Marketing Ideas

A lot of people don’t really understand just how broad advertising can be. The standard and well-known forms of commercial printing are not the only ones out there. And of course, even if you are using an often-used style you can still find ways to tweak things so they go beyond the norm.

First, let’s go over some of the different styles of commercial printing just waiting for you to take advantage of. Have you ever considered invitation printing for your advertising? What you do is have a number of letters printed up that look like formal invitations. This is great for a store opening, or a big, upcoming special.

Don’t go for the normal, over the top large letters screaming sale, and instead send something subtle. You don’t have to always be loud to get someone’s attention, and when a person is handed something they aren’t used to seeing they’re more likely to take the time to look at it.

But let’s look at the better-known forms of advertising as well and see about adding a unique twist to them. While a lot of companies use them, have you ever considered something like magnetic business cards for your company?

This won’t work for every kind of industry, and you’ll have to ask yourself first whether or not this will be right for you, but you might be surprised at how many companies fail to take advantage of something so simple like the magnetic business card.

Part of the charm will always be handing something to someone that they weren’t expecting to get. This can get a conversation started right away. Once that talk is over with you’ve handed someone something they can easily put on the fridge to help them remember you.

Unique images are another way to add that extra bit of flare to your advertising. If you send a lot of postcards out, think about getting some art postcards made up. Find a painting or image you particularly like, and goes well with your company, and augment your postcards with this wonderful picture.

After all, a postcard needs to stand out in the pile of mail people are going to be sorting through, and nothing will help you better than a colorful, unique picture when it comes to being noticed.

There are all sorts of ways you can add spice to what would otherwise be a normal advertisement. If you’re hiring someone else out to handle your graphic designing, ask them if they know of anything different to try out that they think would work, and if you’re designing your own advertising with programs like InDesign, take the time to look at all the features open to you.

There are a lot of options out there for you. Figure out which ones work the best.

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.

If your sales presentations aren’t getting you a lot of return phone calls, you should read the following tips for ensuring your sales presentation is the best it can be.

1. Time it. Your audience has a limited attention span, no matter what their age! CEOs get bored just as quickly as teenagers. If you drone on for too long, you’ll lose any interest gained in the first part of the presentation. Keep it short and to the point.

Follow the 60% rule: however much time is set aside for your meeting or presentation, use 60% of that total time. If you have a half-hour scheduled, use about 18 minutes for your presentation. If you have an hour scheduled, your presentation should last about 40 minutes. This allows your prospect to think it over and ask questions without being rushed.

2. Match your prospects’ tone while speaking. If your prospects (or main prospect, the highest-ranking person in the meeting) talk fast, you should talk fast. If your prospects talk slow, and take time to pause before the next phrase, you should try to do the same. The way they speak is the way they best understand speech back to them.

3. Watch your body language. The way you hold yourself can contradict the words coming out of your mouth. If you’re slouched over and have your arms crossed, it’s going to be hard for the prospects to get excited about anything you have to say. Stand up straight, use eye contact with everyone in the room (not all at once – although that would be an interesting trick!) and be careful of how much you use your hands. Use your hands to point to posters or other visuals to emphasize a point, but try not to let your hands get distracting by flailing about.

4. Use visual aids. Visuals aids should be just that – things that help you make your points – they shouldn’t be your point. Don’t rely on your visual aids to tell the whole story for you. Visual aids can reinforce your message and they increase retention, so definitely use them, just don’t abuse them! And definitely don’t read straight from them like a boring college professor – paraphrase the words on the visual or add information to them with your speech.

5. Keep your prospects involved. Do this by asking questions or use your presentation as a stage for a demonstration. Let the prospects use your product as they or their customers would in a real situation. Use their reactions and questions to gauge their interest.

6. Avoid clichés and overused phrases. People will start to ignore you when you say “We’re the best, forget the rest” or “I’ll be honest with you.” If you use phrases that are old-hat, you’ll lose attention and interest. Take time to rehearse your presentation and if you find you’re using clichés when you don’t mean to, write down some alternative wordings and practice with those.

7. Practice, practice, practice. You can also find phrases or parts of your presentation that don’t work and you’ll have time to fix them before the real deal. This is the best piece of advice because the more you practice, the better you’ll become and the more comfortable you’ll become with your presentation.

How much money do you have to blow on marketing? Unfortunately you’re going to need at least a little money set aside to take care of your marketing, so how can you make that budget stretch as far as possible?

Let’s look at posters as a good example. First off, posters are a rather cheap form of marketing to begin with; you just have to put more of your time into it. Time isn’t the easiest thing to come by, but often you’ll have more time on your hands than you’ll have money, or that’s how it usually is for me.

But before I go into the footwork of posters, let’s go back to the ways of stretching your marketing buck. If you’re going to buy posters you’re going to want to go with wholesale printing and get the biggest order that you can.

See, the thing about printing is that the most expensive part of the printing process is typically going to come from actually printing the design as opposed to the number of posters you’re getting done.

To make it a little clearer, when a company first prints your order they need to set up the equipment to get your order going, and this start up is where the bulk of your costs will lay. So let’s say you’ve designed a poster that promotes your company but isn’t limited by any kind of timeframe—no upcoming sale or something like that.

What you can do is get the biggest order possible and set aside the extras for future use. You can get a massive order of color posters for cheaper than it would’ve taken to do two orders. Really, it comes down to planning ahead to what you’re going to need later on rather than just what you need at this moment.

Ah, the horrors of planning ahead. I swear a lot of people seem to fear this concept as if it were a virus. They live so thoroughly in the moment without any care for what tomorrow holds.

If you want to save your cash, then you need to know about these kinds of things and get the proper sized order.

Now, as for the time investment I mentioned earlier, the other great thing about posters is your ability to go yourself and put them up at various locations. You don’t have to pay to mail them out to a bunch of different people when you can just go yourself and have them at specific locations.

It might not be the fastest way you can get those posters up, but it will get them up, and the only thing you will have lost is time and a little bit of gas—or just walk if gas prices are getting you down.

Welcome to the world of inexpensive marketing. It isn’t the most entertaining thing, but it still works.

Promotional items of every type and variety can be seen at trade shows. These days, attendees of trade shows expect their schwag at each booth visited. Many business owners do not put sufficient thought into which items they select. Oftentimes, they end up picking whatever is cheapest. This proves to be a mistake.

The first consideration is durability. If you give an item which only last a few days, then you are spending far more per time viewed as opposed to an item which sticks around for a year. You should think of it in terms of a billboard. Which is more valuable, a billboard which will be up for a year or one which comes down after three days? This obvious answer is ignored by those purchasing promotional items.

Items which are displayed out in the public are great choices. A tee shirt or baseball cap are salient examples. The wearer essentially becomes a walking advertisement for you. Close attention must be paid to quality and wording. A torn and frayed tee shirt does not convey the branding message you desire.

Color is very important. Psychologists have derived a quick guide to color selection. Blue is good for men in general while pink is obviously good for women. Those in the healthcare industry should receive white. Orange is perfect for construction, building or safety. Green being the color of money suits bankers and others in finance. Techies like gray. Who knows why?

Next time you are purchasing promotional items put sufficient thought into your selection. It can often be the difference between wasted marketing expenses versus high advertising ROI.