Branding

[Ciapolin]

Ok, hands up, I have to admit I'm a bit of a marketing luvvie!

I'm thinking of having some branded items in my appartments, e.g. corkscrews, playing cards etc.

Does anyone have any views on this or any contacts for companies that produce this sort of thing?

[Sue Dyer]

hmmmm, not sure. Do you mean for folk to use or buy? One off's just for apartment use would probably be quite expensive. I think rental owners maybe tred a fine line between the personalised service we offer and not being too "corporate" but that's just my 2p's worth

I did make some "Lily Cottage" fridge magnets though. You can buy sheets of magnetic paper which goes through your printer. I did some with photos of the cottage and the web address and gave those away for a while.

[vrooje]

We just got custom postcards made using vistaprint.com (they may have a .co.uk site as well); it was $50 for 250 postcards and they look great!

I wonder if they could do playing cards... or fridge magnets!

[Linda Freese]

I agree with Brooke, www.vistaprint.com are great and they have a variety of items that can be personalised. I think they have an offer of free fridge magnets at the moment!

[vrooje]

I just did a google search on "custom playing cards" and there are many, many sites that will do it for you (not VistaPrint as far as I can tell). Some require that you buy hundreds of decks, others don't. It looks like the price ranges from $8-$20 per deck depending on how many you buy.

Though, this was a US-based search... I don't know what google.co.uk would bring up!

[Ciapolin]

Thanks guys - I guess I'm just a sucker for a freebie myself, and thought it might be nice to have some giveaways! I love the idea of the postcards.

[livinginitaly]

Having used Vistaprint many times, I really can't fault the service (even with shipping from america). Quality is good and the ability to design 'online' is a great help. You can use their 'stock' templates or upload your own for most products.

If you're looking for 'corporate gift' type products, you could contact Jonathan Dear (email: jon 'at' allsorts 'dot' uk 'dot' net)

He runs allsorts.uk.net, and may be able to do 'specials' but most items are supplied in packs of 25 (ish)

Hope this helps

[willemijn]

have tried to get quotes for printing postcards in Italy ... the wonders of the internet ... will have a look at the sites you have given. Here I did not get anywhere near what I intended and it was terribly expensive.

[paolo]

Willemijn,

Vistaprint has an Italian site - if you go to the bottom of their homepage there are flags for each country. But I don't whether they then print and send them from Italy, or the US.

[willemijn]

Paolo, found out about that yesterday when I has a look. They are not very good at internet marketing, because they are nowhere to be seen when searching the Italian google.

Thanks,

Willemijn

[cedwardbrice]

Whats your Objective:

Are you trying to build brand equity? drive market awarness for your rental, drive future bookings etc or just impact your already thin margins by spending more money?

If you are building a rental company that will market several properties you may want to consider a more agressive brand building stratgey that may or may not use promo items

You may want to put your money into building an offer that drives a booking after check out i.e book in two weeks for next year and I'll take a $100 off 2006 rates.

You may want to consider some offer that drives awarness and bookings. I think SVM (or store value marketing cards are great tool). We offer a free gas card with everybooking.

Point is dont just spend promotional money unless you first define your marketing objective.