Everywhere we go, we see pens with a logo on it, and even I have been guilty of thinking, oh, just another pen, why don’t they get something more exciting? The truth is that pens are still an extremely effective marketing product. People take pens keep it in their purse, car, or it ends up in their office or home where a family member or co-worker ends up walking off with it, they use it a while and it goes on to the next person. For some reason people don’t respect pens as “someone’s property” so they don’t think twice about walking off with a pen, in fact, most don’t even realize they are doing it. As silly as this is, it makes for great marketing, because people are distributing your logo all over the place, you couldn’t get that much exposure yourself with any other product if you tried!
At our company each sales person has their favorite items to show clients, one refuses to show pens because she believes they are boring and we have so many more cool products to present. Another we call the pen queen because she sells thousands upon thousands of pens every year. Knowing some of the statistics about how people use pens may change your mind about presenting pens to your clients. After all, just about everyone uses pens every day and most clients can fit some pen into their budget somewhere, even if they have to use an office supply budget.
PPAI (Promotional Products Association International) did a survey on the use of pens and found that 73% of people always carry a writing instrument with them. 83% use ballpoint pens on a daily basis and will keep and use it if given to them as a complimentary gift. What more can you ask for from a promotional product? If you can get 83% retention of your item, you know that most people aren’t just going to stash your item or give it away. Pens are both a functional product that everyone uses as well as an effective promotional product, so making sure to present some pens to every client is essential!
Some interesting facts to think about when presenting pens or other writing instruments: Of the people surveyed about the types of writing instruments they use on a daily basis 83% use ballpoint pens as mentioned above, but 36% also use pencils, 31% use highlighters, 30% use gel pens and 25% use markers with 20% using mechanical pencils and 20% using roller balls. So, if someone does want something a little different, there are other options in the writing instrument category. Of course as everyone in the industry knows, there are probably millions of options that we can present to our clients.
Statistics from PPB a PPAI publication July 2012
