MBA1575 Q&A Wednesday: Does giving away company swag work?

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Hey oh. Welcome to the $100 MBA show, the business podcast your business can count on every single day with our daily 10 minute business lessons for the real world. I'm your host, your coach, your teacher Omar Zenholm. I'm also the co founder of the $100 MBA, a complete business training and community online over at 100mba.net and today's episode is a Q and A Wednesday episode. On our Q and A Wednesday episodes, I answer a question from one of you, one of our listeners. If you have a question you want to ask, just email me over at Omar MBA net. Today's question is from Santino and Santino asks, hey Omar, love the podcast. I just started a new business consulting firm and things are going pretty well. But I'm thinking of different ways of marketing and I wanted to know, does giving away company swag work? Do T shirts, stickers and mugs actually help with marketing? Do they make great gifts for clients? Is there an roi? I would love to know from your own experience. Thanks Santino. Thanks Santino. We've covered a bit of this topic on past episodes, but I want to maybe distill it and give you my answer in today's Q and A Wednesday. There are a lot of options when it comes to giving away company swag. Santino mentioned them. T shirts, mugs, stickers, some people are giving away caps and people are giving away socks, coasters, all kinds of stuff. But do these gifts, do these pieces of swag work? Whether you're actually sending them through the mail or giving them out at conferences or in person to your clients. We get into that in today's Q and A, Wednesday's episode. So let's get into it. Let's get down to business. Well, Santino asks, does company swag work? Well, we've used company swag in our businesses several times, and this is the bottom line. Whatever you give your customers to your clients, whether it's a mug or a T shirt, it has the value that you give it. Let me explain. We found in the past that we've made the mistake of just giving out stuff for free, whether they're like tote bags or T shirts at a conference just for stopping by the booth. People don't value things they can just pick up and just kind of toss aside. There's no value to it. They didn't have to earn it in any way. Even a contest is earning. Even if you had a raffle or some sort of game they played and they would win a prize if they actually hit a certain score or won the raffle, that has value. People feel like there's a value to it when it comes to your customers. We have given T shirts and different pieces of swag in the mail to particular customers that take special offers, that take actions on webinars, that are evangelists, that complete one of our courses. These people really value it because they feel like they earned it, did something, and they got a reward for it. So you value things that you earn. So you will wear that T shirt, you will use that mug, and then it has a marketing value. Then people will see that brand, see that logo, and also it'll inculcate a sense of loyalty with that customer, with that client. So I think it's all in the earning. I know that many people believe in giving gifts to their clients. There's a whole science called giftology and how giving gifts can really cement sales and increase repeat sales. But buying or investing in a relationship like your customer does, that's doing something, they're actually earning your trust, and therefore you reward them with a great piece of product or swag. Or even if that's a gift basket, it's something that you're giving them in exchange for saying, hey, thank you so much for trusting me and being a client. I'm glad we're doing business. We've tried a lot of different pieces of swag in our time. I personally have found that T shirts work the best. There are ones for some reason. People love T shirts. People can't get enough T shirts. They wear T shirts at the gym they wear T shirts out. They wore T shirts to go shopping. And the thing about T shirts, it's the walking billboard. So it helps your brand as well. I always say, whatever swag you get, make sure you get good quality swag. Make sure you get a good quality T shirt that will last years through many washes. If you're gonna get stickers, same thing. If you're gonna get notebooks, same thing. Even pens. And when we ran Webinar Ninja Live, our live event, we printed pens and we got really good quality pens. And people said, I love these pens. And they remember and they keep it and they use it. So if it's quality, they'll use it, they'll like it, they'll even share it and show other people. Now the key with swag is bulk. When you order in bulk, you definitely get a discount. If your clients that you're sending to are national, then you're not really going to spend too much money. If you send it in the mail individually, meaning you order, let's say 500T shirts and you have those 500T shirts in your office or in your home and then you can ship them out individually. Now if you have a company that sells or has clients around the world, that's a different story. It's going to get expensive. It might be cheaper to ship it directly from the manufacturer or go with a one off T shirt company or swag company like Teespring. They will allow you to print one offs and deliver straight to the customer. But it's a little bit more expensive. When you go in bulk, you're going to save a whole lot more money. But obviously you're sitting with a whole bunch of the same thing and you're going to want to be able to get rid of that quickly. And remember, you're going to have to pay for postage for each individual thing. The bulk really works. Especially if you're going to a conference again and you are going to, you know, you use this swag with your contests and raffles or even just give it to people that sign up in your booth. Also use your swag. A lot of people don't know that this is a critical part to the success of your swag strategy. Wear your T shirts, use your mugs, sport the sticker on your laptop. Because when you wear it, when you use it, others are gonna be like, hey, that's cool, can I have one? And that's what we've seen from our own customers, whether it's on webinars, whether it's in person. Whether it's if you just say to somebody, we'll send you a free T shirt, they don't really imagine what it looks like, how cool it looks, how nice it looks, how quality it looks versus you actually wearing it. People are like, hey, how could I get one of those? This looks really cool. And in our case with the webinar, we say, hey, upgrade to an annual plan and you can get a free T shirt. No problem. We'll send it straight to you. And for most people, like, hey, I'll save you for 20% by going annual. I love this company. And hey, give me that T shirt looks great. So it's a win win. So make sure that you give the swag value and people earn it. Make sure your swag is quality. Make sure you sport your own swag.

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Wrap up today's Q and A, Wednesday's question from Centino. Yes, company swag works, but you got to give it value and you got to include it in your sales and marketing funnels. You got to make sure customers understand what they have to do to get one, whether that's a T shirt, a mug, a sticker, and make sure you deliver quality swag. Thank you so much for listening to the $100 MBA Show. Make sure you hit that subscribe button so you never miss a beat. Hit subscribe right now on whatever you use to listen to podcasts, whether it's Stitcher Radio, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, we're on them all. Hit subscribe right now so when the next episode's available, you'll get it right on your device. Before I go, I want to leave you with this. One other way to use swag to your benefit is onboarding. I saw this done really well at ConvertKit. It's an email marketing software. And basically they know the five actions a new customer needs to take to be successful. And in their case, it's like to have a new subscriber create a form and send out a few emails. There's a few of them I can't remember, but those are some of the ones I do. And when you finish those five, you are eligible to get a free T shirt. And it just sends you to a link to order a T shirt. And it's that simple. But it's a great way to retain customers because you're incentivizing them to do the things that it takes to be successful with your product and you're giving them a chance to earn a great piece of swag from the company. Thanks so much for listening and I'll check you in tomorrow's episode. I'll see you then. I'll see you. Take care.

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