Year Long Advertisements

As I think more and more about practical promotions and gifts for customers, employees, and others, one particular product seems easily forgotten. I attribute this primarily to the sheer amount of use this item gets, as well as the number of styles this product comes in. Sitting at my desk, I have 4 of them in sight. There are 3 in my kitchen as well. If you want your promotional message appreciated, kept and looked at multiple times every day, then there is no better medium than the calendar.

Calendars are, plain and simply, useful. Think about it. The true measure of the practicality of an advertising specialty is whether your customer will spend their own money to buy one if you don't give it to them. I know that I would buy calendars. As a matter of fact, I give a wall calendar every year to my daughters as a Christmas present. Though they are twenty-somethings, my girls still look forward to their yearly calendar.

As I said, calendars come in many shapes, sizes, and styles to fit your needs. The most common is the 12 or 13 month wall calendar. Other popular standards are the the desk calendar, the desk pad calendar (you know the kind, the one that gets buried by paper and your keyboard) and the pocket planner. But that doesn't even scratch the surface. Calendars can fit on computer keyboards, mouse pads, wallet cards, pencil holders and even on ink pens. We have the vinyl self-stick calendars for the car or workshop, and magnetic calendars for your prospect's refrigerator that will stay on their refrigerator all year, and maybe longer. Why longer? Because magnets on the refrigerator are useful beyond the date. I still have a 2008 calendar magnet on my refrigerator from a local real estate agent that is holding up my favorite recipe for chocolate truffle tart.

Calendars are a gift that is greatly appreciated by customers because they are USED. But don't just send them to customers or prospects. Think about the types of businesses that can send you referrals. Mortgage companies get most of their referrals from real estate agents, for instance. An auto body shop might get referrals from repair shops that don't do body work; cleaning services from plumbers or HVAC contractors who see a lot of water damaged homes, etc. Get your calendar on their wall as well. Imagine someone fresh from a fender-bender sitting in the repair shop waiting for the car to get fixed and wondering how much the body work will cost. There is your calendar on the wall behind the counter...who will they call?

Just a little side note. Most of our wall calendar vendors offer special pricing for ordering your calendars early in the year. The savings are substantial. If you are certain that your logo, address and contact information are not going to change, then take advantage of the specials and order early. Once the order is placed, we will print them, send you the bill, store them for free and ship the calendars to you in the fall when you need them. Once it is printed, though, we cannot change the imprint. Here is the sale information from just one of our vendors.

Steve
www.raggo.com