August's My Best Promotion comes from Maria Vick, national account executive, Post No Bills Inc., a franchisee of Adventures in Advertising, Columbia, S.C. Vick was hired by a company in the data communications industry who sought promotion during an upcoming national sales conference in Orlando, Fla. Vick put together a Florida-themed gift bundle to be given to the conference attendees at their hotel rooms. By carefully selecting interesting and thoughtful items, as well as taking a gamble on custom packaging, she was able to craft an extremely successful promotion.
Promo Marketing: What was the promotion's goal? What did you do to make the goal happen?
Maria Vick: The goal was to compile a unique "Orlando" themed gift basket/room drop for conference attendees that would be traveling to Orlando from all over the country for a sales conference. The items we chose all reflected the Sunshine State and were coupled with exciting offers and sales incentives from the client.
PM: What kinds of items did you use in the promotion, and why?
MV: Florida peppermints (essential for networking), alligator-shaped bottle opener, orange-shaped stress ball (for when meetings drag on!), Gatorade (a play on Florida and a little rejuvenation at the same time), trail mix with custom orange-shaped labels we printed in-house, Orlando city map (to familiarize attendees with the city), and a faux alligator money clip (to hold a Starbucks card that the client provided).
PM: What made this a profitable promotion for you? Why?
MV: Every item with the exception of the money clips and Gatorade bottles were branded with the company logo. We were also able to charge for fulfillment/assembly of close to 100 kits.
PM: What was the best decision you made with this program, and why? The worst?
MV: The best decision I made was to keep the promotion unique and unlike anything the conference attendees would expect to get. We kept our creativity shining throughout the entire process. The worst decision I made was to underestimate the amount of time it would take to assemble everything … especially since the packaging was so fragile!
PM: Did you run into any problems with the promotion, and how did you overcome them?
MV: I had been looking for packaging for a few weeks as I wanted something authentic looking. Traditional produce bags didn't have the effect I wanted. One day we received a shipment of pumpkins from a farmer in Canada (We were doing promotion kits for the film Coraline). I instantly knew that was what I needed but it was terribly fragile and it required me to turn into a micro-managing beast when assembly time came. I only had a specific amount of netting to work with and didn't have time to wait for more from Canada. The client actually drove the kits down to Orlando and all transporting was done (carefully) by hand.
PM: Any other advice or insight you'd like to give related to this promotion?
MV: Research, research, research. Research what your client needs and look for creative and fun ways to execute it.
Want to be considered for a future segment of My Best Promotion? Contact Michael Cornnell at mcornnell@napco.com or 215-238-5449 for a list of questions and other details.