Promotional Pens

The Basics of Promotional Pens

No matter what your promotion entails, promotional pens always make excellent giveaways. Whether you need inexpensive plastic imprinted pens for a tradeshow or a high-quality laser engraved pen for executives, there is a pen for every need. Available in a wide variety of basic, fun and executive pens, it is easy to find the imprinted pen or pencil for you. Cost effective and easy to distribute, promotional pens are one of the best selling promotional products available. With a wide variety of styles, colors and brand names to choose from, there's a promotional product for your company.

Plastic Promotional Pens

Plastic promotional pens are one of the most common and highly requested promotional products available. With a wide variety of customization options, plastic pens are easily adaptable to any brand or promotional need. As one of the most popular brands in the industry, Bic brand pens are available with nearly endless customization options. From the clip, trim, barrel to cap, you can build a completely unique pen that perfectly matches your corporate colors. With a very low cost per impression, plastic promotional pens are a great way to market your brand. Inexpensive, fun and flexible, plastic pens are a great giveaway for any and all events.

Executive Promotional Pens

For those times you need to impress your recipients with a higher-level promotional product, executive metal pens are the answer. With sleek and stylish metal designs, executive pens are a great way to impress your best customers. Most executive pens are available with laser engraving options that give a high-value look and feel to the pen. Executive pens look and feel expensive, but can be found at all price points. So whether you want to impress with a Cross brand promotional product or you want a budget-friendly metal pen that looks more expensive than it really is, there are hundreds of imprinted pens to choose from!

Unique and Multi-Function Promotional Pens

Looking for a pen that does more than just write? Multi-function pens are a great way to promote your brand while giving recipients a practical and helpful gift. Multi-function and unique promotional pens can include combination flashlight pens, USB drive pens, pens with laser pointers, or even pens with disco ball lighting! While the trusty pen that solely writes is always a great gift, mix it up a little and give them an unexpected and original multi-function pen.

Uses of Promotional Pens

While custom pens are known for being practical promotional products, the applications for their use are tremendous. Whether used for a tradeshow giveaway, as the pen supply for the office, an enclosure with a notepad or as a gift for your executive level client, promotional pens are always a practical and welcome promotional gift. Keep in mind that not only will its intended recipient use your promotional product, but it will also likely get passed around to others. This pattern assures that your logo will get tons of advertising impressions over its lifetime. Promote your brand without busting your budget with inexpensive promotional products.

Even in this technological age, promotional pens still have quite the impact on society. According to the U.S Writing Instrument Manufacturers Association (WIMA) promotional pens are some of the most common and widely used writing tool. The association was even able to break down the sales percentages of the best selling promotional pens as follows:

• - Retractable ball point promotional pens were the most popular seller, at 26%.
• - Standard ball point promotional pens followed closely at 14%.

Interestingly, however, individuals are still very interested in owning formal, more luxurious promotional pens. Some enthusiastic promotional pens fans will purchase fountain pens priced for thousands of dollars. Many of these people think of promotional pens as a collectable or use them to develop their social status.

According to Steven Roger Fischer, the author of A History of Writing, there is record that the reed pen was used as a recording device as early as the First Dynasty (3000 B.C). Reed pens were constructed out of bamboo or sea rush to effectively write on papyrus. It was not until the Middle Ages when reed pens were replaced by quill pens.

Although promotional pens with reservoirs were used around the 10th century, promotional pens with ink reservoirs were not patented until 1809 by Bartholomew Folsch. From this period on, the ink pen continued to be developed creating the many variations of promotional pens we know today. Just as the reed pen continued to evolve, promotional pens too have changed. Often you will hear someone say, "this is my favorite pen," or they may take back promotional pens they lent to a co-worker. People have become very particular with their writing preferences, which in turn has caused the promotional pens industry to excel.

In recent years, people have developed their own criteria for what makes a "good pen." It is about comfort, flow, style, functionality, and the list continues. So, when choosing promotional pens, it is valuable to analyze their purpose. Below are a few examples of various promotional pens:

• - highlighters
• - gel pens
• - light up pens
• - message pens
• - USB pens

Although all of these unique promotional pens are used as writing tools, they each have their own purpose.

A highlighter is a felt tip promotional pen that is used to draw attention to important content throughout a document. Typically, the ink within these promotional pens is fluorescent so the viewer can still read the content that was accentuated by the promotional highlighter pen. Primarily, however, the fluorescent ink is used to draw attention. When someone needs to refer to work quickly, the brightly colored ink will stand out, serving a quick reference. Although anyone can benefit from highlighter promotional pens, this tool is particularly useful for the administrative and educational industries. Adjudicators can use their promotional pens to quickly reference important legislature, or denote valuable information regarding their client or case. For teachers, they can use highlighter promotional pens to evaluate their students' work or to remember to reference a particular passage while teaching. Since highlighter promotional pens are available in a multitude of fluorescent colors and are useful to everyone, these functional promotional pens make an effective promotional giveaway.

