A Guide to Buying Promotional Pens
They’re inexpensive enough that even the smallest business can usually afford to buy promotional pens, and so useful that everyone always wants to carry a pen or two around with them. If you’re interested in buying promotional pens (and who wouldn’t be?) here’s a quick guide to get you started.
Price
The price range for promotional pens is simply massive. The cheapest plastic pens can be had for just a few pence, while the most expensive executive pen sets cost ¤15.00 or more per set. Your price range is probably going to depend not only on what you can afford, but on what you’re planning to do with the pens you buy. For example, if you’re planning to give a pen as a retirement gift for an employee, that nine pence pen won’t do at all-you’d definitely need to consider one of the more expensive pen sets. On the other hand, if you want to bulk order a large number of pens for trade shows and other events, you may want several thousand, in which case you’ll likely want to choose a very inexpensive variety.
The best way to go about choosing your price range is to simply set your budget-the absolute maximum you want to spend-then decide how many pens you need, and then calculate how much you can afford to spend per pen.
Plastic or Metal?
Metal pens are a little more classy (especially the very expensive one) while some plastic pens have the feeling of cheap novelty items-which is more appropriate for your business and your purposes? Those cheap plastic pens are fine for a variety of situations-trade shows, for every-day employee use-but if you want to impress your clients with your pens they might not be quite the thing.
Ball Type
Yet another choice to be made, this time between ballpoint and rollerball pens. Ballpoint promotional pens are less expensive, and have the advantage of ink that doesn’t run. However, while rollerball pens do cost a little more, they provide a much smoother writing stroke and a more sophisticated print look than ballpoint pens. A relatively new style is the gel pen, with water-based ink that doesn’t run as easily as the rollerball, and doesn’t require as much pressure to write as a ballpoint.
Stick, Twist or Click?
These words all refer to the method by which the ink stick inside the pen is kept safe. A stick pen, for example, has a removable cap, while a click pen has a small knob that is pressed down and clicked into place to expose the pen nib. A twist pen uses a similar mechanism but instead of clicking, the user twists the barrel of the pen.
Colors
Most plastic pens are available in a huge variety of colors, while metal pen choices are rather more limited (many do allow you to choose trim colors however). Try to choose colors that are in keeping with your company color scheme, if you have one. If you don’t have one, consider this a good time to create one!
Gareth Parkin is the co-founder of Ideasbynet, the UK’s leading online promotional pens and printed promotional pens company based in the north of England. Established in 2001, he has taken the UK gift market by storm by the application of modern business thinking and the latest search engine marketing techniques. For more details visit www.ideasbynet.com
About the Author
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