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Gone are the days when people ignored ingredient lists. Today, everything is scrutinized, and consumers are tired of cheap, disposable products they don’t need. If businesses give away promotional items that go straight to the trash, what’s the point?

On the other hand, if your business provides trending, sustainable, eco-friendly brand products with long-term use, you’ll be seen as an eco-friendly brand and get more impressions from your promotional products. You’ll feel good knowing you're reducing plastic waste and making a positive impact. Eco-friendly items may not always be the cheapest, but customers will use them longer, enhancing their experience and strengthening their support for your brand.

Eco-Friendly Products Can Further Brand Messaging

If you had to choose between two brands, both with cute water bottles and great messaging, but one of them uses 20 recycled bottles to make theirs and supports ocean clean-up—who would you choose? With everything else equal, what sets your brand apart? Consumers want a reason to support you, and if your brand doesn’t come across as eco-friendly, you risk losing a big part of your audience. Simply avoiding throwaway items like cheap pens, sticky notes, and stress balls can set you apart from the competition.

Going Green with Brand Products

Going green is a process, and it can start with the promotional products you hand out. Many companies default to cheap bulk pens. Instead, consider choosing a medium-grade pen that people will actually use daily. Use the same budget but buy fewer, higher-quality pens to reduce waste. While you may have fewer items to distribute, they’re more likely to be kept and appreciated.  Likewise, instead of bulk foam stress balls at $0.75 each, invest in fidget cubes or quality stress balls that customers will keep on their desks. Put yourself in the user's shoes: would the product you’re considering actually get used?

Trending Eco-Friendly Products

What are some of the trending eco-friendly products right now? Water bottles continue to lead the way in sustainability initiatives. They help reduce the number of single-use bottles that end up in landfills and oceans. Innovation in water bottles, tumblers, and drinkware has accelerated as consumers focus on sustainability. One of our favorite new promotional items is the Bestie Bottle—CLICK HERE to check it out.

Apparel with sustainability features is another popular trend. This can include items made from recycled materials, such as shredded plastic bottles, which helps reduce waste. Many new options are emerging in this space. For instance, this t-shirt is made from the equivalent of up to six recycled plastic water bottles—CLICK HEREf or details.

While awards are often given in corporate settings, mass-produced awards can be wasteful. Many employees end up discarding them to make space for new ones. Perpetual awards offer a solution by allowing recognition for certifications, continuing education, or years of service without adding to waste. Here’s an example—CLICK HERE

With single-use plastic bags banned in 12 states and likely to face nationwide restrictions, quality grocery totes are becoming essential. Providing customers with durable options can generate significant impressions. Check out my favorite high-quality grocery tote—CLICK HERE.  —and a more affordable bulk option—CLICK HERE.  Solar-powered items, such as wireless charging portable chargers, also contribute to sustainability efforts. Additionally, many kitchen items and higher-end electronics fit the eco-friendly category. In our view, anything that isn’t a cheap, throwaway item qualifies as eco-friendly.

Sustainability Matters

Sustainability matters because you’re either part of the problem or the solution. If your business isn’t focused on sustainability, you’re contributing to the growing issue of mass-produced items that get discarded after minimal use—or sometimes unused altogether. After tradeshows, it's common to see airport trash cans filled with handouts that went straight from table to tote to trash. Becoming an eco-friendly brand requires thoughtfulness and strategy. Partnering with an experienced promotional products company can help you build a sustainable product strategy far more effectively than going it alone.  Ask yourself, does sustainability and being an eco-friendly brand matter, and why does having a sustainability initiative matter at all?  

Be Branded Can Align Your Business and Values

At Be Branded, we often ask why. Why choose that specific product? Will it resonate with your audience, or will it just end up discarded? Does it reflect your audience’s preferences? Is there a better way to spend your budget for a stronger return on investment?  While choosing only eco-friendly products might not fit every business, opting for more sustainable options can help align your brand with your values. Are eco-friendly promotional products harder to find? Sometimes. Yet, with the rise of sustainable consumer preferences, more innovative, eco-friendly options are entering the market. However, if your provider isn’t up-to-date on these trends, you might miss out.  Choose Be Branded—or a company that consults strategically—so your promotional items truly reflect your brand values and goals.  And yes we do carry Yeti in case you were wondering!  CLICK HERE to see our selection!

