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Are you a law firm owner looking to surprise and spoil your clients? In this episode of the Maximum Lawyer Podcast, Tyson chats with Heather Olson on the strategic use of swag—promotional items—in marketing for legal and professional services. The discussion covers how to select high-quality, practical, and sustainable swag that resonates with your target audience, enhances brand recognition, and boosts community visibility.
Promotional items and swag are a great way to market to your consumers or clients and build trust with them. When creating swag, it is important to understand and identify your target audience. If you are a law firm, your target audience will most likely be individuals who are older or maybe have a lot of money. You can research promotional items that connect with individuals of a certain demographic. Maybe these clients like golf or items that they can use in their kitchens. It is crucial to understand who you are serving.
These items are also great in a personalized way. If you have clients that you are close with or have worked with for a long period of time, personalizing a gift can really strengthen the lawyer-client relationship. Put in the extra effort, especially if it is the holidays or celebrating the end of a case. Think about high end items like Turkish towels or leather wine bags. You can also personalize bulk items for your employees, like glassware or notebooks.
Take a listen!
- 1:32 Identifying Your Target Audience
- 4:19 Working with Promotional Item Distributors
- 8:25 Avoiding Low-Quality Swag
- 12:07 Effective Swag Examples for Community
- 14:58 Personalized Swag and Employee Gifts
Creators and Guests
Host
Tyson Mutrux
Tyson is the founder of Mutrux Firm Injury Lawyers and the co-founder of Maximum Lawyer.
What is Maximum Lawyer?
Maximum Lawyer is the podcast for law firm owners who want to scale with intention and build a business that works for their life.
Hosted by Tyson Mutrux, each weekly episode features candid conversations with law firm owners, business experts, and industry leaders sharing real strategies and lessons learned in the trenches.
If you're ready to grow your firm with less stress and more support, this is your next must listen. Subscribe today.
Heather Olson 00:00:03 Hey, guys, let's bring some energy into this room. Hey, who is excited to talk about swag? And who loves swag? Like, raise your hand. All right, well guess what. We got some swag. Everybody gets swag. You get some swag, everybody gets swag. So, we're we're passing out some bags. So I, I'm talking about this today because I love different types of marketing. we hear a lot about AI and we hear a lot about digital marketing. But the getting back to like, actual physical things that we put in people's hands and the, Ooh, nerves. Holy. when we physically put things in our hands. We are, we're we're we're actually, like, putting our names out there. So what is swag anyway? swag is stands for stuff we all get. But as Dwight Schrute says here, that is false. You want to make sure that the swag that you're giving out makes you feel special, or makes other people feel special. So these are promotional items, branded merchandise, gifts for clients and referral sources.
Heather Olson 00:01:32 that's supposed to say apparel, but it can have some appeal, I guess. but it gives it's it's about brand recognition. So, when we there are so many times that you get things that you're like, oh, this is fun or this is not fun. So what we're talking about today is how you use swag in, in a way that is going to actually be utilized, utilized in a, in a way that sets you apart. So when you're when you're deciding what you're going to buy, what you're going to produce and, and hand out, you want to identify your, your audience. So we all have different practice areas. and so you have to kind of figure out exactly what is your target audience. so when you're doing that, we are going to look at different areas of where this, the promotional items that you're giving out are going to have an impact. And the first thing we're going to talk about is community visibility. but before go back, when you when you got it, you got to figure out what your target audience is first.
Heather Olson 00:02:57 So this. This website here is a website that is done by the promotional items industry. Like there's a whole industry for promotional items. So if you can go to this website, you can look up all of the different types of demographics that you can look at in terms of what people like. So, you've got here, we've got, you know, demographics based upon, generations. We have they also have demographics on gender and regions and things. So this is a really good resource to be able to like kind of figure out based upon your exact audience who you're targeting, what kind of stuff they actually like. so, you know, you know, the younger generations tend to like tech stuff and drink wear and things like that. And the older generations are going to take a polo shirt every day of the week. So, take a, you know, take a peek here if you're like, trying to figure out what exactly you want to buy and what you want to produce with your branded merchandise.
