SelectingThe Right Products For Your Brand And Clients Promotional products are uniquely valuable in that they create a level of excitement for those on the receiving end. But when industry professionals, like 28year industry veteran Mitch Silver, receive one of these items, it can also serve as an important learning opportunity. This past October, Silver, who is vice president of marketing/sales for Chicago, Illinois, distributor Printable Promotions, a position he’s held for a quarter-century, wrote a post on LinkedIn about a disappointing experience he had involving a branded t-shirt (we’ll call it t-shirt A). The shirt was a donor thank-you gift from a major nonprofit he supports that was celebrating a milestone anniversary. In the post, he compared that garment with t-shirt B, which was given out at an event he attended a few years ago. Despite both being branded t-shirts, their quality, wearability and longevity, Silver recalled, were strikingly different. Silver described t-shirt A as a standard, heavyweight, 100-percent cotton tee that wrinkled and bunched after a single wash, and he’s never worn it since. T-shirt B, on the other hand, was a tri-blend fabric with a soft feel and an eye-catching design that washed and wore well, and as a result, he continues to wear it to this day, he wrote. For a brand, quality can significantly impact how long recipients wear their branded t-shirt, or if they choose to wear it at all. Silver writes that the experience is a clear-cut example why he doesn’t automatically suggest the lowest-cost options to his clients. “Spending a little more on a super comfortable, tastefully decorated tee will ensure that your recipient will wear the shirt many times over, therefore garnering you additional brand exposure. Isn’t that what anyone hopes for when they decide to plunk down money on a t-shirt investment?” Silver wrote in his LinkedIn post. PPB spoke with Silver to learn more about product quality, the importance of knowing your target audience and his selling approach. PPB What are some of the questions distributors must ask their clients to help them select the right promo product(s)? Silver Who is your targeted audience? What is your marketing objective? (i.e. show appreciation, fill out a form, come to your booth, ask for a demo etc.) What is the quantity you are looking to order? What is your budgeted price range per piece? Do you want us to ship these in bulk to you, or to each recipient’s home? PPB Receiving a branded t-shirt at an event is a different end user experience FIVE MINUTES WITH Mitch Silver Vice President of Marketing/Sales Printable Promotions When Mitch is not helping his clients build emotional brand connections, he is a Pez collector with over 750 different dispensers in his collection. 62 | JANUARY 2022 | THINK
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