Sierra: Hey everyone, welcome to The Bottom Line at TTG. I’m here with Chris and today we’re going to talk about our video services, so Chris, we’ve seen all of your work on our bottom lines. So what do you do for TTG? 

Chris: So what I do is basically all of the photo and video work for The Trade Group, so that means everything from photographing our finished projects to documenting projects as they progress. I do these bottom line videos and then we put together some case studies. For some of the cooler projects that we do, just going to show off their capabilities and what’s going on out in the warehouse.

Sierra: What’s one that you’ve done recently? 

Chris: The big one recently is a video I’m still working on editing was at Bitcoin. You know, we did several bottom line videos that Bitcoin, but we’re working on a case study to really kind of show it off. I was out there for 9 days and I’ve left before they even dismantled, so there’s a ton of footage out there. A lot of really high-quality work and really cool stuff that I just can’t wait to show off to people. 

Sierra: Yeah, awesome. And how do you work with our clients on video production? 

Chris: So we offer a kind of a variety of video services and usually what that looks like is it’ll be videos for boots, right? So if they have a TV monitor in their booze, which is pretty popular, it’s a good way to add kind of motion a little bit more information than static graphics. And so I can put together those videos either using what they already have as far as material or shooting material. Yeah, we were showing off what they’re doing out there. There was one Farmhouse Fresh, a client that was had an opportunity with QVC to do live streaming, showing off their products on QVC. So we went out and said help them set up a studio with equipment and lights and all of that. So that’s been really cool as well. There’s kind of a lot of different options, and it just really depends on the problem they’re trying to solve. Because video is not the best at conveying facts, you can have a spreadsheet and if you put that into a video, people are waiting on each line like that’s not the best move on exactly.  People absorb facts at their own pace. What video is good at is communicating energy, brand style, and personality right? So it’s really more about communicating a feeling more than facts. You know, capturing an event and making people feel like they were there, or you know storytelling videos where someone is on camera telling a story and explaining things that you can’t get in text ’cause you hear it in their voice.

Sierra: For sure And I always say that facts tell stories sell so anytime you’re just spitting off facts about your company, the services, all that good stuff glazed over eyes is what you’re going to see. So I’m so glad you’re talking about the storytelling part about the videos. So I’m asking, what’s the bottom line? 

Chris: So like you said, there’s a difference between facts and stories, and stories are what connects people to both your company, your product and to you personally, right? I mean so there’s a lot of power in video that like I said, it’s not perfect for everything, but for some applications you want to communicate energy and personality and feeling nothing can do that better than video. And it’s something that I really enjoy getting to be a part of and bring to our clients. 

Sierra: Great thanks so much for today and thanks everyone for joining this session of the bottom line at TTG and we’ll see you next time. 

The Trade Group is a full-service trade show and event marketing company. We will work with you to create an exhibit or an event that brings in leads and helps you achieve your business goals. Contact us here or give us a call at (800) 343-2005.  

The post Video Services appeared first on The Trade Group.

Mike Gilvar: Thanks everybody, for joining this session of the bottom line, with TTG, we’re excited to have Robin Dean, our Senior Design Consultant here today, along with Malcolm Gilvar our chief revenue officer, and we’re gonna talk about promotional products. Mal, how long has the trade group been selling promotional products and why is that something that we dabble in?

Mal Gilvar: Well, we’ve been selling it for many years now, I would say about 15 years, there was a trade show connection obviously, because people go to trade shows, they typically send hand-out promotional items, but as we’ve been throughout the year selling them to our customers to use at trade shows, we’ve also discovered many other uses for promotional items as well.

Mike Gilvar: So often in the past, Mal’s dad and I called it trinkets and trash. It was stuff that people would collect at a trade show, and it will then make its way to the garbage. Well, what is it, Robin, that you’re trying to do for your customers to where it’s not simply trinkets and trash that’s gonna make its way into the garbage.

Robin Dean: There’s always a place for the squishy balls and the fun branded items that I think would fall under the trinkets and trash, the keyrings, things like that, but certainly through this year and in recent years, I find that the more successful products are things people wanna keep and wanna use, recent successes have been wireless branded earbuds, people are gonna hold on to that, something a little higher end, and I think that’s the evolution of the promotional products.

Mal Gilvar: Robin had also mentioned at one point, the wireless phone chargers, usability is key, if you use it, they’re gonna see your brand on a daily basis.

Robin Dean: One things that came up recently was a client of ours who kind of had a chess piece as their logo, and we sent to their prospects a custom chess piece, and you opened it up and it was a USB plug-in and you plugged it in and it could be for storage and for safety, but it also had a link to their website and their messaging and their branding. And I thought that was pretty brilliant.

Mike Gilvar: Yeah, what would be even more brilliant is if you actually sent to them a queen, and if you book the meeting, we’ll bring you the entire chess board.

Robin Dean: Yes.

Mike Gilvar: Yeah, Robin. That’s awesome. I know we had another client who was headquartered in Las Vegas, and they were trying to bring people in to meet with them while they were in Las Vegas at a trade show, and they used a whole multi-pronged approach where one week was a branded deck of cards, the next week were branded casino chips, and I thought that was really cool about them. And Robin, when companies are going through this process of coming up with whether it’d be sending out earbuds or koozies, how do they go about budgeting such a thing, how do they allocate such funds.

