How do you decide whether promotional wine or beer bags are worth the investment? One method is to estimate how many brand impressions you’ll get—that is, how many times your bags will be seen—and figure out how much you’ll be spending each time someone sees them. That sounds like a lot of work, but fortunately, the two biggest promotional products membership organizations in the US, The Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI) and Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) have already done the research for you.
Here is what they found:
How much brand exposure can you expect?
The short answer: a lot! The 2013 Global Advertising Specialties Impressions Study conducted by ASI found that promotional bags get more impressions than any other type of promotional item. In fact, they estimated that custom-printed bags get an average of 5,983 brand impressions each throughout their lifetime.
Of course, the amount of exposure a promotional item gets depends on a lot of variables. If your bag is ugly, it will probably be relegated to the back of a closet somewhere. The more stylish and attractive your bag is, the more likely the recipient is to want to be seen carrying it around. This is especially true for women—and women are 50% more likely than men to own promotional bags.
Do your customers want reusable bags?
When considering whether to order custom wine bags, you need to take your customers’ preferences into consideration. The best way to do this is to ask them. Conduct an informal survey by having your cashiers ask your customers questions as they check out. Here are examples of questions you might ask:
- If we gave you a reusable wine bag, how likely would you be to use it for future purchases? How likely would you be to use it for something other than carrying wine?
- Do you currently use reusable bags for your purchases at other stores?
- Can you think of any reasons you might not want to use a wine bag with our logo on it?
- Are you more likely to use bags in certain colors or styles?
- Would you be willing to pay for a reusable wine bag?
Another idea would be to have a design contest and let your customers vote for the style they like best. You could offer a prize to the person who creates the winning design and announce the winner in the local paper.
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Cost per impression for bags
Although wine bags weren’t studied separately from other bags, the ASI study estimated a cost per impression of 1/10th of a cent for bags. Promotional bags tied with writing implements for the lowest cost per impression.
How to increase the number of impressions per bag:
In order to determine how to increase the number of impressions you’ll get for each bag, it’s helpful to know the reasons that people decide to keep the bags in the first place. The number one reason is usefulness (cited by 88% of respondents), followed by attractiveness (29%) and enjoyment (15%). So people will keep your bags if they are useful, attractive, and fun. Here are a few tips to increase the likelihood that people will keep and use your wine bags:
- Usefulness: Choose high-quality bags that won’t wear out quickly, and consider whether there are extra features that might increase the bag’s usefulness. For example, removable separators make the bag more versatile, and adding a small zip pocket gives your customer a place to stash his or her keys. These things make the bag more usable.
- Attractiveness: Have a professional graphic artist create the artwork for your custom imprint, and choose a bag that has some style rather than a plain, tote-bag style reusable wine bag.
- Enjoyment: Choose bright, happy colors or a palette of deep, rich jewel tones. A bag with two or three colors that complement each other well is more likely to be perceived as fun than a single-color bag.
There is no guarantee that each bag you give away will receive a certain number of brand impressions, but you can boost your numbers significantly by making sure that the wine bags you give away (or sell!) are better than the average wine bag.
Sources:
- Global Advertising Specialties Impressions Study 2013 V.4
- http://www.asicentral.com/asp/open/research/impressionsstudy/impressions-study-2013.pdf
- Promotional Products: Impact, Exposure and Influence: A Survey of Business Travelers at DFW Airport
- http://www.promotionalproductswork.org/the-facts/Documents/Impact%20Exposure%20and%20Influence.pdf
