How Giving Employees the Day Off Can Be Marketing Gold

Image source: Compellingparade.com  

Earlier this week, I talked about strategies you can use to transform disinterested employees into brand ambassadors who promote your business. With custom clothing and the right attitude, your employees can become a cornerstone of your marketing campaign.   Your employees are easily one of your most valuable resources. How you use that resource, though, is entirely up to you. The most obvious application is to simply put your employees to work, but you can also use your employees for dozens of different marketing opportunities. For example, retail stores (especially smoothie, ice cream, and food joints) often put their employees in the middle of a busy area to hand out free samples and promote the brand.   Image source: Edeneatseverything.com  

Those employees aren't helping their employers run the business. In fact, these employees are costing the company a pretty penny in wages and free samples. But for the money that they cost, they more than make up for it by attracting new customers and bringing in buckets of revenue.   This is just a tiny example of a very lucrative marketing opportunity that's available to you: don't be afraid to give your employees the day or a few hours off. As long as you put them in a high-traffic area and give them a custom uniform, that employee will make you gobs of money by promoting your brand.  

One of the best ways to capitalize on this type of marketing is in a charity event, such as a race. Let's suppose that there's going to be a 10k charity walk to promote breast cancer awareness in your locality. There will be blog posts, news crews, crowds of thousands of people, and countless social media posts as people excitedly snap photographs and chat about the event. What kind of business owner wouldn't want to get in on that kind of exposure?   You might want to consider offering your employees the day off from work, but with a caveat: they only get the day off if they attend the breast cancer charity walk and they wear a custom t-shirt or hat with the company logo. It's a winning situation for everybody: employees get a break from work to support a good cause, the charity will bring in more money, and you will look good in the eyes of both your employees and the public. Having dozens or possibly even hundreds of employees sporting your company logo can give your company a major marketing boost.   Image source: Governor.mo.gov  

Free samples and charity walks are just a few examples. Is your company located in a big city? Reward your star employees with tickets to a local professional sport game and encourage them to wear company apparel. Is there a local music festival? Invite employees to attend the event in custom company clothing. You may lose a few bucks in lost man hours, but it's an investment that could pay itself off in the long run.   The best way to handle this type of advertising is to incorporate it as part of a company reward system. Studies have proven that rewarding your employees with prizes and time off can boost productivity and improve corporate morale, so you might as well kill two birds with one stone and offer rewards designed to promote your brand.