Promotional Items: Extending Brands, Solving Problems, Gain Customer Loyalty!

The power of promotional products extends far beyond simple brand recognition—they create lasting connections that transform awareness into loyalty. Amber Carter, CEO of Loudmouth Marketing, joins the Public Relations Review Podcast to unpack the strategic value of branded merchandise in today's competitive marketplace.

Drawing from decades of experience in sales and marketing, Carter articulates a crucial distinction: "Marketing is what you say about yourself. Branding is what others say when you're not in the room." This perspective shifts how we understand promotional products—not as mere logo-bearing trinkets but as powerful tools for creating meaningful brand experiences.

Through compelling case studies, Carter demonstrates how thoughtfully selected items can drive specific business outcomes. She shares how personalized snow globes recognized airport employees after a weather emergency, creating emotional connections that lasted long after the gift was presented. At trade shows, unique items like Bluetooth-enabled mugs generated significant leads by creating excitement that translated into business card exchanges. For retail establishments, branded merchandise can incentivize larger purchases, as demonstrated by a Louisiana restaurant that offers souvenir platters with large crawfish orders.

Carter also addresses practical concerns facing businesses implementing promotional strategies. For budget-conscious companies, she suggests measurement techniques like QR codes to track engagement and demonstrate ROI. For environmentally conscious organizations, she highlights the growing availability of sustainable and recyclable options. When delivery challenges threaten event timing, she emphasizes the importance of backup solutions to ensure brand moments aren't missed.

What truly distinguishes Carter's approach is her emphasis on solving customer problems rather than simply distributing branded items. Whether you're looking to enhance employee engagement, generate qualified leads, or encourage repeat business, the right promotional strategy can deliver measurable results while creating authentic brand connections that advertising alone cannot achieve.

Want to transform your brand's promotional strategy? Listen to this episode for actionable insights you can implement immediately, regardless of your industry or budget constraints.

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Chapters

• 1:40 Introduction to PR Review Podcast
• 2:31 Meet Amber Carter of Loudmouth Marketing
• 5:21 Marketing vs. Branding Fundamentals
• 7:18 Employee Engagement Success Stories
• 11:43 Generating Leads Through Promotional Products
• 18:16 Overcoming Sales Challenges
• 23:42 Sustainability and Industry Headwinds
• 28:07 Final Thoughts and Closing Remarks

Transcript

Announcer: 1:10

Welcome. This is the Public Relations Review Podcast, a program to discuss the many facets of public relations with seasoned professionals, educators, authors and others. Now here is your host, Peter Woolfolk.

Peter Woolfolk: 1:30

Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast and to our listeners all across America and around the world. Now, apple has ranked this podcast among the top 1% of podcasts worldwide and recently Feedspot listed this podcast as number 13 on its top 70 best public relations podcasts in the United States. So thank you to all of our guests and listeners for your continued support and if you enjoy the podcast, please leave a review. Now question Most companies and organizations have an interest in expanding their brands. Promotional items can benefit organizations by way of an effective indirect marketing tool by subtly increasing brand awareness without overtly pushing sales. So just what are some of those benefits? My guest today will identify multiple benefits. She enjoys decades of successfully working with multiple companies and organizations with their brand growth and expansion strategies. So joining me today from Lafayette, louisiana, is Amber Carter. She is the CEO of Loudmouth Marketing. Amber, welcome to the podcast.

Amber Carter: 2:38

Thank you, Peter. I'm excited to be here.

Peter Woolfolk: 2:41

Well, great, great to have you here. So why don't we begin by having you give us a brief overview of your background?

Amber Carter: 2:49

Sure, for the last 20 years I was a cable executive. I was responsible for working with some of our affiliate partners to be able to sell the 30-second spot so that commercial that comes on your television as you're watching your favorite program. I was responsible for working in operations to make sure that that spot aired and we could bill it. So that's what I did in the cable industry for 20 years.

Peter Woolfolk: 3:21

Well, so when did you decide to begin to and launch Loudmouth Marketing?

Amber Carter: 3:27

That's a great question. So way before I was a cable executive, I was a pharmaceutical sales rep and we were armed with promotional products. So back then what was really hot were pens, pads, coffee mugs and all the things that would allow us to be able to get some time with the gatekeeper. The gatekeeper is the person that sits at the front desk, whether it be the office manager or the nursing staff that would allow me to go back into the office to speak to a doctor. So it was my things. I used to bribe them and what I noticed is that when I was bribing the front office staff with free stuff these are adults they would get so excited about a pen a pad a coffee mug.

