360 Promotions – let's brand together

We hope everyone has a Happy Easter and enjoys the 3 day weekend !! Our offices will be closed on Friday but we will be back, bright & early,  Monday morning! 

On a funnier note…Andrea told me a couple of days ago that she heard cake balls were the new trend to replace cupcakes. As you can see we attempted to make these *culinary delights* tonight and while they might not win any awards for best of show, they sure are tasty! 

Cake Ball Recipe: Bake any cake of your choice in a 9 x 13 dish according to the directions on the back of the box. Remove the cake and let it cool completly. Crumble the cake into a bowl and add 1/2 to 1 jar of icing (chef’s choice). Mix the cake and icing with a hand mixer until is all mixed together. Meanwhile, melt your choice of white or milk chocolate bars in the microwave and remove – do not let it cool or it will get hard (we learned the hard way . Take your cake mix and pinch off 1/2″ size pieces, roll into a ball and dip in chocolate. Spread them out on wax paper to dry. You can decorate with sprinkles, icing, etc… just be sure that if you use food coloring to dye your chocolate that it is oil based (oh, and let us know where you find it because searched all over Austin with no luck). Enjoy!

I remember the first time I really thought about Promotional Products as a piece of the puzzle, most often called “The Marketing Plan”.  It was my first job out of college in the Marketing Department of a Foodservice Company.  One of the first things my new boss showed me when I started was the Promo Closet and to say that I was completely blown away might be a bit of an understatement.  There were imprinted box cutters, tape measures, pens, post-it notes, coffee cups, balloons and embroidered polos and denim shirts in neat stacks on the floor to the ceiling shelves.  Every item that they had chosen was brilliant for their particular industry and I would come to learn exactly how much ROI there was to be had with well-thought out promotional products.  The customers loved it when the delivery drivers handed them a pen to sign for their order, a box cutter to easily open their shipments and a tape measure to use for stacking their goodies in their storage areas!  They really appreciated it when their sales reps dropped off a coffee cup with a sample of the new coffee we were bringing in!  They were downright giddy when they received the gift of a really nice polo or denim shirt!  I loved the feeling of being the key holder to that closet and knowing that if was full of things that were so useful that they were coveted and appreciated by all of our clients. 

I guess I didn’t need a crystal ball to know that I would one day be in the Promotional Products industry.  Even though it has been 14 years since I walked into that “Closet”, my love for promotional products and how they can complete a Marketing Plan has not diminished one iota!  Need something with an awesome ROI or have some things you want to tie together in your marketing plan?…Give us a ring and we will share the love!

By: Andrea O’Daniel

If you need more ideas, you can search here or email us atPromoteYourself@360promos.com and we will be happy to search for you.

“Get your feet on the street!” This morning Andrea, Kim & I and 18,000 other Austinites participated in the Cap 10k. The race took us a little under 2  hours and as usual the costumes did not disappoint! This years race raised approx. $140,000 for Meals on Wheels – It was a great day for a great cause!!

Jen, Andrea & Kim

View from Town Lake to the Capital

Welcome to our new blog- Let’s Brand Together! Over the last few months we have been working on getting up-to-date on all things social media. You can now find us on facebook, twitter, LinkedIn and the new blog. You probably also noticed that the website has recently undergone a face lift- I am super excited about the new site and hope you will enjoy it, too!

So, what is this blog going to be about? Let’s see…our adventures with promotional products (& believe me, we have some funny stories to share), tips and tricks on how to improve your marketing, cool products that you have to know about and i’m sure you’re going to find a special or two posted from time to time !

We hope you’ll stop by often to see what’s new and we have also added a subscribe feature so all you have to do is enter your email address and it will automatically email you once daily with updates.

We love feedback and want to hear from you so be sure to post a comment below! Also, feel free to ask questions via the comments and we promise to answer everybody.