Calendars have a number of advantages over other types of print advertising, yet they are often overlooked as a marketing tool. Here are four reasons why using calendars to promote your business is a great idea. We’ll also explain why they improve brand recognition and conversion rates relative to other marketing approaches.
They are actually useful
Handing out promotional items is one thing, but offering promotional items your audience will actually use is something else. Everybody uses calendars, and most people have at least one physical one at the home. And I bet you that a large portion of them are promotional in nature. Calendars are one of the most discreet but efficient ways to build brand awareness.
Promotional items that people actually use help make a positive connection between your brand and the user. This works especially well for service companies and people might actually call for your services in times of need.
Calendars are made to be looked at literally day after day. And every time the prospect sees your brand, they’ll think of you. Within a month, they’re already biased toward your brand from familiarity. The fact that you gave them a useful calendar for free also taps into the human instinct for reciprocity. In short, they become imprinted with your brand and predisposed to buy from you if they have a choice.
Compare this to printed flyers or brochures that, even if taken home, might be put in a drawer and forgotten. Calendar printing also provides the opportunity to put your brand in front of people at multiple locations, such as the calendar they put up in their home and the one they put on the desk at work.
Longevity
If you give someone a flyer, they may hold onto it until they pass a trash can or put it on the fridge. However, it isn’t likely to stay there unless it’s useful over the long term like a menu for a takeout place they use often or medical advice they feel they cannot afford to lose.
Calendars have the benefit of being universally useful for literally months. The annual nature of them also ensures that they get replaced on a predictable schedule, and you know when to send your audience the latest version of your marketing materials.
Potential placement at the ideal place for conversions
Calendars can be used to promote your business at the perfect time and place to close the deal. For example, restaurants often send sports league calendars to everyone in their delivery area. Now someone checking the soccer or football schedule on cheap print calendars sees the restaurant menu beneath it and thinks of ordering the food delivery to arrive in time for the game.
Little print calendars built into a magnetic frame are perfect for mounting on the refrigerator. And when the calendar on the fridge promotes a restaurant, it is perfectly placed to convert a harried homeowner into a customer when they close the empty fridge and wonder what else they can do for dinner.
The diversity of opportunities
When someone considers cheap calendar printing as a marketing opportunity, they now wonder if they’re competing against calendar apps and cute decorative calendars that the client already owns. However, you can actually commission a custom calendar printing to relay useful information to the potential customer that isn’t the standard datebook. We already provided the example of the game day calendar that fans will appreciate.
Another option is listing concert dates, school activities, or recommended dates for gardeners. A concert ticket seller is now promoting every show it offers to music lovers every time they look at the list of events. Print calendars online that lists dates like the first day and last day of school and school holidays and distribute them to every parent in the area; this is an excellent way to promote academic tutoring, childcare services or anything else targeted at parents.
A lawn care service or pest control company could share a calendar with recommended dates for planting and harvesting various plants, knowing that they’re first on the list when the reader decides they need their services. If they see the calendar recommending pest control services after the first frost or a reminder to replace air filters before allergy season, they’re reminded to contact your business for service.
Conclusion
Calendars are looked at on a regular basis and remain in visual range for a long time. You can design custom calendars to list any set of events or dates that your audience would find useful and refer to on a regular basis. If you design the item to stay where it puts the information in front of people when they’re most likely to decide to buy, it will improve conversion rates as well.
