Specialty Advertising: 4 Advantages of Specialty Advertising

Specialty advertising is a form of direct advertising that features company-branded items for giveaways or to promote the business. You can give these items away as rewards for customer loyalty, business gifts connected to partnerships, or promotional items handed out for free at public events or trade shows.

Specialty advertising items are not the same as free product samples, which are a smaller version of a product that a company offers. Specialty advertising, on the other hand, are pieces of merchandise that feature a company name or logo prominently somewhere on the item. Examples of these promo products include:

• Hats, tees, jackets, and sunglasses
• Glasses, cups, and mugs
• Backpacks and tote bags
• Key rings and keychains
• Flash drives and mouse pads
• Calendars
• Coolers
• Pens and pencils
• Magnets
• Matchbooks
• Lip balm

Specialty advertising giveaways can hold a lot of appeal for small business owners. This type of advertising:

1. 1. Builds general brand awareness: An advertising specialty item can spread your name and logo throughout the general public. While you cannot narrowly tailor to a target audience, specialty advertising comes in handy when seeking broader forms of brand exposure.
2. 2. Comes with a low production cost: When ordered in bulk, most promo products, like coffee mugs and mouse pads, have a very reasonable unit price.
3. 3. Is easy to source: Certain vendors have built their entire business model around making specialty items for business clients. If your specialty advertising plan involves free cups, free mugs, free magnets, and free bottle openers, you might easily find a vendor who offers all of these products under one roof.
4. 4. Leaves a good impression on customers: If you provide genuinely useful merchandise to your potential customers, you can leave them with a positive impression of your brand, which increases the likelihood of a future sale. Both a coffee mug and a business card can contain your company name and your brand message. But people will find a coffee cup more useful than a business card. That’s why the free mug might lead to more goodwill over the long run.

Despite certain built-in advantages, specialty advertising will only work for some businesses.

• Specialty products can eat into marketing budgets. Small businesses operating on a tight budget might not be able to order specialty items in large enough quantities to get a reasonable per-unit price. Or if they do order enough units, it might suck up their entire advertising budget, leaving them with nothing more to spend.
• Specialty advertising campaigns do not work for narrow targeting. If your goal is to reach a hyper-focused target market, specialty advertising cannot match the precision of a digital advertising campaign. Your promo products will reach some of your target customers, but your products might also end up in the hands of people who don’t care about your industry. If you want to target specific groups of consumers, shift your specialty advertising budget to a narrowly tailored digital campaign or even a direct mail campaign.
• Specialty items may not naturally align with your company’s brand. You want your target market to see a fluid connection between your specialty advertising merchandise and the service or items your company provides. Sometimes, a brand doesn’t match the available merchandise. For instance, a wellness brand might not want its name on a box of matches or a beer bottle opener. The connection has to feel organic.

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