Okay, so not to get all middle school guidance counselor-y on you, but…

Who are you, really?  Deep down inside?  What makes you special?

Yeah, we know.  Eeek.  You came here hoping we might digress into some kind of strangely entertaining anecdote involving chubby penguins playing roller hockey with angry hedgehogs, but instead, here you are smack in the middle of an intervention with Dr. Phil.

Relax.  We’re not here to make you cry or to get you involved in a five-step plan for a new life.  But just for a few seconds, think about the answers to those questions – in terms of your business.  What kind of a business does your business really want to be?  And what makes your business unique?

The answers to questions like those are actually really important to what we’re going to talk about in this post – promotional items and branding.  (And no, not with a hot iron poker thing.)   Branding is all about defining your company by its unique characteristics.  Whether you are a general contractor or a plumber or a jewelry designer, you are part of a sea of thousands of people who have similar businesses.  So you have to determine what separates your business from all the rest.

Sometimes marketing geeks like us call this idea your onlyness.  In other words, what kind of statement can be made about only your business?

Are you the only roofing company in the Albany area that promises to return a customer’s call within an hour?  The only Mexican restaurant in town with a full menu until midnight?  The only income tax preparation company in the area that is open year-round?

You are the only business exactly like yours, so there is some special characteristic about your company.  And once you’ve found that characteristic, you can really play it up with the promotional items you choose.  Instead of sporadically giving out keychains, Frisbees, stickers, T-shirts, coin purses, pens, and sticky note pads, you could pick a smaller assortment of high quality promotional items that truly represent your brand and consistently give those to potential clients.

It would make sense for a company that is uniquely tech savvy, for instance, to give out flash drives instead of pencils or notepads.  Or a company that prides itself in being particularly green could go with reusable shopping bags or water bottles.  Or that year-round tax prep company that we mentioned earlier could give out a magnet with a year calendar on it to remind clients that they’re always open for business.

And as for the Angry Hedgehog & Chubby Penguin Roller Hockey League?  A black and white hockey puck coaster with an angry hedgehog on it, of course.