Marketing Ideas

1.       Keep it interesting.  Obviously, your readers are not going to like your newsletters much if you throw in a bunch of junk material.  Make sure you use fresh and interesting content in each and every newsletter printing campaign that you send out. 

2.       Write short articles.  While all of your newsletter content must be interesting, it also should be short.  The simple fact is that most people have very short attention spans, especially when it comes to advertising literature.  Write short, interesting articles that your readers can digest quickly.

3.       Use some interesting visuals.  As important as the words are within your newsletters, the visuals are just as important.  Add some visually stimulating images that will attract the readers.  Be careful not to overdo it, though.  Too many images will simply overwhelm your readers.

4.       Organize your newsletters.  Make sure you design your newsletters in an organized format.  Use headings and subheadings, lines and bulleted lists.  Keep everything structured.  If you allow your content to look disorganized, it will confuse your readers and make you look unprofessional.

5.       Utilize lists.  Bulleted lists are easy for the reader to see and read.  If you can put some of your content into list form, it will really stand out to your readers.

6.       Offer free advice.  If you can add in some advice for your customers, and make it relate to your company in some way, your newsletters will be more effective.  People like to read things that help them improve some area of their lives.  This is especially true if you can offer money making advice.  That is always in demand.

7.       Make white space your friend.  A lot of businesses try to fill up every millimeter of available space when they design their newsletters.  Do not make this mistake.  White space is what makes the pages readable, so do not be afraid to leave plenty of white space in there.  Leave some room between all of the portions of your newsletters, and it will be much easier to read.

8.       Calendars are nice.  If you can add some type of calendar to your newsletter, it will make it more useful for your readers.  If you write a monthly newsletter, simply throw in a month-long calendar and list business related events on it.  Many of your readers will use the calendar for their own purposes, meaning your newsletter will be looked at quite often.

9.       Don’t forget the offers.  Every one of your newsletter issues should include some kind of benefit for your readers.  Include a special offer or a coupon or something that will make reading the newsletter worth their while.

It’s easy to get carried away when it comes to advertising.  As business owners, we want to put as much information as we possibly can into every piece of marketing material that we produce.  But that can be dangerous and, even worse, counterproductive.

I am going to run through some of the most common forms of advertising literature, and explain why simplicity is so important for each one of them.

Brochure Printing

Yes, brochures are expected to be packed full of information.  But it is very easy to overdo it.  Try to focus on just one or, at most, two aspects of your business that you are trying to convey to your target customers.  If you are trying to get the word out that your prices are better than those of your competitors, keep the emphasis of your brochures on that topic.  Do not stray into a lot of other areas, and keep the design of the brochure relatively uncomplicated, too.

Postcard Printing

Postcards are nifty little tools because they are ready to mail and you can really do a good job of reaching target customers with them.  However, because there is not a whole lot of room on a postcard, it is especially important to keep things simple.  Do not try to add too much information to your postcards.  Be straight and to the point.  Customers can be quickly overwhelmed by too much advertising info, so be careful not to do that to them.

Business Card Printing

Now, it is a good idea to make business cards that stand out from the crowd and look unique.  But, at the same time, avoid giving the customer information overload at all costs.  It is fine to have a somewhat outrageous business card design, but keep the content on them to a minimum.  At most, they should display your business name, personal name, and a few forms of contact information.

Media Ads

For this, I am talking about radio and television ads.  If you can afford to run an ad like this, you certainly do not want to waste that money by overloading your listeners or watchers with too much information.  Again, pick one of two aspects that you are trying to emphasize with your advertisement, and stick with them.  Television watchers will quickly ignore a commercial that tries to do too much.

As your organization grows, your marketing needs will change. As you add materials to your marketing arsenal or add products to your product line, you need to change your brand to reflect your current business image.

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them” that identifies the products and services of one business and differentiates it from other businesses.

Branding often appeals to the emotions – you want people to feel a certain way when they see your packaging, your Web site, your brochures and other marketing materials. If these items are inconsistent people will get confused. If you want your branding to make people feel like they can trust you, using copy emphasizing trust in your flyers and using copy emphasizing consistency on your Web site, your potential customers may get confused.

Here are some pointers on how to evaluate your brand and decide whether to rebrand:

Has your brand promise changed?

Your brand is your promise to the customer. It should convey to them what they should anticipate from your products. It should tell them how you are different from your competition. Your brand should be based on who your company is, what you want your company to be and what people perceive you to be. You need to review your promise first, because that promise is at the core of all your brand messaging. If your promise has changed, you need to rebrand.

Evaluate your branding look

If you created your brand look – the color palette, fonts, photos, etc. – years ago, you may need to rebrand. There’s no definite number of years that a brand can last, but if your look just isn’t capturing the feeling you want customers to feel, it’s time to update the brand. If your business has grown and now uses the latest technology, your brand should show that. Homemade-looking materials that worked years ago just won’t work now. You need to keep up with the changin’ times.

If your logo or another key element of your branding design is out of date, you can just update that one item – there’s no need to update every element of your brand if only one piece isn’t working.

Another tip is to not change your brand design just because you are tired of it. Many people haven’t even seen your brand yet, so if it’s been working and it still gives the feeling you want people to receive, don’t change it. If you’re a cliché person: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Update for consistency

If you add product brochures for each new product you make, you need to make sure it looks consistent with all of your other product brochures and other marketing materials. All of your materials should look like they belong to a family when viewed together. A family has certain characteristics that look similar, but that doesn’t mean they look identical. The elements that should stay the same are: color palette, graphics, fonts, and logo usage. Lay out all your marketing materials and see if you can tell they all represent the same company. If not, it’s time to rebrand for consistency.

Rebranding is not something to take lightly – make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons and that the rebrand will enhance your customers’ understanding of your business and will give them the feeling you want. Rebranding willy-nilly whenever you feel like it without doing some evaluation will just end up confusing people in the future.

Budgeting wisely is a necessary evil for businesspeople. Survival depends on cash flow and revenue and expenditures. As a businessman, I am intimately familiar with trying to come up with innovative ways to make the numbers work.

I have learned (the hard way) that there are some areas where cutting costs doesn’t always pay off. One of those areas is in product promotion. I used to try to save money by using cheaper companies to do my newsletter printing and brochure printing. At times, I even used black and white literature, and I even gave those awful things to customers!

As I said, though, I have learned. I have learned that spending more on quality literature now always means more revenue later. So now I always go with a good printing company. I always have full color newsletters and brochures, and even full color business cards. The results are tremendous.

If I can convince other young entrepreneurs to learn from my mistake before making it themselves, I will be a very happy man. So please take my word for it: cutting corners on printing your promotional material will do nothing but hurt your pocketbook.

I don’t fly very often, but when I do, the airline I choose to fly with is always a very important decision. Most of the flights I’ve been on have ranged from one to three hours, and a three hour flight, stuck in a plane where I’m completely dependent upon the service being provided to me, can be a scary experience if I don’t already know I’m going to get good service. I think a plane ride is a perfect example of the importance of good service because I am, quite literally, unable to leave once that plane takes off. I’m at their mercy.

I always research an airline before I bother booking a flight for this very reason. I look over whatever promotional flyers they’ve sent me or what their brochures look like to get a good feel for the type of service I’ll be getting. And once I know a place is good, I like to read their newsletters to make sure nothing has changed within the company and I’ll still have just as good of a flight the next time I go. This applies to every kind of service industry, and the sooner companies realize how important it is to let me know what kind of people they have working for them the more willing I’ll be to give them a try. Too bad more companies don’t realize this.