Promotional products feed customer fondness for ‘free stuff’
Shelter Insurance agent Nancy Allison wants to become a household name in Columbia, with a little help from Kammie Teter at White Dog Promotions.
To promote Allison and the company’s life insurance policy for children, Teter designed a refrigerator magnet that can be used as a photo frame and has a pop-out growth chart.
“The more you can put your name in front of people, the better,” Allison, who’s been a Shelter agent for 35 years, said. “My goal is to be on every refrigerator in Columbia.”
Teter has provided a slew of other promotional projects for Allison, including pens, pull-apart key chains, golfing divot tools, insurance card holders, business card magnets, embroidered baby bibs and beverage insulators that are better known as koozie cups.
“People love giveaways and free stuff,” Allison said. “And in the insurance business, my clients don’t walk away with a big screen TV. All we have is a promise that we’ll be there when something bad happens.”
The largest single display of promotional products in town can be perused at the annual Columbia Chamber of Commerce Business Conference & Showcase, which is being held March 17 at the Holiday Inn Select Executive Center. Allison’s products will be there, as will giveaways from Grossmann Promotional Products, which is owned by Larry Grossmann.
Although the most popular giveaways are pens, sticky notes and business card magnets, Teter said the promotional product business “is so much more than pens and mugs. It’s really anything you want to advertise your business. Promotional products are an excellent way to reach people, whether they come into the store or it’s through direct mail. With radio and TV you pay for a mass distribution, and that works better for some businesses than others.”
Grossmann said that stainless steel and aluminum drink wear are on the rise since the BPA in plastics has been cited as a carcinogenic. He will be at the Business Conference and Showcase giving away biodegradable insulated mugs.
“Recently I’ve seen a real increase in the amount of eco-friendly products available and I’m trying to educate my clients,” said Teter. “Bamboo clothing is big, as well as shirts made with recycled water bottles and items made with recycled tires.”
Both Teter and Grossmann also said solar-powered items have become very popular, and Teter said last year’s big item was a calculator that runs on liquids poured into a reservoir.
“The price of traditional media has continued to increase, while the price of promotional products has decreased,” Grossmann said. “There are surveys out there that prove you can create a brand, put it on a promotional product and have better response.”
Grossmann started the promotional product company in the mid-1980s and, after a hiatus, brought it back again in 2007, the year he sold the ADD Sheet, a company he founded in 1971. The store in the Forum Shopping Center has a 15,000-square-foot showroom, one of the largest in the region, according to Grossmann.
“As promotional product counselors our job has changed in that today we find a solution that is at the right place at the right time,” Grossmann said. “There are many more products these days to be more specific in the solution. If we’re looking for a solution that’s (a promotional product placed) on the desk top, we have thousands of items; if it’s a solution in the home, we have tens of thousands of items; for the cell phone, we have hundreds of items.”
Teter started White Dog Promotions (www.whitedogpromos.com) in 2005 and has been working out of her home. But she said that her basement “is overflowing,” so she intends to open a showroom on March 2 at 4603 John Garry Dr., across from Rock Bridge High School.