Higher Ed Branded Merch Trends and Strategies

The 2025 Branded Merch Trends Shaping Higher Ed Marketing

February 10, 2025

Staying ahead of trends in branded merchandise is key to creating influential and memorable experiences for students, alumni, and donors. After attending PPAI’s (Promotional Products Association International) 2025 Expo – the largest promotional products showcase, we’re excited to share some of the most relevant trends and how they can help admissions, alumni, and advancement teams elevate their engagement strategies. Here’s what’s making waves in the world of branded merch and how your institution can take advantage. 1. Live Activations With more events returning to in-person formats, interactive brand experiences are

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College enrollment promo success

Looking to Boost Engagement? Tease Your Branded Merch Launch for Maximum Impact

January 29, 2025

College enrollment promo success With the pressures to build a freshman class, the strategies to influence and create excitement with prospective students is imperative. This requires constant adaptations to your engagement practices. Two keystone moments of the recruitment process are when students are admitted into college and when they make their final decision. These moments are truly special for students because they have been working towards them for years. Colleges need to make sure they’re appropriately amplifying the excitement for maximum impact.  Currently I am getting personal experience with this.

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giving tuesday

Making an Impact on #GivingTuesday

December 28, 2024

Each year, the team at Magellan Promotions gets involved with GivingTuesday by donating to causes and charities that we find important. In addition to the individual donations, Magellan  generously matched each gift. This year the team reached a new record for a total of $4,850 in donations to 19 different organizations across the nation. Here’s a look at a few we supported and why they are important to us. Coral Restoration Foundation  Supported by Ryan The Coral Restoration Foundation is the largest reef restoration organization in the world. It is

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Strategic Use of T-Shirts in Admissions

The Problem with the Campus Tour T-shirt

December 18, 2024

Strategic Use of T-Shirts in Admissions Today I want to challenge the practice of giving t-shirts to all prospective students who take a college tour. The reason is I believe there is a better timing in the enrollment cycle for using the power of a t-shirt. Let me explain.     First, I get why colleges do this. Receiving a t-shirt is popular. Our research verified this: 93% of students who received a t-shirt during the recruitment process wore it.   Colleges want to make impactful impressions for tour visitors. They know if

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Differentiating college tours with branded merch

Why Differentiate the Collegiate Tour Experience

October 18, 2024

Differentiating college tours with branded merch A few years ago, my son and I went on a college tour during his freshman year. With my branded merch antenna up, I noticed that some attendees were getting a branded merch gift bag and others did not (we did not). This made me curious. When the tour started, the leader asked for all of the admitted students in the room to stand up to be recognized. All of the standing students had the gift bag. I had my answer and it was

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Print on demand branded merch

The Print on Demand Branded Merch Revolution: A Game-Changer for Donor Campaigns

October 18, 2024

Finding innovative ways to surprise, delight and recognize donors is a continuous challenge for college advancement offices. With a relatively consistent audience year after year and the pressing need to raise funds, it’s crucial to create campaigns that bring results. One emerging solution that’s gaining traction in donor campaigns is print on demand branded merchandise production. In this article, I’ll explore how far one-piece production has come, its key benefits, and why it can be a game changer in certain donor engagement scenarios. What Is Print on Demand Branded Merch?

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Variable Data Best Practices

  • At the quoting stage of your project, please let us know how many fields of variable data your piece will have as this can affect pricing.
  • Data should be provided to us as an Excel spreadsheet with only the applicable data included.
  • Verbiage for variable data fields on artwork file should match up exactly with data fields on spreadsheet.
  • Spacing on artwork must allow for longest data entries. We recommend that your designer tests this in advance to confirm that the fields in the design can fit your longest pieces of data.

Postage Permits

We are happy to mail using a client’s USPS non-profit number. Here are a few best practices for this to go smoothly. Let our team know up front on the project so we can make sure to get the information we need right away. 

While our mail house does prefer to use their permit number for the mailing, we can use the client’s permit, If using their permit number, ensure there is enough postage to cover the mailing.

The information we need to in order to use a client’s nonprofit number includes the following:

  • CRID (customer registration ID)
  • Non-Profit Authorization Number (with USPS, not their nonprofit number for the university)
  • Non-profit indicia
  • Return address that is on file with USPS for the non-profit authorization number
  • Permit number

Formatting the Mailing List

Our account team will advise on specific requirements for your project’s mailing list.  We generally recommend these best practices to format the mailing list:
  • Send your data in a spreadsheet, saving it in the comma-separated values (CSV) format
  • International addresses must be separated from domestic addresses
  • Domestic addresses should at least contain data fields for “first name”, “last name”, “address 1”, “address 2”, “city”, “state” and “ZIP code”