Marketing Ideas

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.

 

When people first start a new job or start a new business, when do they feel like they have officially “arrived”? Usually, it’s when they get their business cards! Getting your nice new business cards is an exciting time – for some reason seeing your name on a small piece of cardstock with your title and contact info is enthralling.

 

If you’re just starting up a new business or you’ve changed jobs and need to get new business cards printed, your basic options for where to get these cards is a traditional brick-and-mortar printing company, or an online business card printing company.

For this post, I’ll go with the online company for the following reasons:

Online companies are generally cheaper. They’ll save you money, plain and simple. They generally have less overhead costs and may not need as many employees. The savings the company gets by employing only a few people to multitask are forked over to you.

You have a plethora of options. You generally have many more designs and templates to choose from when you shop online.

You’ll get your cards faster. Online companies can start printing orders right away, so there isn’t as much backlog. A small backlog means you get your order quicker. Also, many processes are automated, so the process can get started overnight, without anyone having to run the equipment.

It’s convenient. You can shop and order at any time of day. You can shop in the comfort of your pajamas if you want to! Plus, with the rising gas prices you won’t have to drive to pick up your cards or to check out the proof – everything can be emailed or mailed directly to you.

You have decided to start your own small business. You'll be selling a product or service emanating from your true passion, whatever that may be. Let's assume that it is golf. The market for "golf" is quite large. However, it includes many smaller facets. They range from golf travel, to analysis and ratings of equipment, to sellers of the clubs themselves.

Within the overall golf market there are many niche markets. As a small new business it is advised to select one of these niches for your focus. Let's assume you select the small niche of golf in California. This allows for much greater targeting of your audience.

You are now ready to build your brand. What color scheme would most appeal to California golfers? What would be an appropriate corporate logo? The knowledge of who your audience is enables you to effectively research and answer these questions.

Once you have finished creating the perfect brand and associated sales copy the work has only begun. You must then get your message in front of your audience. Studies have shown that it takes over ten exposures for a new brand to stick in a consumer's mind.

You have many tools for publicizing your brand. Many operate exclusively online. Others take advantage of all avenues including advertising flyers. Flyer printing can often prove to be surprisingly cost effective. Creative marketers have discovered an endless array of possible ways to increase brand awareness.

The reputation of your brand in the marketplace must be protected at all costs. This is done by treating both your customers and employees fairly and with respect. Happy customers and employees translate to happy sales figures.

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.