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Promotional items are goods given away without charge to the community in an attempt to advertise a business or boost sales or awareness of some particular merchandise or service. They are now an essential part of advertising and marketing and they deserve a closer look.

Promotional items are often distributed at trade shows, used in direct mail and as part of guerrilla advertising campaigns. According to marketing experts promotional items are effective in boosting sales by increasing brand and company awareness.

For example, imagine a small notepad with 25 pages. Each page has your logo imprinted on it. If that notepad costs 50 cents, then there are 25 impressions at a cost of two cents an impression. Now, if that page gets passed on to someone else, the number of 'views' increases and the cost per impression therefore decreases. This can be a very cost effective means of advertising and promoting your business, provided it is done correctly.

It is absolutely essential for all corporate bodies to realize the importance of having custom-designed logos on notepads. A professional notepad logo design goes a long way towards establishing the identity and the image of the company.

Notepads are frequently used in offices, so it makes good sense to provide your clients with promotional notepads with your logo on it. Your message and logo is sure to get noticed in any environment and will give your business a lasting and impressive brand identity.

The line between promotions and incentives used to be defined by price point, volume and retail name brands. Promotional products tended to be generic, purchased in large quantities at low cost and imprinted with only a company's logo and/or message. Typical examples were coffee mugs, utility knives and inexpensive pens.

Incentive products were higher-quality, higher cost items purchased in smaller quantities and imprinted with only the manufacturer's logo.

Retail companies have entered the incentive/promotional product industry, realizing that orders of 1,000 watches, 5,000 key fobs, or 10,000 golf balls are good business and all the company has to do is add someone else's logo on its product.

Branding and setting the tone of how a company is perceived by its employees and the consumer in the marketplace is a priority of any incentive plan. When a company sponsors a golf tournament, it wants something more than visibility for its investment. Awarding a golf bag as a prize reflects well on the sponsoring company and reinforces the emotional connection with its vendors, clients and even competitors.

Some manufacturers have recently changed policies on adding logos to their products. Brand name companies now allows sponsors' logos to be embroidered alongside their swoosh logo. For example at an award ceremony, both the sponsoring company's logo and Nike's were shown together in a strongly positive emotional context.

Advertisers are well aware of the formula: strong emotion = memory. Thus, organizations are now discovering the benefits of associating their brand with other images, icons and especially other brands.

When a company co-logos with a respected manufacturer, the motivational value of the incentive rises over generic products. Both companies benefit.

Today manufacturers are especially keen on getting into the promotional products market as it offers more volume than the traditionally smaller incentive products market.