Promotional product management software scales and automates the process of sourcing, storing, managing, and distributing company promotional items. Promotional product management software is used by companies to control brand consistency as well as store and access their promotional product inventory. It serves as an extension of a company's marketing team(s) or branding department to alleviate the time and effort necessary to organize and implement promotional product management.
Promotional products, often referred to as company “swag," is leveraged for numerous purposes, including trade show swag, customer gifts/rewards, lead generation initiatives, and new hire onboarding, among other use cases. This type of software expands print fulfillment software functionality in its ability to manage all of a company’s promotional product needs within one platform.
Promotional product management software is often implemented as part of an account-based marketing strategy, where companies identify key prospects within their most promising accounts. Promotional products can be sent to those contacts within targeted accounts to assist in relationship building. Additionally, this type of software is often integrated with CRM software to allow marketing and sales to send swag directly to customers and prospects, as well as marketing automation software to enable a complete view of direct mail campaigns. Finally, promotional product management software is also often utilized in tandem with customer advocacy software to automate customer reward fulfillment when inspiring customers to advocate for your brand.
To qualify for inclusion in the Promotional Product Management category, a product must:
Manufacture or source promotional products
Provide real-time inventory management to keep track of promotional product inventory levels
Store all promotional products within a warehouse
Distribute promotional products by at least one of the following methods: bulk fulfillment, individual product drop shipments, digital link fulfillment and/or directly through orders via CRM software
Provide basic reporting and tracking capabilities related to budget, spend, and/or conversion rates