Amber Carter: 4:19

God forbid if I brought in something that cost more than $4. So I noticed at that time that if I ever got a chance to be an entrepreneur, I wanted to sell promotional products.

Peter Woolfolk: 4:32

You know it's interesting. You said that because before I got into public relations I actually worked for Xerox. So getting past the gatekeeper you're absolutely right is hugely important if you want to sell something. So be as nice as you can. I spent a lot of lunches on receptionists and secretaries.

Amber Carter: 4:51

Absolutely.

Peter Woolfolk: 4:53

So let's talk about now some of the strategies that are necessary for brand expansion via promotional products.

Amber Carter: 5:00

Okay. So I think often there's a misconception about branding and marketing. I have a couple of phrases that I want to use to set the stage. Marketing is kind of what you use to say about yourself. Branding is what others say when you're not in the room. Right, Marketing gets attention. Branding is what turns attention into loyalty and lasting impact. And just one more Branding is not advertising. It's a connection.

Amber Carter: 5:36

So when you think of promotional products, you really want to think of the branding aspect of it, and so branding can be used for several different reasons. For several different reasons, some of the strategies that I use when I talk to customers about using promotional products for branding is increasing awareness, generating leads, so it's kind of the sales part of it, and I'll give examples for each in a moment Boosting your sales, maybe even encouraging customer loyalty Loyalty from customers can also extend to employee engagement and then, obviously, encouraging repeat business. Mm-hmm.

Peter Woolfolk: 6:18

Well, you know, I think that's important. One of the things I'll say is that I did have a chance to look at your website as Loudmouth Marketing. There's a lot of information up there that listeners can take a look at that talks about some of the things we're going to cover here today. So let's talk about ways of how these products benefit you and the clients, as I said, without pushing sales.

Amber Carter: 6:45

Sure, customer loyalty, and I'll talk about it from employee engagement. So I sit down with the customer and I want to define their goals first, because what is so important about using promotional products for branding is that we're not selling things, although when you go to my website, as you mentioned, there are many, many, many different things right, I probably have over a million SKUs on my website but each one of those things is driving a solution, and so I sit down with the customer to be able to understand what is your objective. So I recently did a great employee engagement project with a local airport In Louisiana. We recently had a blizzard.

Amber Carter: 7:41

For Louisiana, we called it snowpocalypse. We had 11 inches of snow on the ground, and so they reached out to me and said Amber, we really need a nice gift to show our employees that got up and running in record time. We'd never had snow before, we've never had to have the airport closed for the amount of time it was, and so these employees really went out of their way to get us back up and running, and so I thought about that. I'm like, okay, I know I need a drill to drive a hole in the wall, and I wanted to focus on more than the drill but the hole in the wall. How can we creatively deliver something that would show employees that they were recognized for the work that they did? And always the trick is that there's a budget. There's the B word, right.

Peter Woolfolk: 8:34

That's right.

Amber Carter: 8:34

So we could have spent something as much as $100 per person, but they didn't have $100. What they had was somewhere between $30 and $50. So I went looking for something that I knew that employees were going to leave on their desk for years to come, and what we created was a snow globe. You know the globe that you take and you shake them and there's something inside of it.

Amber Carter: 8:58

And what we put inside of it was a picture of the airport, a personalized picture of the airport, and each of the globes at the base of it had the individual's name. And what she said is when they distribute them, people could I mean the the mouths open and they've just worked so excited. And when she walks around the office, people still those that have kept them at work have left them on their desk some of them have taken them home just to be able to enjoy with their families.

Amber Carter: 9:30

So what we've created through showing employee recognition and loyalty, we've created an experience that people and even the globe actually you can turn it and it makes sounds. Unfortunately, we couldn't make it a Louisiana music sound, but people were really excited to receive their globe.

Peter Woolfolk: 9:53

You know, I like the way you frame this, because the fact that people kept them on their desk, it not only was a reminder to them of the work that they did, but other people saw that too. So that being the visibility of that item, a lot of people were exposed to that and therein, you know, again, gain in terms of brand exposure, uh, was certainly a benefit to your organization.

Amber Carter: 10:17

really, as you said, you know, really without pushing sales, that's right and so you know, when you think about you know and I work with a lot of companies who use promotional items to create sales, like generating leads and boosting sales but the beauty of when you can make it experiential, you can do a return on investment. Right, you can go back and ask the person or not even ask the person, but you can just see the pride that they took in their work by continuing to have that item on their desk. So there's a return on that investment.