Robin Dean: They know a quantity that they want to purchase, whether it’s for a trade show or a giveaway, or strategic marketing, whatever the reason. My experience is they know a price per item, a price per box, lately I’ve been doing a lot of gift boxes to segue into another reason why promotional items bring a lot of value, but my experience is they have a budgeted amount and then they work with the quantity that can get them, so as long as we know that upfront, we can know if it’s gonna be higher end, more fun and regardless, always branded, but knowing the number upfront helps determine the product…

Mal Gilvar: I really agree with that, Robin, especially on the smaller items, whether it be a koozie or pen or a keychain, sometimes with the more strategic items, those larger items that are maybe $40 or $50, what the client is doing is, they’re really taking a look at their goals and objectives, and their KPIs and trying to figure out exactly what kind of return do they want, so for example, let’s say a client says they want to have 15 leads from a particular campaign, they may have to send out 30 to justify 15 leads, so they know right upfront, that they want 15 leads, they’re assuming that these are items that are attractive enough that people will absolutely respond, so they can know their return right upfront.

Mike Gilvar: So Robin, in terms of this world that we’ve been dealing with, being in the middle of a pandemic and people aren’t able to go to trade shows, how has that impacted their decisions in terms of how they go about deploying a promotional product campaign.

Robin Dean: Well, luckily, promotional products have been utilized in a great, many different ways, with the loss of revenue from missed trade shows, clients are sending gift boxes to prospects and active accounts, they’re also utilizing gift boxes for staff recognition really keeping morale up, they’re using gift boxes for Christmas, the holiday, but I’m also handling a pretty big campaign for a sales kick-off for 2021, a brighter, newer 2021, so really gosh, promotional items have just been taking off in lieu of missed trade shows.

Mike Gilvar: Great. Mal, so what’s the bottom line?

Mal Gilvar: As Robin just pointed out, and I think really customers today are using promotional items much more strategically than they ever have in the past and trying to think of new avenues and new ways to use this, and I think it’s a phenomenal approach right now, given the fact that we’re not able to attend live events right now.

Mike Gilvar: Thanks, Mal and Robin, thanks everybody for joining this session of the bottom line with TTG and we’ll see you all soon.

The Trade Group designs custom trade show displays that boost your brand’s trade show performance and provides full turn-key solutions to your event needs. Discover what we can do for your next event by contacting us here or give The Trade Group a call at 800-343-2005.

The post Promotional Products appeared first on The Trade Group.

Mike Gilvar: Thanks to everybody for joining this session of The Bottom Line with TTG. I’m here with Pete and Mike, and today we’re talking about commercial graphics. Hey, Mike, why don’t you kick it off by kinda talking a little bit about what commercial graphics are, and then when somebody might be interested in that.

Mike Graziani: Well, it really just means any time we’re doing something that is business-related, and a lot of times it could be a volume production, so it might be something where we’re doing multiple prints of the same thing or same installation for multiple locations. Sometimes it can be indoor, sometimes it can be outdoor mounted and so forth, so you end up taking a lot of things into account that aren’t necessarily worry points with one-time trade show exhibited…

Mike Gilvar: And what are these things, guys? When I think about commercial graphics, I’m thinking basically of curling up in a ball and going to sleep. Are commercial graphics still cool? Can we still do things with 3D signage and dimensional letters and cool Halo lighting like we apply at a trade show?

Mike Graziani: Yeah, absolutely. Everything is on the table with commercial graphics from a standpoint of whether it’s two-dimensional direct print type things on various rigid substrates all the way into fabrics and so forth, and then dimensional pieces, whether we are doing signage out of a foam base or a more rigid, like an MDF type base. We absolutely… All avenues are open, so there’s really no limitations there.

Mike Gilvar: That’s awesome. So Pete, you’re the guy who we have to go to when we need to decide if there are limitations. So explain to us a little bit in terms of what are the trade groups output capabilities? How big can we go? How much of this stuff can we produce and how fast?

Pete Adauto: Well, as far as the output capabilities, we have two printers here in house that… One we traditionally use more for a fabric type outputs, and then the other one is for the more rigid substrates like your Dibond, your Centre HB, things like that. As far as width, both of them can contain, handle up to 10 feet wide. With the seam, we can go wider than that on our fabric printer, so we can produce lengthwise 100 linear foot if we need to.

Mike Gilvar: That’s awesome, and when we’re producing stuff that is the fabric printer, I think about all of the cool fabric signs we’ve done in the context of a trade show, but those are indoors. Can we still do fabric printing outdoors, or do we need to look for a different solution when we’re going outdoors?

Pete Adauto: Yeah, correct. Fabric is predominantly used indoors. Outdoors, you have enemies, the elements, moisture, dirt, things like that. Nature is gonna get that thing, make it sag a little bit more. You wanna go more towards a Dibond or something that is made to handle the elements outside; heat, moisture.

Mike Gilvar: Okay, great, and what does The Trade Group do from a standpoint of fulfillment and installation? Do we provide that mainly locally, or are we able to provide that service anywhere nationwide?

Pete Adauto: Yeah, we can provide nationwide. We have many avenues of installation to firm a simple lobby sign up to a full blown ad sign on the outside of a building, things like that.

Mike Gilvar: Awesome. Graz, what’s the bottom line for somebody who’s looking for somebody to partner with for commercial graphics? Why do you think The Trade Group might be a good partner?

Mike Graziani: Well, I think all of our trade show work really gives… Our design team is so strong in that avenue that… And it bleeds perfectly into the commercial graphics area, and so we’re able to exploit all of that design talent and put it to use on commercial graphics where you’re not gonna have the same vanilla type of signage, whether it’s an indoor application or an outdoor application, we’re gonna really make it stand out.

Mike Gilvar: Thanks guys. That was really helpful, and thanks everybody for joining this session of The Bottom Line with TTG, and we’ll see you all again soon.

The Trade Group designs custom trade show displays that boost your brand’s trade show performance and provides full turn-key solutions to your event needs. Discover what we can do for your next event by contacting us here or give The Trade Group a call at 800-343-2005.

The post Commercial Graphics appeared first on The Trade Group.