Often artists and authors prefer gel promotional pens because gel promotional pens do not strain the hand like many other writing tools. Other attractive gel promotional pen features include high ink pigmentation, glitter or opalescent ink, and a myriad of ink colors. These few characteristics play into why many individuals prefer the writing style of gel promotional pens over any other promotional pens.

USB promotional pens are a fairly new development in the promotional pens world. These handy writing tools include a memory stick and a writing tool all together in one pen. As technology continues to develop, USB drives, like many other electronics, are made smaller. Now, USB drives can store mass amounts of data within the width of an ink cartridge. These promotional pens are great for students and business people looking for efficient ways to carry all the necessary tools without the inconvenience.

Light-up promotional pens and other interactive promotional pens were created as fun alternatives to the traditional writing tool. Along with being highly entertaining, light-up promotional pens are an effective tool for marketers. Many businesses use these promotional pens as a giveaway at press meets, exhibitions, trade shows, and other promotional events in hopes of drawing potential clients to their station. Light-up promotional pens can also be used in a more corporate setting. Executives can use their laser pointer light-up pens to highlight important content on a screen with out getting in the way of the projected images. With a laser pointer at one end and an ink pen at the other, these promotional pens will fully prepare any business person.

Message promotional pens are similar to light-up promotional pens, but they do not have the same "flashy" characteristics. Typically, message promotional pens have a rotating cylinder within the pen that displays varying messages customized by the distributor. Within 40 characters, a company can express their services, inspirational thoughts, or whatever they choose to market their brand with message promotional pens.

Studies show that customers or potential clients who receive some type of promotional product, such as a promotional pens, are more likely to become loyal to the distributing brand. Having brand loyalty is an extremely important marketing strategy. When developing a brand loyalty program, it is important to review your client list and match a relevant gift or giveaway with the client's industry. When people are given quality, functional items they realize the thought that was put behind the gift and are much more appreciative. For example, if your client is a lawyer, highlighter promotional pens custom printed with the firm's name would be a functional and appropriate giveaway. By properly developing a brand loyalty program, your business could see the returns it needs for the year.

Promotional pens are some of the most cost-effective yet functional promotional products on the market. Whether your company needs inexpensive plastic promotional pens for a trade show or a stainless, laser engraved promotional pens for a corporate gift, promotional pens create the impressions your brand needs at a minimal price. Your company can maximize their marketing efforts by using promotional pens to advertise their services. At a low cost, promotional pens accumulate many impressions. Every time a recipient goes to write something down, they will be reminded of your brand. Similarly, if they share their promotional pens with a fellow co-worker, it is very likely that person too, will notice your brand.

It is difficult to stand out from the crowd at a trade show or exhibition, but you can turn your trade show experience around by distributing the right promotional pens. Promotional pens can be fun and flashy, reserved and professional, or technologically savvy. With such a wide variety of promotional pens available, it has never been easier to match your brand image with the prefect pen. For example, if your company is a signature software company, and you are trying to draw attention to your services, the USB promotional pens are great trade show giveaways that will allow your business to stand out from the crowd. On each USB promotional pen, you can upload a Power Point presentation of how your software works. So, when the potential clients who grabbed one of your promotional pens sits down to use their USB, they will find a professional Power Point reminding them of your services and ingenuity. Perhaps you work for an event planning company and want to stand out at a regional show. Hand out message promotional pens to your booth visitors. When they click their free message promotional pens they will find a list of your services and your contact information, so they can keep you in mind the next time they need someone to plan an event. Or for the bold, consider handing out the fun and flashy light-up promotional pens. These "loud" pens will definitely grab your viewers' attention. Out of sheer interest, people will gravitate to your booth to see what your company has to offer. Along with the many fun functions of promotional pens, these writing instruments really are an effective marketing tool. A business, or individual for that matter, can never have too many promotional pens.

Promotional pens can also function as an individual's business card. When people go to industry conferences, trade shows, and social events, it is often difficult to keep track of all the business cards one can accumulate. However, promotional pens customized with your contact information and company title allows you to stand out from the rest of your peers. Every business person at some time during an event needs one or two promotional pens to keep on hand for notes, so why not be unique and hand out promotional pens so everyone will see your name when they jot a note. With so many ways to make an impression, consider using promotional pens as a functional way to market your brand. You can never have too many promotional pens!