Peter Woolfolk: 10:58

Well, you know I'll be honest with you. I'm very excited to hear what you've just presented about that, and so now give us a few more ways that you have helped others benefit from having their own product identification and promotional items around.

Amber Carter: 11:13

Absolutely so. When companies use promotional products to generate leads, oftentimes I will get a company calling me at the last minute like, oh, amber, we're going to a conference or a trade show and I completely forgot that I need to restock my giveaway items show and I completely forgot that I need to restock my giveaway items. And I still try to take the exact same consideration of when that person leaves the booth and they've been handed something, because what you get in exchange for handing a promotional item is they give you either their business card, which you can use to be able to follow up after the fact, but one of my customers because they, you know, came at the last minute. I needed to do something pretty quick and a turnaround, and so we came up with a really unique item and what she said? What she said, amber, this item had made it around the convention floor, it was this mug, and it around the convention floor.

Amber Carter: 12:14

It was this mug and it was a special clearance, so I was able to get it pretty quickly from the vendor that was doing a closeout, but the mug actually had a speaker at the bottom of it. So you're not, particularly when you can get a product that's multi-use, useful. Those ones, those are the ones that are a big hit. So you drink out of the mug and then you can also use it to play music through a USB Bluetooth. She said she had so many people in line waiting to talk to her simply because of her promotional product. There was no relevance in the item that they were selling, but the item that they were giving away became so popular at the convention she actually ran out.

Amber Carter: 12:56

But in exchange, she got tons of cards and relevant leads because people wanted the item she was giving away. Another really good strategy to use promotional products is when you are trying to boost sales. So, for instance, I work with a doctor who has just created a concierge service. She's a really good functional medicine doctor and she no longer takes insurance. She is full cash pay right. So it is called concierge. And what I pitched to her was why don't you, when someone signs up? Because it's really expensive it's like $2,500 per year for her to be your physician. This is not something you can get reimbursed from your insurance. I said to her when you get people that either buy your product, your concierge services, people that either buy your product, your concierge services or refer, why don't you give them something, a really nice gift, something like a nice tote bag or a lunch tote or something like that, in exchange for paying for something?

Amber Carter: 14:08

Another recent idea that I was successful with was a crawfish restaurant. I'm in Louisiana, so lots of those but there's a tin that when you eat crawfish, you put your mud bugs on this tin. It's a round platter, right, and it became like a souvenir thing that you could take home when you buy 30 pounds of crawfish or more. So this restaurant person said Amber, I don't like stocking things to sell. I'm like, no, you're not selling it. What you're doing is you're offering it. When people buy something from you, it's an additive gift almost.

Amber Carter: 14:48

So what they're seeing is that people are clamoring to be able to have that platter, so they're buying 30 pounds of crawfish and using it as a souvenir giveaway.

Peter Woolfolk: 15:01

You know what that also reminds me of. I see I mentioned earlier. You know relationship building. You know, I think of, maybe, circumstances such as you know I just said. Getting past the desk, you might notice that that person is a coffee drinker. So you might wind up giving them a coffee mug with your company's name on it. You know, even though you right now are not trying to, you know, sell them specifically anything, but the fact is that they drink coffee, why not use this? And so it's sitting on that desk for a very, very long time and it keeps your name in front of them. So it's sitting on that desk for a very, very long time and it keeps your name in front of them and it's you know, at some time, at some point, they may decide to give you a call because of that. You know that generosity you displayed to them.

Amber Carter: 15:44

Absolutely. I'm glad you mentioned that because myself, being a entrepreneur, I have to think of creative ways in which to sell my product, and so I use the same strategies that I just talked about when I'm selling to my customers to be able to make the Loudmouth Marketing brand accessible, and so what I do is, for every customer, I will send them a really nice sweatshirt and it has my logo on it front and center, and they often get like, oh wow, where did you get that? So I often use my own product to be able to sell myself items to my corporate customers, like you're saying that they might need coffee mugs for their employees.

Amber Carter: 16:37

Well, instead of them having to brand their own coffee mugs, I will make a donation towards their company with my logo on it. So you're absolutely right. Anytime you can make people your walking billboards, then you know. I mean, there's nothing better than when you leave a conference and you know the attendees have the backpack on that. You just gave away in the airport and you see it.

Peter Woolfolk: 17:03

So there's not a better feeling that you know that your ROI has been well spent Out of curiosity what has been one of your most difficult but well-deserved, if you will accomplishments in selling to a company that you had to jump through a lot of hoops to get it, but once you did it really did pay off no-transcript.