Heather Olson 00:04:19 the one of the questions I get asked a lot when I talk about this is where do you get it? So this map here kind of shows like regions of where, like your promotional items, distributors are from and each one of these little, organizations, they're in each of your regions is like a good resource. So if you don't have a promotional items distributor that you actually work with on a regular basis, you can always go to like one of these organizations like from Minnesota, Umap is the organization that, does a lot of the promotional items, things in our area, using a promotional items distributor is actually one of the coolest things that I've done in terms of sourcing these types of, items. So I work with a with a gal. She all she does is is different types of promotional items. So anything from like pens all the way to like Bluetooth speakers and, really nice bags, things like that. She can source all of those things. It is a really great idea if you are going to be, producing some of this stuff to use a promotional items distributor.
Heather Olson 00:05:47 One of the reasons why you want to do that is because they also can get you good pricing, but they're also experts in your area. So just like our clients come to us because we're experts in the legal field. A promotional items distributor is an expert. So they're going to say, okay, if you want to buy umbrellas, for instance, they'll give you 15 different places that you could source that from different items, different price ranges. They can tell you like the latest and greatest new things. One of the things I learned from her is, that, Europe got really mad at Apple for changing their, their, charging ports. So they, they changed. They, they passed some, some, I don't know, what do you call it internationally, but they passed some something that said, like you can't change out the the plugs on your, on your charging ports. So that was something I learned from her. And it's also just something that was really helpful in determining, like, you know, it was just a neat little tip that I learned from her that I wouldn't normally have known.
Heather Olson 00:07:09 There's also lots of different websites that you can go to that have customization. if you are interested in, we'll get to what's in the swag bags that were passed out. But there's some stickers in there and there I'll, I'll show you those in a little bit. But those stickers came directly from a website. So you can do customization on on websites but also using your local businesses. so for instance, like if you're going to do apparel for your company, Sometimes you might want to buy like a really nice North Face jacket or something like that. if you go through your promotional items distributor, they can get those so that they're easier to print on, and then you can just get them in bulk and then take them to a like a local business or a local embroiderer or something like that to be able to get your logo put on them. So how do you make sure that your swag doesn't end up in the trash? This picture is, is literally from my home. my husband came back from a conference in Indianapolis.
Heather Olson 00:08:25 He's in the hearing health industry, and he dumped the stuff in the trash because it was cheap sunglasses that broke on the way home from his trip. this weird little squeezy thing that doesn't make a whole lot of sense. so how do you make sure that your, your, the promotional items that you spend money on and you want to get your name out there. Don't end up in the trash. So first is high quality. Make sure that you're the best that you can. Make sure that it's high quality. Now sometimes we're working on a budget and that's that's a, you know, a consideration for sure. But if you are giving people things high quality, they're going to keep them. Make sure that they're practical useful. It's something that people will keep. Right. It's really again back going back to working with my distributor, one of the things in the promotional spaces that is really important right now is sustainability. Because this is all going to we don't want it to end up in the trash.
Heather Olson 00:09:36 And if it does end up in the trash, we want it to be something that's recyclable or something that's more sustainable. your your swag should be impactful. You should be something that is. It's an eye catcher or it's in some way. something that that people will will remember. Okay. And stylish. So this is my favorite part about talking about this subject is community visibility. So when we think about what we're going to do in terms of providing promotional items to folks, don't always think about, like, what can I give somebody use it as an opportunity for brand recognition. So I've shown you here this on this slide. This is a wine glass that we designed for our firm in 2019. 18. And we do criminal defense and family law. So we've got this, clever little saying on here defending poor decisions. Right. So I, I took a couple of cases of these wine glasses to one of our local restaurants and bars and I said, hey, would you guys use these? And I said, absolutely.