On day one of your business, you should already have your logo, email signature, website, and vision. Step one for integrating promotional products is ensuring you have high-quality business cards. Step two is having a small promotional handout on hand for any last-minute event you might attend unexpectedly. You should also have a table cover, a retractable banner, and a professional work shirt, such as a logoed polo. Having your core setup ready is essential so you aren’t scrambling when an opportunity arises to take your business to the next level through customer prospecting. 

Optimizing Your Marketing Strategy With Promotional Items 

Consulting with a marketing expert focused on promotional products and planning your purchasing timeline for these important products should be factored into your business startup costs. Over time, you should establish a monthly, quarterly, or annual budget dedicated to business promotional items. Whether those funds go toward replacing handout inventory, investing in new promotional handouts, upgrading your tradeshow setup, or adding additional apparel, you should keep your business relevant and modern. Trends shift, preferences change, and your business must constantly adapt its personalized promotional products to remain top of mind with customers and continue positive growth. 

Why Promotional Products Work & How to Use Them

Promotional products work if you purchase the right products rather than simply choosing those on sale or at the best deal. Your business must consider factors like your target audience, budget, brand representation, and desired return on investment. Considering these questions, along with individual situational factors, will help you focus on the best promotional products to purchase. For instance, handing out the same promotional product to a group of Fortune 500 CEOs and to teachers for Teacher Appreciation Week doesn’t make sense. Promotional items should be viewed as a tool, not something to do just because everyone else is doing it. Take a step back and continuously ask yourself who your audience is and what they would appreciate as a gesture from your business—something they likely wouldn’t buy for themselves. That is always a great starting point! 

Benefits of Promotional Products for Small Businesses 

Unless you buy a business with an established brand, you must create your own brand identity from scratch. There are many ways to do this, including establishing an online presence, gaining social media followers, paying for ads online, in-person networking, radio advertisements, and direct mailers. However, if you want to be used regularly by both existing and potential customers, you need to put physical products in their hands. Personalized promotional items are items that get regular use. If you choose to distribute quality business promotional items, you can secure regular impressions that surpass any other form of marketing. You don’t need to spend excessively on promotional items to get a good return. Being strategic is far more important than the specific product you distribute. However, if you hand out the same products as everyone else, you won’t set your small business apart from the competition. Finding a promotional product company that will help you build a blueprint for success ensures your hard-earned money is invested in the best business promotional items possible to propel your growth forward. Don’t do it alone—talk to an expert! 

The Effectiveness of Promotional Products 

The effectiveness of business promotional items corresponds with the amount of effort and thoughtfulness put into their selection and distribution. Too many companies simply buy the least expensive personalized promotional items to get mass quantities. But what is the purpose of handing out 5,000 cheap pens if they will be lost or discarded almost immediately with no long-term impression value? Imagine those pens cost $0.50 each. What could you do with that $2,500 that could create a longer-lasting impact and connect with your audience in a more valuable way? Perhaps choose 25 high-value prospects and spend $100 on items those prospects will use daily. That would likely achieve better impressions and results than those pens. We need to think in terms of meaningful impressions and move beyond distributing branded promotional items to thousands of people who are not our ideal prospects. Personalized promotional items should be planned with the same strategic approach applied to any other part of our business. 

The Power of Promotional Items in Your Marketing Strategy 

Promotional items can be powerful tools if used correctly, but they can also weigh you down if you don’t put enough effort into your approach. At tradeshows, for example, we’ve encountered exhibitors whose promotional products arrived late, leaving them empty-handed. When visitors come to their booth, all they talk about is how they were supposed to have products, but they arrived late. This distracts from the purpose of the event. We’ve seen table covers for well-known brands that look wrinkled and unprofessional—why not invest in a steamer to look more professional? We’ve also seen banners with frequent misspellings. Did no one on the team proofread it? Was there no system in place to catch these mistakes? Think of a time when a roofer or HVAC expert came to your home in a tattered or stained shirt. Or when someone shows up without any company identification on their truck, hat, or shirt, leading you to question their professionalism. These factors can make customers trust your business less. Presenting a professional appearance will not only make you feel that your business is legitimate but will also legitimize it in the eyes of others. Ensure your handouts arrive on time for conferences. Order early and work with a business that stands by its timelines. Give yourself ample time with ordering so that you aren’t rushing at the last minute and skipping essential checks that could lead to mistakes in your messaging. At a minimum, show up with a name tag and a shirt that aligns with your brand guidelines and color scheme. However, it’s best to attend events in branded attire, such as a logoed polo or oxford. Retire any apparel that appears worn, stained, ripped, or otherwise unpresentable. These are a few guidelines and questions to ask yourself to help you think strategically about promotional items in your marketing strategy and avoid common pitfalls many businesses encounter.