Amber Carter: 17:25

I have more than one store like that, yeah. So you know, being a small business, I have the flexibility in pricing. You know I don't have a lot of overhead right now. I'm not doing a lot of, you know, advertising like that 30-second spot. I'm not investing in that. What I do have are a lot of testimonials from clients that have worked with me and have been able to say if you want the best price, the right product, on time delivery, work with Amber and Loudmouth Marketing, and so the hard part is coming into an established business, peter, and asking for the business when they've been working with a promotional product vendor for 10 years, five years, and they have a relationship. So relationships that are already built in are hard to break into. But here's what I often do I ask for just that one time and I ask them to let me save them 30% or more. And they are curious because they're like how in the world can you save me just 30% off the top?

Amber Carter: 18:35

And when I do it, they often ask okay, my existing vendor has been robbing me the fact that you're able to come in and undercut his price and save me some money because when it comes to the bottom line, particularly in this economy, oftentimes promotional product budgets are ancillary. It's not a part of how you do day-to-day business, and so companies that still have it are very fortunate, but there are many companies right now who are cutting those budgets, so I'm having to come in and show them that let me help you save some money, and when I do that, normally I will get some repeat business.

Peter Woolfolk: 19:16

Well, you know, I think that is one of the, I guess, primary drivers of sales is sell the benefits If you can sell, and one of the benefits is saving money. That's hugely interesting. I would imagine everybody that's listening. Maintaining a budget is important to any and all businesses.

Amber Carter: 19:34

Absolutely and oftentimes what I'll get. Peter, when I talk about you know budgets are tight. People often go oh, we've used promotional products before, we just don't know if they work. And so here's how I show them that they work. If they work and so here's how I show them that they work I'll say let's whatever you're going to use, let's do a QR code on that product because you can actually put I'm not sure if you understand when I say a QR code and you take your phone and use it to be able to track.

Amber Carter: 20:03

You can use tracking information to determine how useful that product was. To be able to track conversion. You can use like a special offer or discount tied to the promotional product to measure direct impact. So there are lots of ways where people will go Amber, been there, done that, we didn't like it. And so I asked them did you put any measurements in place to see where did your products land? Did they create conversion? And then they will probably say no, so then I'll offer them that solution and that solution is often impactful when they can go on social media and see people taking pictures alongside whether it be an award, a T-shirt, taking pictures alongside whether it be an award, a T-shirt that's the loyalty that you want to get when you make people your walking billboard.

Peter Woolfolk: 20:58

You know you've mentioned several important things. As I said, I was in sales years ago when I was at Xerox, and you know the bottom line is that you have to solve your customers' problems. It's not you about getting bonuses or selling anything, it's about you solving their problems. If you can do that with your equipment, then you do have a sale and whatever your product is, they have to see what the benefit is and that's what really begins to turn the corner or make people willing to sign the checks, if you will.

Amber Carter: 21:29

Yes, repeat business. Encouraging repeat business is also another strategy of promotional products, particularly when I can. Let's say a small mom and pop. Yeah, they sell. Let's say the butcher shop, because a lot of my target customers are small and medium-sized businesses. One business is a butcher shop in Atlanta, georgia. I asked them I'm going to give you some free merchandise to put on your shelf with your logo and let's see if it moves. And do you know? The thing that moves so much was that people were traveling a long way to get butchered meat from them and they needed to be able to put it on ice. Well, they had nothing to put on ice, so we would. We also stocked them with coolers.

Amber Carter: 22:23

You know the cooler bags and we put their logo on the cooler bags. So people were buying up the cooler bags. So not only did they make money from the meat and the product, but they were making money from the cooler bags that people needed to put to be able to drive an hour back home, especially in Atlanta traffic, so anytime you can and then what would happen is that people would come back to get more food with the cooler bag. So the cooler bag began having longer shelf life. And so that was great testimonial from that customer.

Peter Woolfolk: 22:59

Well, you know that again is solving problems. I mean, that's basically what it is you do. I'm here to help you solve your problems. That works each and every time, Each and every time, each and every time. Now, do you have any other complex, if you will stories that you tell or ways you went about solving customers' problems using your promotional items?

Amber Carter: 23:21

Yeah, I mean just right now, peter, talking about industry. You know there are headwindwind right now that the tariffs, particularly in China. I often source a lot of my products overseas because that's where I can get the best bang for my customers' bucks literally.

