t get much traction because you didn’t understand your target audience. 

Before you choose which products you want for your merchandise, create personas for the target audience that will help you hone in on what the demographic is, then research how that demographic engages with branded merchandise before choosing your products. This will help you make the biggest impact at the least cost and will convey to recipients that you understand their needs, wants and desires. 

Customize Your Merchandise 

One way to ensure that your branded merchandise gains traction is to customize it to reflect your values, goals and brand mission. Instead of just slapping your logo on mass produced merchandise and calling it a day, the customization process allows you to tailor your merchandise to your brand message AND your specific audience. Customization is also great for employee recognition and performance awards. They can be tailored to specific achievements and personalized for an individual employee. 

Take advantage of online company stores

Creating branded merchandise can mean a logistics nightmare. Where to source the products, where to store the products and how to ship the products are the three main issues that businesses face when creating merchandise. This is especially true for smaller businesses that have no inventory management or tracking infrastructure. 

An online company store with fulfillment services is a perfect way to solve all three of these issues and give your employees and customers an easy way to access your merchandise. No catalogues, no paper money or check collections. An online company store allows your customers and employees to shop directly from their internet connected devices and place orders directly. Fulfillment and warehousing services, like those provided by CCG, make logistics a breeze. Merchandise is stored and inventory is tracked at a warehouse and dispatched and shipped when orders are received. You don’t have to do anything, which reduces your costs and saves you time for running your business.

Branded Merchandise with CCG Promo

CCG Promo is a full service marketing company that helps businesses create fully serviced branded merchandise and company stores. We specialize in helping businesses find, source, create and customize their branded merchandise and serve it in an easy, intuitive online company store. Our warehousing and fulfillment services means that you dont ever have to hassle with logistics, storage and shipping. We do it all for you. Contact us today to get started.