Making Impressions

Making Impressions

The impression a logo makes is one thing. If it's eye-catching, it's doing its job. But the impressions it makes is another – and perhaps more important – job. Impressions are the stuff of advertising. How many people watch a TV show? Pass a billboard? Read a magazine ad? So, are you ready for some math?

Let's say, for example, that you have a customer who wears the logoed apparel you embroidered for him five days a week. Each day he encounters 25 people. That's 125 people a week. One-hundred-twenty-five people a week times 50 weeks in a year equals 6,250 people (i.e., impressions) a year.

Now, assuming our first example was on the conservative side, let's double the encounters to 50 people. That works out to 12,500 impressions per year. Doubling the number again yields 25,000 impressions … and so on.

Are these numbers out of the question? Not according to Robert Pakkala, owner of The Pakkala Group, a Minneapolis-based financial services company. Lands' End asked Pakkala to keep an informal count of his contacts during the day and then showcased the results in its January 2006 Business Outfitters catalog under the headline: "Eye-catching logos work hard all day."

The count: 346. The breakdown: 37 contacts while walking the dog in the local park; 19 while buying coffee and donuts in the coffee shop; 26 while in sales meetings; 43 while running errands; 57 while addressing a group; and 164 at a kids' basketball game.

Now, what if your customer outfits his employees with the same logoed apparel, and each employee encounters the same number of people? You do the math.

Finally, let's monetize that garment, or garments: a couple of short-sleeve polos for summer and a couple of long-sleeve denims for winter. With embroidery, your customer has paid maybe $1000 for the forty shirts, another $80 for digitizing and $200 for sewing the forty logos, for a sum of $1280.

Is there any other form of advertising that will yield as many impressions for $1280 as logoed apparel? And most importantly, have you made your customer aware of the value he is getting from his investment? Maybe the next time a customer objects to your pricing, you should ask the question, "How many people do you come in contact with each day?" Then do the math for him.

And don't be surprised if he thanks you.

From “Embroidery/Monogram Business” newsletter