The Gift that Keeps on Giving

The Gift that Keeps on Giving

The gift that keeps on giving Dee Blick, Chartered Marketer for Kalimex, explains how promotional gifts can be used to increase sales.


I have a particular affinity with promotional gifts, having spent the last 34 years using them in campaigns to increase sales and recruit new customers. I know they work. I don’t mean simply putting jars of pens on your counter for the ‘grab and go’ brigade because you had a deal to buy thousands of them. I mean using them in a more considered manner to increase sales.

For example: if I offer something simple but appealing like an unbreakable mug filled with sweets to encourage a motor factor to order a new product, I know that its modest cost will be more than covered by the uplift in sales. If I enclose a coaster in a letter to warm prospects and invite them to visit the Kalimex stand at Automechanika, I know that if I also let folk know there will be more goodies awaiting them, we’ll be mobbed by the right people!

How to use promotional gifts to drive sales

  • Define your objectives – Do you want to increase responses to your e-mail campaigns, encourage trade customers to try a new product, increase their order, buy from you on a certain day, or spend a certain amount? Be clear so you don’t waste time and money.
  • Brand gifts with your contact details – but don’t overload with too much information; less is more. Your business name and website are the two key ingredients. Use the colours of your brand and your business typeface.
  • Ask for samples before buying – What looks good online can be cheap as chips in reality.
  • Choose gifts that are easy to transport and likely to be well received – At Kalimex we’ve rarely departed from mugs, pens, key rings, coasters and t- shirts over the years. Using the same gifts, but with different messages to reflect the products we’re promoting and the specific campaigns.
  • Pop an item in a mailshot – A flat envelope is boring. A lumpy one will always be opened.
  • Make them an added extra – Put them in with a decent-sized order to a valued trade customer. A mug filled with biscuits and a tea bag will put you in the good books and keep you front of mind for their next order.

Case Study

When Kalimex launched a cartoon character, Mr K-Seal, as part of a global initiative to drive sales of K-Seal Coolant Leak Repair, it knew that for the character to have impact with motor factors the company needed an array of Mr K-
Seal promotional items. The company chose a Mr K-Seal key ring, coaster, t-shirt, pen and a limited edition mug. The reaction in America and the UK to this was incredible. In the month after the first phase of the Mr K-Seal promotion K-Seal sales broke all records. Kalimex continues using promotional gifts and branded clothing for promotions to stockists and mechanics.


For more information about the products available from Kalimex, click here.

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