We get a lot of small business owners telling us who assume that mousepads are relics of the 1990s, left to collect dust in the back of computer stores everywhere. Millions of people work every day on computers with desktops and use mice to get around the Internet. These people are designers, accountants, and engineers among others. And each of these people uses a surface under their mouse, which could be branded by your company.
Those surfaces under their mice represent untapped branding real estate.
The economics of everyday branding
The form of advertising known as ‘everyday’ or ‘proposition’ marketing, includes products used on a daily basis by consumers to carry out tasks of personal use. These are known as ‘promotional products’ (such as T-shirts, umbrellas, bottles etc) and are designed to promote a brand through what is known as ‘continuous brand exposure’. A mousepad would fall into this category of everyday branding.
Most promotional products are lost within a few days or at best within a few weeks. But a mousepad has the potential to generate thousands of impressions over a period of months or even years because it is used at work every day.
I think it’s fair to say that quality promotional mousepads could cost from $3 to $8 and therefore work out to cost around the price of a click for a digital ad (around $1 to $3) but provide thousands of impressions for years to come.
The economics of mousepads are another reason why some businesses are far better at using them as promotional items than others.
Distribution strategies that actually work
For small businesses, many marketing items such as mousepads are given out as generic. They are left at trade shows in the booth or given to new customers in a welcome package. Many businesses hand out event items at the door to event attendees and never see them again. However, if you are looking to make a strong impact with marketing, it would be best to distribute custom mousepads in specific places where they will be used. If you are an accountant, for example, you can distribute custom mousepads in an accounting or tax office and they will be used by the employees and then passed on to clients who have tax preparation done in the office.
The distribution of your promotional mousepads is the most critical part of a campaign. The key is to target specific work spaces where your advertising mousepad will actually be used. A company of accountants could send custom imprinted mousepads to clients during tax season. Technology consulting companies could send advertising mousepads to companies where they will be implementing software for their clients. Event organizers can distribute advertising mousepads at events and attendees can return to their work spaces with advertising mousepads that were distributed at the event, featuring the event name, and sponsoring companies.
When it comes to distribution of promotional mousepads, you have to try to figure out where your target demographic works. Then, distribute your custom printed mousepads to the offices of their co-workers and send them to trade shows and other events where your target demographic will be. For example, the owners of accounting firms could send custom printed mousepads to the offices of their clients during tax season. The owners of software consulting companies might distribute custom printed mousepads to all of the employees at a client’s office during the time period of the implementation of the software at that client’s office. In this way, your custom printed mousepads will be used as long as your target demographic is working, and they will be exposed to your brand of marketing throughout that time.
Most businesses give away mousepads as promotional products. Unfortunately, these are treated like T-shirts or baseball caps and therefore are often distributed as giveaways at trade shows. The best promotional products are used by the recipient on a daily basis. Therefore, give away high-quality mousepads with your company logo printed on them to your clients as gifts or recognize the achievement of your employees by giving them custom designed mousepads as awards. For example, real estate agent Peter H. from New York gave custom designed mousepads with pictures of local landmarks to his top clients during different periods of time. Peter H. and his company were recognized by his clients on several occasions.
Design considerations beyond the logo slap
But poorly designed mousepads have a tendency to find their way into trash cans all over the world. This is because the designs have a large logo printed in the center of the pad that covers up most of the surface area. Typically, these designs with flashing colors are made for the office and only end up being a distraction instead of a great ambassador for the company.
They can become drawer stuffers – a waste of money and potential brand ambassadors.
Such items feature a logo incorporated into the design of the rest of the mousepad. The branding could be of a different color to the rest of the mousepad, and match the modern design of most offices today. Sometimes a promotional mousepad can feature useful reference information to the user, such as a measurement guide for architects and designers, or a list of standard keyboard shortcuts for software companies.
Material quality matters more than you think
In short, a cheaply made mousepad which deteriorates quickly will send a very poor message to all who see it about the company who distributed them. The physical properties of a mousepad are a key part of the user’s experience with it.
Measuring impact in practical terms
As for what to look for to measure the return on investment of your marketing dollars by using custom mousepads as promotional items, many companies do not have a lot of numbers to report. Many of the marketers using custom mousepads as promotional items are including a QR code or a URL on the custom pads, and are able to track the results from the custom pads. However, many of the marketing companies have found that using custom mousepads as promotional items can be a great way to get some face time with a potential client. By giving custom mousepads to clients and then asking them later if they like the custom pad, a marketing team can use the custom pads as a conversation starter. By doing this, a marketing team can get more face time with a potential client, and train their staff on how to approach the client later to try to get more business from them.
Measuring the success of mousepads can be difficult because initially they do not seem to immediately provide any results. However, in order to find out whether customized print on mousepads is building brand recognition, there are a number of different methods that can be implemented to track the interaction with print on promotional mousepads. For example, a QR code can be included on the surface of customized mousepads. This allows people to scan the code with their smart phones, and then track all of the subsequent interactions with the customized print on the surface of the items. Another way to track whether people have seen print on promotional products is to see if they remember having seen them.
However, in cases where you are not working with an extremely large marketing budget, mousepads can be used for long lasting branding while most businesses use them as cheap promotional novelties.