As a promotional product company, we are used to making last minute rush miracles happen every single day.  Your selection of custom branded products is majorly limited when ordering last minute.  On the other hand, if you take the time to plan out what you want 6 months into the future, your options are pretty limitless and you can choose to customize products in a way that will set you apart from other companies.  Plan your event calendar and reach out to your promotional product provider, like Be Branded. Work backward from each event date to create a foolproof plan that maximizes your impact with your audience.

Customize Your Promotional Product Approach

Innovation of promotional products has slowed in recent years because of supply chain issues, increasing cost of goods, and increasing cost of labor.  Because of that, it is important to work within the available options, but approaching custom branded products in a different way.  What can you do to make your business stand out?  Stop just ordering the standard pens, sticky notes, and ceramic mugs.  Custom promotional products that are more one-of-a-kind and exclusive will keep your customers asking how you are going to engage with them next.  Being predictable and showing up to every event with the same boring handouts will not propel your initiatives forward.  Make sure that you hand out custom branded products that will be utilized on a regular basis.  Recently at Be Branded, we distributed custom step stools that were not available as a stock product from any U.S. supplier, so we had them custom manufactured overseas. Why? Because these step stools will likely remain in homes or garages for years. They are a unique and memorable handout, showing our thoughtfulness and adding value to our customers' lives.

Custom Manufacturing Examples

For larger orders, we can custom-manufacture products overseas, often reducing costs while enhancing customization. For example, a restaurant client of ours was buying plain socks at $3.90 per pair and having them screen-printed locally, with limited options and identical designs. By consolidating their annual order to 25,000 pairs, we reduced their cost to $3.40 per pair—saving them $12,500. We also upgraded their socks from one basic style to 12 customized options, all with improved quality at a lower price.  Another example of a custom promotional item we created was an award for a defense contractor. As their project neared completion, they wanted a memorable gift for each employee who contributed over the years. Starting with a simple drawing, we developed a custom 3D-rendered product, personalized for each employee and gift-packaged to create an unforgettable experience. These projects require patience, but the result is far superior to generic products you’d find from a typical promotional company.  One of the most frequent examples of custom manufacturing is bulk totes or bulk lanyards for conferences.  We can easily help with those kinds of needs at Be Branded.  Custom work shirts, t-shirts, socks and all sorts of apparel can be custom manufactured as well, but most of that is ordered in lower quantities and printed in the United States instead.

Bulk Ordering on Promotional Products

Most companies are looking for ways to reduce overall spend and one way to do that is by ordering the same quantity of products, BUT ordering in larger volumes fewer times throughout the year.  If you order t-shirts 100 shirts at a time 12 times throughout the year, the price will be significantly reduced if you instead order 1200 t-shirts one time OR 600 t-shirts twice. This seems simple, but when you are in the thick of the day-to-day needs, it is not something that is always considered.  The ability to bulk order promotional products on an annual or less frequent basis will be dependent on how your company budgets for the year, but if you can order in this manner it will make your budget go much further.

Benefits of Outsourcing Production

Outsourcing production overseas does move some manufacturing out of the U.S., but it offers key benefits. Retailers can order larger quantities at lower costs, boosting margins and reinvesting more into the economy. Overseas production also allows for greater customization and specialized printing options that may not be available domestically. Countries like China, Pakistan, Vietnam, and Thailand are highly specialized in manufacturing and rely on orders from the U.S. just as we rely on their expertise and equipment. Ideally, more could be produced domestically, but currently, only about 13% of custom promotional products are made in the U.S., reflecting the practicality of global partnerships.  A customer recently approached us with a polo they liked and wanted to make a t-shirt from the same material with their logo. While this product isn't readily available in the U.S., we can definitely work with a manufacturer to create custom t-shirts using that same material to meet the customer's needs.

Be Branded Can Bring Your Dreams to Life

At Be Branded, we’re not custom manufacturing engineers, but if you have a basic concept that fits an existing product with a few modifications, we can likely help. We work with trusted manufacturers who specialize in different areas and will match your project with the right one. While you could try going directly overseas through platforms like Alibaba, you take on 100% of the risk. There are many reputable manufacturers, but also many who aren't, and it can be hard to tell without firsthand experience. Do you have the time and resources to manage potential challenges? While working with Be Branded may cost slightly more than going direct, the difference is minimal. Think of it like a DIY home project: some succeed, but many end up calling in an expert and with Be Branded we have checks and balances in place to make sure your projects are a success with us each and every time!

