Corporate Gift Tip: Travel Items

Travel items have always been used as business gifts or promotional items, particularly targeting business travelers or trade show attendees. The opportunity to make the travel experience a little bit better is a great way to earn some goodwill for your brand, which makes travel items and gift sets particularly appealing.

With rapidly changing air travel safety guidelines, travel promos have had to keep up. Now, new travel gifts not only make being on the road a little easier, they can also help your clients get through security and keep up with current baggage and carry on requirements.

Some highly useful items to think about during the holiday gift season are the Air Safe Toiletry Kit and TSA approved luggage locks. These two items are TSA approved and will give your recipients a hassle- free trip to the gate.

Case Study of the Week

Drawstring Backpacks Serve As A Functional Gift for Company Employees

Challenge: How to provide a reward for employees.

A large manufacturing company sought to provide its employees with a promotional gift. They figured the best place to distribute the gifts would be the company's annual picnic.

Solution: A drawstring backpack is chosen as the ideal gift.

A gusseted cinchpack was chosen as a gift for employees for two main reasons. One, the large imprint area allowed the company to use the bag as an effective promotional product. Second, it was light weight and high quality, which was a great way to show employees appreciation.

Result: The bags are a hit, and go into use immediately!

The bags were extremely functional, especially for the company picnic, as employees could use them to carry home wet bathing suits and towels.

Corporate Gift Tip: Messenger Bags

Imprinted messenger bags and briefs are great gift choices because they appeal to a wide number of people.

These bags come in a variety of styles, from conservative designs that fit a professional image, to contemporary fashions that appeal to a younger demographic. Nowadays, the bags come in a wide array colors that can appeal to many different tastes.

For many of our clients, budget is an important factor. ePromos features messenger bags at a variety of price points including some quality choices available under ten dollars.

For brand conscious buyers, we have a great selection of popular brands. Some names include Ogio, Dockers, Patagonia, and Victorinox Swiss Army.

Although we offer many choices, choosing the right messenger bag doesn't have to be confusing. Our experienced Promotions Specialists can help you find the right bag for your needs

Corporate Gift of the Week: Insulated Travel Mugs

The perfect choice for commuters or anyone on the go, promotional travel mugs are one of the top promotional products of all time. They are the perfect way to guarantee your logo and message is visible during the morning commute and throughout the day. Available in a variety of styles and price points they are perfect for promotions, branded in store merchandise or as gifts for clients or employees.

Peak travel mug season started last month with back to school promotions, and will continue through the fall into the holiday gift season. Consider these attractive items as a choice for your corporate gift program this holiday season.

Case Study of the Week

Stylish Promotional Gift Wins the Hearts of Travel + Leisure Magazine’s Advertisers

Challenge: To cost-effectively promote and convey the essence of a brand to savvy, seasoned buyers

One of the most crucial groups major publications aim to please is advertisers. Travel + Leisure (T+L), the world’s leading travel magazine, is no exception. Wanting to impress ad buyers at the World’s Fast Party, an event showcasing choice hotels, the professionals at T+L sought an appropriate, classy and useful promotional give-away—something that wouldn’t break the bank, but that would promote the discerning T+L brand over the long term while reminding buyers where to invest ad dollars.

Solution: Bright and bold lime-green leather luggage tags combine style with substance

The staff at T+L contacted us to help solve the dilemma. After a bit of back and forth brainstorming, ePromos’ travel industry Account Executive and the T+L staff hit upon the ideal promotion: lime green leather luggage tags. The tags were perfect:

They fit well with the travel-related World’s Fast event theme
Ad buyers, many of whom travel extensively, would use them for years to come
With a bold, bright lime-green color, they attracted attention and looked incredibly stylish; the tags also promoted T+L’s bold desire to be the authority for the discerning traveler

Result: Custom luggage tags are a hit with T&L execs and advertisers; same style to be used in future promotions

T&L’s editor-in-chief Nancy Novogrod raved about how attractive and convenient the luggage tags were; they were also an affordable way to promote the brand and show appreciation to advertisers. The lime green color and style were such a hit that T&L plans the same for an upcoming umbrella promotion. Party attendees loved the tags as well; T&L reported that advertisers appreciated a promotional gift they could take home with them and use—all the while reminding them to think of Travel + Leisure when planning upcoming ad purchases.