Amber Carter: 23:45

Because things made in America tend to have a higher price tag to source, and so oftentimes I will get customers that just waited to the last minute or, you know, even with Mother Nature having to contend, and you go like, what does Mother Nature have to do with promotional products? Well, with all the storms and all the things that happen, ups will not deliver a product, even though my customer says, hey, my award ceremony is tomorrow, and UPS says no, I cannot get you your delivery tomorrow. My customers can't do anything with an award the day after the award ceremony. Right.

Amber Carter: 24:23

So what I will often do, peter, is have things in stock that I can hand deliver to a customer. So it may be blank awards, but at least when the award ceremony goes on, there's something in the hands to be delivered to the award recipient so they could take pictures right, so I always want to have a plan B when I work with customers, so that Mother Nature, ups, fedex don't impact the event, because the event is one day and so the next day the event is no longer and that product is no longer relevant.

Peter Woolfolk: 25:01

Well, you know, again, it's solving the problem because, yes, the actual trophy for them, because it is monogrammed or whatever, can't get there. But the fact is people looking at the picture don't know that, and but the recipient knows that. You know, yes, this is just for this moment, because of weather conditions or whatever, but I will get my actual trophy or plaque or whatever you know, once the weather condition clears up. So, in essence, you did solve the problem. You know several different ways. You know, take the picture now and we can still use it for publicity, and once the weather clears you'll have your actual trophy in hand and from my exposure, people will go along with that program because they understand. You know, sometimes you have no control over Mother Nature, but the fact that you are offering, and still offering, a solution to the problem is a help and benefit to me.

Amber Carter: 25:54

Always got to learn how to pivot with Mother Nature, because it's so. I mean. It's becoming more prominent now, but it's so unpredictable, right. And I just want to share.

Amber Carter: 26:03

one other thing that a mountain, I guess I would say are headwinds. A lot of the big companies and I do work with a couple of really big ones that do supplier diversity, and so they will often give small shops like mine a chance. What they want is companies that invest in sustainable and locally sourced products. Oftentimes they think a lot of this stuff is mass produced and it just causes environmental damage, and while that could be true, peter, there are lots of vendors now that I work with that create sustainable, recyclable products. Whether it be a Pendaflex folder, they make it out of a recyclable material, a fabric like the handbags that you'll use to go grocery shopping. People are looking for things that are recyclable. So often when I get that pushback that, oh no, we have enough stuff in the, you know, the, the, the landfill I'll show them all of the green items that loudmouth marketing offers and I'm able to overcome that objection.

Peter Woolfolk: 27:11

Mm-hmm, you know that again is the sales things. When you mentioned that, go back to Xerox. Overcoming those objections is a huge you know it separates the pros from those who are not pros and stealing the deal. Once you can overcome those objections of customer satisfaction, things are looking up for you. Yes, okay, well, amber, any closing remarks? Because what I've heard today, I mean, was really, really exciting and, I think, very, very beneficial to our listeners. So any closing remarks for us?

Amber Carter: 27:41

Well, I'm just excited to, at this time, expand my business. I've been doing this for a couple of decades now and the thing that I can hang my hat on every day is that I have never cheated a client, meaning that people know when they work with me, my product will always be of quality. I will always give handholding service. I'm not going to have you go on that website and try to look through a million products to be able to pick just the right one. My customer service, my brand, my brand is often called hand-holding service. It feels a little touchy-feely sometimes, but when I can take away that burden from the admin that will call me to say my executive leadership team wants me to find this great item, I'm able to take that burden away from that person and get the right product in the right budget and get it there on time. And so using those testimonials over and over again to get or drive new business for loudmouth marketing is what we do.

Peter Woolfolk: 28:52

Well, amber, I certainly appreciate your taking the time to come on our podcast to talk about the success of loudmouth marketing, and I have no doubt that our listeners will learn a lot from what you've had to say here today. So, once again, thank you so much for being our guest.

Amber Carter: 29:09

Thank you, peter, for the time, and I greatly, greatly appreciate it and would love to do it again. This was fun. Thank you for making it fun.

Peter Woolfolk: 29:18

Thank you. And to my guest let me say thank you, and certainly you will certainly benefit from the wisdom that Amber Carter has shared with you today. Once again, Amber Carter, she's the CEO of Loudmouth Marketing. I'd urge you to go take a look at her website. I mean, I've been there and there's some really, really good looking stuff there, so I'd urge you to take a look-see. The one other thing I'll ask well, if you've enjoyed the podcast, certainly leave us a review and we certainly appreciate it and share it with your friends and colleagues. And don't forget to listen to the next edition of the Public Relations Review Podcast.

Announcer: 29:54

This podcast is produced by Communication Strategies, an award-winning public relations and public affairs firm headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. Thank you for joining us.