How Promotional Products Distributors Go To Market: - PPAI

many in the promotional products industry. These are on-premises stores that sell merchandise with
the company’s logo to the firm’s employees.
Among the few distributors effectively operating an innovative online presence after the
dot.com debacle is one owner who says her firm is primarily a web-based distributor. She’s been in
business for six years. To be a successful web distributor, she says you need a “knowledge base,”
which is to say, you need to know how to drive customers to your site. She says having a presence
on the web, like most distributors, and having a business on the web are two different things. Her
experience indicates you better have the right key search words (like “promotional products”) for
your site; if you’re not in the first search page, you’re not in the game.
Another way she differs from most distributors with a URL in that her company’s website is
very interactive, with features that give customers advice and answers their questions. (Usually, and
unfortunately, distributors just throw a bunch of products from the catalogs on the screen with price
info and that’s it.) She also cross-markets: In her column in a big city business journal, she
publishes the questions and the answers.
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