Heather Olson 00:11:01 So they took them and they started using them. And then I was like, well, this is kind of fun. So I just went to like all the bars and all the restaurants. And I think right now they're in about 12 different bars and restaurants in my local area. We have people all the time call and say, hey, we saw your wine glass at the Mill Creek in, or we saw your wine glass here, or I get friends or family that will send me pictures that they they saw the wine glasses in some different restaurant. So thinking outside of the box in terms of what kind of, like out thinking outside of the box of, like, things that you can do. to have more community visibility. So for us, we did the, the wine glasses, but there are, there are quite a few different things that you could do. And I'm going to go through some examples of that. So we're looking at some of the ideas here. But we'll start with the golf tell.
Heather Olson 00:12:07 Now I'm sure almost everybody in this room has been approached at some point to sponsor a golf tournament or you're going to sponsor a whole of the golf tournament, right. Instead of sponsoring that hole for $600 or whatever it is, go buy $600 worth of golf towels that have your logo on them and then hand those out, because those golf towels are going to end up in that golf bag for a long time. And so when you're thinking about like community visibility and the things that you can do to provide this to the or to the community, think about stuff that you wouldn't probably buy for yourself, but you're not going to get rid of. So for instance, like the golf towel or an umbrella, like everybody needs an umbrella, but nobody is ever going to want to go buy an umbrella. And if you go back to some of the, the demographics stuff and the sourcing of of the promotional items and umbrella is actually one of the most popular things that people do for brandy. Like here we've got, the little first aid kit.
Heather Olson 00:13:32 those end up in your, in your, your glove compartment and your purse and and so those are something that you they always come in handy. here is also like this really cool little cooler that, that, mirror or it doubles as a stadium chair, so, like, you can bring it to, like, your kids games and things like that. the one on the bottom here is like a little, adapter. that one is really cool because I've needed that in trial many times. Like, so that can stay in your, your briefcase and be used, multiple times. Now, the difference between doing community, doing things for your community, or getting your name out there and brand recognition, There's the second part of this is what do you give to clients and referral sources when you are giving items to clients or referral sources? Do not put your name on it. They don't want your name on stuff. So when you're getting to know your clients and referral sources, start to make some notes mental notes about what they like.
Heather Olson 00:14:58 Get to know them. Ask them questions and like make some notes about that. And then you can use that to take like for instance this one here with the these are like wine bags. So usually you give wine to people. You go to the liquor store and buy the little bag and you put the wine in it and it gets thrown away. This one is like a suede leather and it's really nice. And it's something that you can personalize with a monogram or something like that. Turkish towels are amazing. Everybody can use those in, like, tons of different ways. but just make sure that when you're giving things to, to referral sources or clients, you really want them to feel special. You really want them to think, oh, they put in the extra effort to give me this thing. And so, for instance, I've given I give out swag all the time to my employees. And we did one, Christmas party where I made, I had personalized knives made, and it said, like, Chef Olson or Thorsen on it.
Heather Olson 00:16:12 And that's something that even years down the line, you're going to use, but you're not going to say it's not going to say Olson law, and it's going to say their name and they're going to remember you. so then lastly, we have the swag bags. So if you guys want to take a minute to take a peruse through that really quick, we've got these cups that I had personalized for this conference. and then inside the cups are the or these, UV transfer stickers. So this is a really, really, really good way for you to do things on a budget. So like if you don't have a lot of money to put into promotional items, you can buy these stickers. So like $0.13 and you, you put them on, they, there's like you put it on the front and then you peel it off. And so it actually looks like a vinyl transfer and it's dishwasher safe. You could put them on, On, on cups. You can put them on notebooks, you can do whatever.
Heather Olson 00:17:30 So like that's another really cool way that you can personalize things. your for your firm, and in a cost effective way. And then lastly there in your, your bags there, there's a little, temporary tattoo. So if you, if you guys want to dig in there and find that a temporary tattoo says, talk to my lawyer and it has a QR code on it that takes you to your, to my website. And I hand those out anywhere where people get drunk and disorderly. So, you know, you just think about where your audience is and like, those temporary tattoos are so cheap, but they're super impactful and everybody loves them. So with with that that's what I got about swag.
Heather Olson 00:18:23 Thank you.