Corporate Gift Tip: Sports-Related Items

With autumn soon approaching, an excellent choice of gift for your employees can be a sports-themed item branded with your company name. Though not everyone enjoys sports, for those that do, these gifts are highly appealing. They offer the recipient the chance to show their team spirit while demonstrating their company pride.

There are a number of these items available, including pennants, pom-poms, stadium cushions, and stadium cups. Their functionality, along with their fun-nature, ensures that your recipient will re-use these items as much as possible. As they bring these items with them to crowded stadiums and courts, you can be sure that your company's name and logo will receive maxmium exposure. People will also take them home as mementos or display them in lockers where the products serve as a spirit reminder long after the game.

Sports-themed items not only increase spirit at games, but also boost morale in the workplace. Happier, more vibrant workers means more productivity, so don't delay, give your employees a sports gift they'll really love.

Corporate Gift of the Week: Leather Card Wallet

Leather items are great selections for your corporate gift program due to their durability and high perceived value. Your recipients will be impressed by the inherent elegance in a leather item and will appreciate the effort.

A particularly useful leather gift you may want to consider purchasing is the Leather Card Wallet by Wegner Swiss Army®. This item can really come in handy when it comes time to network. It comes outfitted with four pockets and a mesh ID window that keeps business cards, money, and IDs organized and within easy reach.

Branded with your company's logo, the wallet can serve as a great promotional tool. Whenever your recipient removes the wallet to place something in it or pull something out, they'll expose your name to everyone around them. Because of its functionality, it's also a great way to reinforce the relationship between your company and your recipients. As they look at their wallet, they'll see your name and remember your genorisity. This can either lead to more business in the case of a client, or increased productivity in the case of an employee.

Case Study of the Week

Gifting Loyal Customers Increases Word-of-Mouth Referrals for Blinds.com

Challenge: How to drive business growth by increasing the word-of-mouth referrals of existing customers
It’s no wonder that word of mouth is a key strategy in many specialty industries where competition is fierce and the struggle to differentiate is fiercer: a recent Jupiter Media Metrix survey revealed that 45% of online shoppers choose their e-commerce vendors based on word-of-mouth recommendations. In another study, Baylor University found that customers who receive promotional gifts are 14% more likely to provide leads; salespeople who give promotional gifts receive 22% more referrals than those who do not.

Blinds.com, America’s favorite blinds, shades and shutter store, wanted to tap into those truths by using promotions to encourage its base of satisfied clients to spread the word about the Blinds.com family of products and services.


Solution: Say “thank you” to customers with a big, bold imprinted gift that boosts loyalty and encourages referrals
Since people are more likely to recommend a company they feel truly values their business, ePromos recommended gifting the Blinds.com customers most likely to tell their friends about Blinds.com—those who had provided positive feedback about their experience with the company. The gift also had to be substantial enough for customers to want to share with their friends and family, as well as tie into the Blinds.com product line. Our choice—promotional car shades—worked well:

Being lightweight, they’re easy and cost-effective to mail

Car shades are useful; who doesn’t like to keep the sun’s heat out of their car?

And because they block out the sun, just like blinds, the shades fit hand-and-glove with the Blinds.com brand

Car shades double as highly visible advertisements; when displayed in a car windshield, the Blinds.com name and Web site are in full view of passersby
They’re big and bold, gifts customers want to show off and tell their friends about!

Result: Blinds.com gets a surge of new business as existing customers refer others to the Blinds.com Web site
To make the gifting as easy as possible for Blinds.com, ePromos also provided fulfillment services—Blinds.com gave us the customer list…we took care of the rest. The Blinds.com staff tells us that customers really appreciated the promotion and felt like the company really cared. Blinds.com also has proof that their small token of appreciation truly impacted word of mouth: shortly afterward, the company reported a marked increase in word-of-mouth referrals to the Blinds.com Web site.