Promotional Pens Versus Other Ad Media

Advertising is one battle ground that a successful business must be able to win in order to survive. From a standard point of view, the battle in advertising must be fought with all the business resources one has, foremost of which is the budget.

Set against today's recession, businessmen are all the more on the lookout for cheap and effective advertising media for their goods. Television is almost out of reach of anyone with modest resources, except for the big boys with money to burn.

Newspaper and radio ad placements are cheaper than TV but their reach is likewise limited. Billboards might come cheaper in production costs but are saddled with more limited target reach and spillover. They also are expensive in terms of short showing times.

All things considered, promotional pens are one of the cheapest and considered one of the most cost-effective advertising vehicles in today's top-heavy advertising budget expenditures.

Of course, finding the right medium for your advertisement does not depend solely on matters of costs and budgets. Other factors play a big part in your choice of any particular medium for your product or service.

What is your target market?
What is your product - a consumer good? Your corporate brand?
What is your advertising target - product awareness? Increase in sales?

If your product's target market is age or gender-specific (beauty products, for instance), concentrating much of your budget on television ads is wasteful. The spillover to other groups is great. The groups who don't belong (old or very young people or men) is so large your budget goes to nothing. (TV ads are computed on average number of ALL viewers irrespective of age, gender, or income class.)

This same situation is also true for radio and newspaper placements. However meticulous is your preparation in choosing the time (for radio) and the show to fit your intended audience, still the spillover wastage is so great judging from the cost of the message's placement. (Radio ad costs are computed the same way as those of TV ads.)

In a newspaper, the demographics of your target market are harder to define. You may end up advertising on a paper read mostly by retirees, if you are not careful.

Regarding other media placements (mobiles, posters, billboards), they are also considerably more expensive compared to promotional pens. Moreover, there is also a time frame limit for your ads.

Promotional pens, on the other hand, have a long advertising life, some well over a year. This is time considerably well-spent as your advertising material is an actual tool used for writing.

There is even no fear of loss because the finder will still see and be impacted by the advertising on the pen itself.

Giving away pens to prospective customers build brand awareness. A pen carrying the company or logo creates instant recall. Assuming that a pen is used at least once a day, the company or the advertising message on the pen is read or noticed by the user, at least even on a subconscious level.

Handing out printed pens is similar to putting up thousands of miniature billboards all over the city at a small percentage of the cost.

In terms of consumer impact, cost-effectiveness, and effectiveness of message, the use of promotional pen wins over any other advertising medium hands down.