Before having your next batch of promotional items printed up online or by your local printer, you should start using polls to find out what items your customers use every single day. Why is this important? Each business has a different “niche” set of customers and the promotional items that may work well for one business won’t work for the other.

Where and How to Use Polls

Your website – This is the best place to use polls because, people are trained to respond positively to polls online.

Social media – Another popular way to use polls online is social media. If you have a good connection with your fans, friends and followers on your Facebook, Twitter and MySpace pages, you should place polls on these pages as least once a week. By mail – If you have an extensive customer list you should consider mailing out a poll to your existing customers with a monthly newsletter or sales brochure. To encourage your customers to complete the poll you should include a self-addressed stamped envelope for them to mail the completed poll back to you or encourage them to complete the poll on your website.

How to Use Polling Information

Once the polls are finished and you have a good representation of what interests your customers or prospects, the next step is to print promotional gifts that tie into your customers interests. After you’ve had your next batch of promotional gifts created, the next step is to set up a plan of how you’re going to distribute those items to your prospects and customers.

1. Raffle – Create a raffle and encourage every person who walks into your place of business to enter the raffle and win a free gift which will be one of your new promotional gifts.

2. Rewards – Use the offer of a promotional gift as an incentive to get your website visitors to fill out online feedback forms, complete more of your polls etc.

3. Mail – Don’t be afraid to mail a promotional gift, such as promotional stress balls, to every existing customer in your database. People love getting something for free and it’s a great form of advertising.