Marketing & Coffee Mugs

This will be a bit long winded but please bear with me, I do have a point to make.

I received a new coffee mug as a Christmas gift. Written on the mug are the words “Naughty is the New Nice”. Of course, the words are not relevant to the discussion but they do make me smile. 

While drinking from my mug this morning, I was reminded of a time a few years back when the company I was working for were looking to purchase coffee mugs with our logo on them as a promotional piece to hand out to customers & prospects.

There was a lot of discussion among my colleagues about which side of the mug our logo should be on. Here’s how the thought process went…

1.  There are more right-handed people than left-handed people in the world.

2.  Assuming the above, most people will hold their mugs in the right hand as they drink their coffee or tea.

3.   Should the logo face the person using the mug so they can see it while they are drinking, think about our company’s products/services, then purchase from us because we are the first company that comes to their mind when looking for those products/services? After all, they see our logo in front of them several times each day.

4. Or should the logo face away from the person drinking the coffee so that everyone who passes by can see our logo and company name, wonder about us & what we do, then start making inquiries about what our company can do for them? And, naturally, purchase from us when they know. We’d get exposure to more people this way, right?

The final decision we came to does not make a difference here.  The point that I'm finally trying to make is this: Presentation is important. Even the smallest of details must be considered when creating a marketing program to implement and getting your products/services known & respected.

In the case of what I'm doing, I have to put lots of thought into things like taking good photos of my products, writing clear, concise & compelling descriptions for my listings, shipping orders quickly, quality business cards, public presentation at events, interesting & informative blog posts, etc.

It's a lot of hard work and very time consuming, but when the sales start coming in...so satisfying. *smile*