As a business owner, you’ll agree that advertising and promoting your business is one of the hardest tasks you’ll have to undertake. Once the prospect has called, emailed, or visited your office, half the battle has been won. The question is: “What is the best way to market and promote my business?”

In 2006 I started my first business, beeconnected I.T. Solutions – An I.T. Consultancy Company based in Brisbane Australia providing I.T. support to small and medium businesses. I started providing support to the consumer sector through print advertising in several Brisbane and local newspapers. Granted, this worked well and opened doors to business clients, but it was not the long term answer. Having said that, managing to get my foot in the door of those same business clients did provide me with a light bulb moment. Mouse Pads or Mouse Mats!

Forrester Research concluded that by the end of 2008 the number of computers would exceed one billion and that by 2015 that number would double! Every business I walked into either didn’t have one or it looked like it had been there since Noah built the ark. Nevertheless, as old, tired, and dirty as it may have been, it was still there. How could I miss this 24/7 promotional tool? Computers were my business for god sake!

I started researching various manufacturers and soon discovered that depending on where you looked, a mouse pad could be a very expensive entity. The problem was the middle man promotional companies. They couldn’t possibly make all of the products they sold, so who did? The quest was on to go straight to the source and cut out the middle man. My travels eventually took me offshore to China and as I soon discovered, I was in the right place.

There are a number of printing firms in China which specialise in mouse pad printing, but I managed to unearth the pros, RGB Solutions and their aptly named website Mouse Pads China. These guys have printed for companies like Coke, Pepsi, Nokia and Verizon so I figured I must have been onto a winning idea. Mouse Pads China were able to answer all of my questions (in English might I mention), regarding the different surface and backing types, as well as various methods of printing. They also helped me with the design of my promotional mouse pad and had it delivered by DHL within a matter of weeks.

By the time they had arrived, I’d compiled a list of local businesses I wanted to target and put together a direct mail out campaign which would include my promotional mouse pad. The concept was simple, I wanted to give my prospective new client something to remember me by, something that wouldn’t go from the envelope to the bin in three seconds flat but remain on their desk for all eternity it seems.

Now I’ll be honest, initially the response was slow. But after a few weeks, the phone started ringing with people saying “I’ve got your promotional mouse pad here and I thought I’d call”. Before I knew it, I was fast running out of my initial order of 500 pads and was placing an order for four times that! That was back in late 2007 and early 2008.

I’ll let you know when my phone stop ringing because of those promotional mouse pads.