If you have found this post, then you have possibly decided already that a promotional pen is the right product for your branding.

Choosing a promotional pen should not be a decision that is taken quickly and without considering several factors. This will ensure that you:

• Give maximum exposure to your brand.
• Give your clients or prospects something that they will keep and use.
• Achieve your aim (whether that be increased sales, raising brand awareness, thanking a client base, rewarding staff loyalty).

What are the factors to consider when choosing a promotional pen?

Who is it for?

The first thing to consider when choosing a promotional pen is who it is for. A gift for your top ten key clients is completely different to a brand awareness campaign. You should therefore consider some of the following categories when starting to look:

• Plastic Pens: Great for larger target audiences, brand awareness, campaigns, direct mail, exhibitions.
• Metal Pens: Should be considered as a client gift, possibly at Christmas or a special date. Prices still allow this pen to be purchased in bulk.
• Executive Pens: Higher end price range. You are now browsing for that special gift for top clients possibly on lower volumes.

A great question to ask yourself when starting the process of choosing the right promotional pen is :

“Would I keep this pen and use it if it was given to me?”

If the answer is “yes”, regardless of what price bracket the pen is in, then you have made the right choice! If the answer is “no”, it may be wise to look again!

Budget

Price is one of the most important factors when deciding on your choice of promotional pen. This goes hand in hand with who the pen is for as plastic pens are at the lower end of the price range and executive pens at the higher end. Decide early on how much you want to pay per pen and stick to this if you can.

Style

When choosing your promotional pen, the final choice should speak volumes about what type of company you are. It is equally acceptable to select a subtle pen as it is to choose one that stands out from the crowd. Does your choice reflect the company image?

Colours

There is usually a good selection of colours to choose in the promotional pen range, more so in the plastic pen category. You don’t have to select a white pen and print your logo in colour. There could be a close match to your corporate colours, allowing your pen to stand out.

Print Area

Look at your logo in the early stages of choosing a promotional pen. Is it landscape or portrait (or do you have an option of both)? A number of pens have large print areas, but it is so important to think about what message you are looking to put on your pen :

• Logo only?
• Logo and contact details (website, telephone number)?
• Key campaign message?

A typical print area on a Senator Super Hit Ballpen is 50 x 20mm. Draw this out on a sheet of paper and consider what you would be able to see and recall if someone gave you a pen. Look at pens you have been given in the past. What works best?
Certain promotional pens offer full colour wrap around print areas, great if you have strong imagery or a big message!

Lead Time

Do you need your pens in a hurry or have you built in time before your event or launch? Lead-time is about 10-12 workings days on average. There are options if you have left your decision late. You may have express fees to turn your order around in 2-5 days, but it is possible. When you know the date you need them for, gather your ideas, consider your options and look to make a decision early. This will ensure you have the right pen, at the right price, with the right message.

Your promotional pen is mightier than the sword. Take time and consider the key factors above when making the choice and it will be a most effective sales tool.

Promotional Senator Pens are one of the best-known ranges of writing instruments. They market and sell some of the iconic pens in the business gift industry and with continual product innovation, reacting to clients needs and a focus on hitting the right price point each time, Senator appears to remain in pole position.

At the lower end of the promotional pen price spectrum, Senator Pens have a good choice of plastic pens to choose from. There are a wide variety of colours and shapes to suit all tastes. The Dart and the Sunny are the lowest price point pens. The Super Hit Ballpen family is possibly the most famous of the Promotional Senator pens range. With additions in recent years it now boasts:

• The “Basic” (white barrel, coloured clip)
• The “Matt” (choice of 8 matt colours)
• The “Eco” (recycled range)
• The “Mix and Match” (create your own colour ways)
• The “Icy” (choice of 9 frosted barrel colours)
• The “Supersoft range” (solid of clear barrels with additional rubber grip).

The Super Hit has a promotional pen to suit everyone and given it has a black ink refill as standard, it is ideal for NHS or government bodies.

More recently Senator Pens have worked on the same principle when creating new promotional pen designs. They have developed pen “families”, each based on the same initial design but each possessing their USP’s. That could be the material finish, the choice of colours or additional features (i.e. grips, metal nose cones). It is a promotional gift supplier’s dream to be provided with so much choice to give to the end user!

Moving up the price range and Promotional Senator Pens don’t let themselves down for choice. The Challenger family of pens has grown into a serious industry player. They boast large capacity refills and come in finishes such as basic, aluminium effect, icy as well as a choice of 2 “rubber gripped” and 3 “metal nose coned” models. This is a mid range pen, but should not be overlooked.

An area of note when considering promotional pens is that of print area. Too many pens fall short with restrictive positions or narrow branding space. Most of the Promotional Senator Pens have at least 3 print positions (at worst 2) to the barrel and clip. You can be sure that this is one thing you don’t have to worry about when considering these pens as a giveaway item.

There are so many other models within the Promotional Senator Pen range. Given the sheer choice of colours, the number of finishes, the styles and the price points, the clear message from highlighting this range is to rely on your promotional gift supplier for advice, visuals and samples to ensure you get the right pen for you!

If there is a shining light in the promotional gifts product range during the current economic climate it has to be the cheap promotional pen. It could be said that during times when you have to work lean and show improved results on the back of spending less, then there is certainly a call to go back to basics. Promotional merchandise spend is certainly an area where this is completely true. The amount of enquiries for the high end executive business gifts are still there, and clients appear still willing to put marketing spend into the more expensive products. However, where the real surge in activity lies is in the huge area of cheap promotional pens and these continue to sell well.

When there is a product range with so much choice, this provides the opportunity to vary what has been done before or what the intended audience has received in the past. The cheap promotional pen continues to provide the variety required, the price that is desired and the branding possibilities that so important these days to the marketing departments looking to promote their campaign or organisation. The cheap promotional pen is possibly one of the most used and valuable business giveaway idea on the market and something that can certainly gain a large amount of impressions during its useful lifetime. For your company, it provides a solution to keep enforcing your brand to your client base and potential customers, while allowing cut backs to be made.

The choice within the cheap promotional pen range does continue to evolve. Although there are some huge best selling models such as the Super Hit and the Baron Colour ballpen, there are now some really good options that can provide a twist. Pens made from recycled materials are the current industry buzz, with materials such as recycled packaging, CD cases, car parts and card all being used to create the new age of cheap promotional pens. There are also biodegradable options, pens made from cornstarch, which naturally break down in really quick times. All of these cheap promotional pen ideas are now available in several colour choices, good branding areas and have the functionality required and perform as well as any of the best selling options. In fact the large volume items are now being produced in Eco versions, showing where most producers see the next move in the cheap promotional pen market.

Steel City Marketing has been a business gift distributor for over 28 years and has seen all the industry trends and shifts in buying patterns. With a wealth of experience in the sales team (please call on 0114 2754150 to speak to someone), you can be sure you are dealing with one of the leading UK companies in this field. So if it is a cheap promotional pen idea you are looking for, or any other business gift ideas, please call now.