Earth Day coverage has grown exponentially over the past decade and will get substantial coverage in most media outlets — including national television, radio, newspaper, magazines, blogs, etc.

Earth Day creates an excellent opportunity for companies to promote their environmental activities and concerns to a broad base, as well as to their local community.

What will your company do for Earth Day to stand out to its base and capture the attention of its public? How will you let your customers, prospects, employees and/or shareholders know about your efforts to reduce carbon emissions, use more eco-friendly materials, reduce waste in packaging, start a recycling campaign, cut emissions, etc?

My suggestion: Don’t forget the kids. Children are Our Future.

A national research study commissioned by the National Environmental Education Training Foundation noted that children placed the environment third in a list of 10 issues behind only AIDS and kidnapping. This contrasts greatly with adults, for whom the economy, crime, and drugs are of greater concern. Children worry about long-term issues such as damage to the ozone layer and destruction of the rain forest.

Did you know that 99% of children in America today have access to environmental classes in school, and 31 states require schools to incorporate environmental concepts into virtually every subject in all grade levels?

Reach out to children. Children have influence over parents’ buying habits. as well as being an influencing force for recycling and conservation activities.

If you have a local business, work with a school district and get imprinted eco-friendly promotional items, which are educational, into the students’ hands. Try to target elementary or middle schools for best response and maximum impact.

Many of my clients have given out live tree seedlings in imprinted recyclable bag to the local elementary school principals to be handed out to the classrooms during their Earth Day discussions. The students will take the trees home with them and plant them—reminding the entire family of your company’s kindness and desire to re-green your community.

Other great eco-friendly promotional items for students include: reusable backpacks or cinch bags, biodegradable water bottles, pencils and pens made from recycled material, coloring books about recycling and even magnets made from recycled cardboard.
If you are a regional or national company, work with your distributors or regional offices to get your products placed.

Bonus Tip: To save money, contact some non-competing businesses in your area and try to split, or co-op, the cost of the imprinted gifts. You can split the size of the imprint two or three ways—depending on imprint area, which will cut your costs dramatically.

Earth Day will be celebrated and discussed in nearly every school on April 22nd. Don’t miss your chance to promote your business in a green-friendly way.

Happy Earth Day!
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Robert Piller, experienced in green marketing campaigns and environmentally-friendly promotional products. His web site includes a comprehensive eco-friendly advertising specialty search, featuring over 250,000 eco promotional items in all price ranges, for anyone interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find recyclable, biodegradable, organic or recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame. View the Go Green website at EcoMarketingSolutions.com and comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com.

Earth Day is April 22

People who receive an imprinted reusable tote bag use them an average of 9 times per month, according to the June/July 2008 survey of 618 businesspeople on behalf of the Advertising Specialty Institute. Since the bags have a large imprint area and are displayed in a visible location, the advertising message will be seen an average of 1,038 impressions per month; nearly 12,500 people will see that message each year –per bag. Give out 500 imprinted bags, and in one year, over 6.2 million people will have seen your imprint.

At an average cost of $3.00, a tote bag imprinted with a logo and message on it will be viewed 12,000+ times in a year –making the cost per impression (CPI) only $.00025, which is about one fifteenth the cost of an average city billboard ($.003), and 1/28th the cost of an average cable TV commercial ($.007) and the 1/76th cost of an average half-page black-and-white newspaper ad ($.019).

Because imprinted bags, such as totes, are a useful item, they are kept for an average of 9 months, according to the survey. It also points out that 53% of those who received an imprinted tote bag indicated that their impression of the advertiser had become either significantly or somewhat more favorable after receiving the item.

Reusable bags are good for the environment—as they prevent plastic bags to be used. Those made from recycled materials or from natural cloth or jute, are even more eco-friendly. Plus, they are traveling billboards for your message. Imagine the impact of 500 or more people carrying your mini-billboard around –wherever they go.

Reusable imprinted bags are both good for the environment and good for your budget—it is a winning combination.

Imprinted Tote Bags Can BE Seen Over 1,000 Times Per Month-picture courtesy ASI

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Notes:
1) The ASI survey was a series of interviews conducted in June/July 2008 in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Philadelphia regarding promotional products they had received. The purpose of the interviews was to understand how advertising specialties influence end-users’ purchasing decisions; determine the number of impressions of popular advertising specialties; and analyze the Cost Per Impression (CPI) of advertising specialties compared with other popular advertising media. Further, during October 2008, an online panel survey was conducted among recipients of advertising specialties to augment the non-wearables sample from the in-person interviews. Results have been combined in the report where appropriate. There were 213 completed Web based interviews, for a total of 618 completed surveys for this study. Respondents were asked if they had received any promotional products in the last 12 months. Most respondents were business/professional people (84%) and all were age 21 or older. Research provided by the Advertising Specialty Institute, Copyright ©2008, All Rights Reserved.

2) The CPI of billboards and cable TV rates came from Los AngelesMobileBillboards.com and the CPI for the other forms of advertising came from The Nielsen Company for 2008.
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Robert Piller, experienced in green marketing campaigns and environmentally-friendly promotional products. His web site includes a comprehensive eco-friendly advertising specialty search, featuring over 250,000 eco promotional items in all price ranges, for anyone interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find recyclable, biodegradable, organic or recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame. View the Go Green website at EcoMarketingSolutions.com and comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com.

A summary of the conclusions of the report are:

• Instant recall: More than 8 out of 10 (84%) respondents remembered the advertisers of the promotional products they’re received.

• Very impressionable: 42% of respondents had a MORE favorable impression of an advertiser after receiving the item. And nearly a quarter (24%) said they are MORE likely to do business with the advertiser on the items they receive.

• It’s all business: Most respondents (62%) have done business with the advertiser on a promotional product after receiving the item.

• User-friendly: The majority (81%) of promotional products were kept because they were considered useful.

• Staying power: More than three-quarters of respondents have had their items for more than 6 months.

• Bag it!: Among wearables, imprinted tote bags were reported to be used most frequently with respondents indicating that they used their bags an average of 9 times per month. They also deliver the most impressions: Each bag averages 1,038 impressions per month.

• Most impressive: The average CPI of an advertising specialty item is $0.004; as a result, marketers get a more favorable return on investment from advertising specialties than nearly any other popular advertising media.

With budgets tight this year, doesn’t it make sense to utilize a proven medium to keep your name and message in front of your clients and prospects?

Imprinted advertising specialties, from tote bags, pens, shirts, caps, USB’s, mugs and other imprinted gifts can help you to increase and maintain business during this tough economy. While some of your competitors are cutting their promotional budgets or spending their money on more expensive forms of advertising, your company can gain top-of-mind market penetration for pennies per impression through proven promotional products—delivered in a way to maximize its impact.

Promotional specialties can be used as a gift with purchase, as part of a customer loyalty or incentive program, as a thank you gift or as part of a trade show campaign.

Choosing the right imprinted gift, and the proper distribution of it, can help you maximize sales and gain more referral business this year – at a fraction of the cost of other forms of advertising.

Image provided by Advertising Specialty Institute

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Robert Piller, president of Eco Marketing Solutions, is experienced in green marketing campaigns and recycled promotional products.  He has worked with thousands of retailers across the country to get them to offer reusable imprinted tote bags for their customers, to help reduce the landfill waste caused by plastic bags.

His company’s website, EcoMarketingSolutions.com, features over 25,000 eco-friendly promotional items in all price ranges, for any business or organization interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find biodegradable, organic and recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame.

You can also reach him by email (robert (at) ecomarketingsolutions.com) or comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com or below at his Twitter link.