In today's work climate it is important to try to get the best value for money when promoting your business or organization. Unfortunately, the Internet has not only brought with it an easy way to search for promotional gifts, it has also brought a mine fields of so called SEO (search engine optimization) 'experts' who have set up many different promotional gifts websites selling the same products and calling them by different company names.
This has been done in an effort to deceive you into purchasing promotional products from them. Most large companies and councils have to get quotations from at least three different companies. How would you feel if you did that and then realised that the three companies you got quotations from were indeed the same company? Would you feel like you had been had? Well it is happening every day so watch out!
One way to ensure that you are not deceived by these scam artists is to contact the company you find in your search and ask them flat out if they have any connection to other companies you have found on the internet. Name them. One company involved in the scam now has offices in the UK, where they started and Germany, Spain and the USA.
Now, if you look at the sites involved, you will see that the prices on their products are all the same, give or take a penny. You might find it strange that companies that are supposed to be competing with each other would promote products at the same prices. They can do this because very cleverly they got into SEO before anyone else and they are now reaping the benefits through your marketing budget. If you start seeing the same three companies on the first pages of Google regardless of which promotional gift keyword you type in, chances are you will soon see who they are. Don't blame the search engines! The major search engines were not too know as the scam was very well hidden and still is.
So here you are. If you want to get the best prices and service for promotional gifts, do the following;
Forget the 3 Quote Rule: You can no longer rely on the three quotation rule. Remember, you could be asking for three quotations from the same company but with different names. Instead, try to get quotations from a range of companies on the first two or three pages on your search engine of choice.
If the prices look to close to be true, they are: Unless company A talks to company B, C and D and fixes their prices, which normal competitors do not, you should find that prices vary greatly on line. Some companies specialise in promotional clothing where others specialise in pens etc. We cannot all be heros at everything so you should find that some companies actually beat others on price and service quite substantially.
Check out each company's blogs: If they have one, you will soon see that something is wrong if it is. Just as the 'seo experts' keyword stuffed the hundreds of articles they wrote to get to the top of the search engines over the past few years, their blogs are also stuffed with keywords they hope you will type into your search engines of choice. The blogs feature loads of keywords and very little information.
Ask if the promotional gift supplier is affiliated with any other companies: Hopefully they will tell you the truth. This is especially important to do if you see that company A and company B or C happen to be within twenty miles of each other or even in the same city. Again, check their prices! Are they the same? Should you take this advice and run?
Would you like to learn more about business gifts? Then check out the UK's first and leading online source for promotional gifts at http://www.compugift.co.uk
If you have a business based in the UK, please register on the site and you will receive regular FREE samples of popular promotional pens and our 160 page promotional gifts catalogue.
Dan Toombs is the Managing Director of CompuGift Limited. Established in 1997, CompuGift is one of the leading suppliers of promotional gifts to businesses in the UK and Europe.
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