When you purchase a service and the company you chose has tattered uniforms with holes and stains that don’t look fresh – how can you trust them? Conversely, if you purchase a service and your chosen company has high-quality custom uniforms – it instills almost immediate trust. Crisp and clean uniforms lead customers to instinctively feel that they made the right decision. You become a high-quality brand in the minds of customers even before performing the service. The service seems like it will be performed with care. The company takes care of its employees and stays current on trends and necessary education to remain relevant. You don't get a second chance to make a first impression. Custom employee uniforms can psychologically lead potential customers to think that a service should cost more, and in turn, a company may be able to charge more. High-quality uniforms are an investment in more ways than one, but it all starts with the customer experience. 

The Importance of High-Quality Uniforms

It is extremely important to customers that companies show up looking the part. If you are a high-end brand with basic t-shirts, you won’t convey the image you're aiming for. If you match your brand with the right quality of apparel, it will set the correct expectations for customers. You can even take a brand with subpar customer service, add higher-end apparel, and customers may become more forgiving. Knowing this, how could you not invest in higher-quality uniforms if it’s one of the easiest ways to gain trust with your customers? 

The Impact of Embroidered Uniforms

Imagine a door-to-door salesperson showing up to your house in a t-shirt. How would you feel? That salesperson might come across as young and possibly inexperienced. You may even doubt their knowledge of the topic they are presenting. Now, change that t-shirt to an embroidered uniform – perhaps a polo, button-up shirt, or oxford – and the customer experience will change. That slight increase in investment in the salesperson gives customers a sense that they are more knowledgeable or trustworthy. On the other hand, if that same salesperson wore a suit, they might come across as unapproachable. When choosing uniforms, think of the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears: finding the “just right” balance is key. This polo HERE is one of the most popular polos because it’s affordable, breathable, and doesn’t break the bank. 

The Impact of Screen-Printed Uniforms

Screen-printed custom uniforms are among the most common, and for good reason. In service-based industries like restaurants or companies with many employees, outfitting each individual with embroidered polos, jackets, or other high-cost items can become a financial burden. With job-hopping on the rise and employee retention a constant challenge, it doesn’t make sense to give every employee high-quality uniforms from day one. Perhaps these can be given after three to six months. If you want to refresh your messaging for conferences, events, or new product launches, pairing that with a screen-printed t-shirt is the way to go. There are different qualities of t-shirts, and even high-end ones don’t strain budgets as much as embroidered polos or jackets. There’s a time and place for both types of apparel, and ultimately it depends on how a brand wants to represent itself and what the budget allows. This t-shirt HERE is one of the most popular in the world because it’s a mid-quality shirt that fits and feels good. 

Brand Consistency Includes Employees

The customer experience is a major reason why companies choose high-quality custom uniforms for employees. However, it’s important to note that employee retention can also be improved by not skimping on uniforms. Offering cheap uniforms while promoting a high-quality product sends mixed messages to employees. If a company cares only about customers and profits, how can employees trust that their long-term needs will be met? Be consistent in your brand and put your employees first, even before your customers. When employees feel valued, it will shine through in the culture, and customers will recognize and appreciate the authenticity. 

Bulk Orders Can Help You Save

Instead of placing orders every week or month, it’s much more affordable to order in bulk. If your budget allows, annualized ordering will stretch your funds further. You’ll also avoid the constant waiting on production and shipping, giving you quicker access to products with your logo. You can order in bulk and store items offsite, then request what you need, which will ship in just days. In times of budget restraint, ordering large quantities less frequently can help your company manage rising costs and growing employee numbers. Companies with more than 300 employees should especially consider this. 

Be Branded Is a One-Stop Uniform Shop

If you are a small business looking to support other small businesses then you have come to the right place at Be Branded.  We are only 5 years old and know the grind and hustle that other small businesses go through so let’s support each other!  Do you need custom uniforms with embroidery? Be Branded can help. Do you need employee uniforms with screen-printing? Be Branded can help. Do you want to order embroidered or Direct to Film customized apparel in small quantities, even one at a time? Be Branded can help. Do you want to set up an online company store with pre-produced custom uniforms that employees can order as needed? Be Branded can help build and manage that company store for you and fulfill custom uniform orders as well. Do you need completely custom uniforms that don’t currently exist because you have specific preferences? Be Branded can help with that too! Be Branded is your one-stop uniform shop, no matter the type of customization, program, or apparel need.