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What should you know about advertising?
Advertising medium or location. Advertising professions Advertising law Advertisement evaluation. Advertising and its effects on human behavior. Banning harmful advertisement resource. English language relevant to advertising. Education through advertising/media. Education for advertisers/media. Investigating harmful advertisements. Questions to answer before advertising. Research in advertising. |
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What can be an advertising medium or location? What should be advertised? What cannot be advertised? What should be the goal? What are examples of various advertising professions? What directives are there for those who advertise their photographs and contact information on the Internet? What questions should be answered in case of an advertisement? What type Of advertising has the most influence? What should you know about Internet advertisements? What should be the focus of an advertisement? What cannot be advertised? Is there are difference between advertising and marketing? |
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Advertising medium or location. Types of Advertising. What can be an advertising medium or location? Billboards Banners & Signs Bookmarks Books Brochures Business cards Calendars Catalogs & Booklets Coffee cup advertising Celebrity advertising Digital out-of-home advertising Digital signage Directories Direct mail Flyers Fliers Greeting cards Internet advertising In-store advertising Kiosks and events Leaflets Labels Magazines Mobile devices Newspapers Niche advertising Notice boards (buildings, schools) Outdoor advertising Print advertising - newspapers, magazines, brochures Postcards Posters Print publications Print advertising on other products Public service advertising Radio advertising Road banners Stickers Signage Surrogate advertising - advertising indirectly Smartphone advertising Vehicle advertising – on buses, trains, etc. Video, audio recording Television advertising What should be advertised? Products in essential ingredients of the economy. Services in essential ingredients of the economy. Events Meetings News reports/mMedia (more than 11 types of news reports) Service update Educational programs Other What cannot be advertised? Nonessential ingredients of the economy. What should be the goal? Begin with the end in mind. Advertising Professions What are examples of various advertising professions? Advertising law What directives are there for those who advertise their photographs and contact information on the Internet? If you advertise your photograph and contact information on the Internet, this means you are asking others to contact you via e-mail, fax, telephone, postal mail, text message, tweet, etc. What questions should be answered in case of an advertisement? Why are you advertising? What type of advertisement is it? What is the audience for this advertisement? Who is expected to reply to this advertisement? What should be the response time for this advertisement? You are required to reply by June 6, 2013. How should you reply to this advertisement? You are required to reply via e-mail. Where should you forward your response to this advertisement? You are required to reply via e-mail to admin@qureshiuniversity.com. Should you reply to this advertisement via e-mail, fax, telephone, postal mail, media, or any other resource? When should you follow up your reply? You should follow up your reply to verify if the recipient got it. What type Of advertising has the most influence? Internet advertising. What should you know about Internet advertisements? If the advertisement is on the Internet, you should know the world is watching you. If you are in print media, only locals in an area are watching you. What should be the focus of an advertisement? Public service. What cannot be advertised? Nonessential ingredients of the economy cannot be advertised. Is there are difference between advertising and marketing? Yes, there is. Advertising should be encouraged. Marketing should not be encouraged. Classified advertising should not be encouraged. Marketing is going against the essential commodities act, essential services maintenance act, and human rights. |
| Advertising Degree |
| Advertisement Evaluation |
| Conjugate |
| Internet Advertising |
| Print Advertising |
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What part of the speech does this word belong to?
What are the details of inflections of this word? What is the synonym of this word? What is Advertising? How is advertising different from public relations? What Are the Different Types of Advertising? How important is advertising? What do ads look like? Is advertising a good or bad thing? What is the purpose of advertising? (What is advertising?) Name a typical method of advertising. What truth-in-advertising rules apply to advertisers? What makes an advertisement deceptive? What makes an advertisement unfair? What is self-regulation? Why does advertising need to be regulated? What are the benefits of self-regulation? How is self-regulation achieved & who applies the self-regulation rules? Does newspaper advertising work? How good is your ad? Is the venue right? What is considered an advertisement? What is the required information that must be provided in advertisements such as signs, email and business cards? What does an advertisement include? Is the purpose of advertisements to give information about products, or is their purpose only to project an image? How truthful do you think advertisements are? Some people complain that adverts stimulate an excessively consumerist society. What do you think? What do you think is the most effective way of advertising something - on TV, the cinema, radio, internet, newspapers or something else? What do you understand to be the difference between the English words "advertising" and "propaganda"? What do you like about advertisements? Do you think that advertising should be regarded as an art form? What advertisements are popular at the moment? Can you think of an advertisement which you particularly dislike at the moment? What is the funniest advert you can remember? What car advertisements can you remember? What sort of things do they usually tell you about their products? What telephone company advertisements can you remember? What do they tell you about their products? Do you feel that you personally are affected by adverts? Do you ever remember the ad but forget what was being advertised? How frequently do you buy an article in a shop because you remember the advert? Have you ever not bought a product because you were irritated by the advert? What do you imagine it would be like to work in the advertising industry? Have you ever paid for an advertisement or started an advertising campaign? [edit] TV and advertsDo you (or does someone else in your family) channel surf during adverts? How does the rest of the family respond? What do you actually DO when the TV commercials come? Do you watch them? What is the maximum number of things you have managed to do during a commercial break? How is washing powder usually advertised? Is there (or should there be) a limit on the number of advertisements which can be shown? What would be the effect of such a limit? Sometimes people say, "The adverts are better than the programmes". What do you think about this? What do you think of the idea of "product placement" advertisements - the inclusion of particular branded products in films and soap operas? How much more effective do you think an advertisement is if it features a celebrity? Adverts and the internet It is sometimes claimed that the web is the future of advertising. What do you think? How often do you click on advertisements on web pages or Google search? How would you define "spam"? How much spam email do you get? Have you ever responded to a spam email? Adverts and society Advertising for alcohol and tobacco is now severely limited - do the adverts, or their prohibition, have much impact either way? Are there any other things which shouldn't be advertised? In many countries lightly dressed women frequently feature in advertisements. What do you think of this practice? Should there be any special controls on adverts specifically directed at children? (For instance adverts directed at children under 12 are banned in Sweden.) What moral responsibility, if any, do advertisers have to use "normal looking" people in their advertisements? Some charities sometimes use shocking images of starving children or abused animals in their advertisements. What do you think of this practice? Activity This is a simple activity, which does not need any materials. Time: depending on class and group size, between 1 and 2 hours. Talk with the students about commercials or use the questions above. Where do they encounter advertisements? Why do companies advertise? What do they think of advertisements? Why do they think they are good or bad? What is a slogan? Do they know any? What is considered an advertisement? |
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What is Advertising? Advertising promotes a product, service or event to its target audience. A target audience is the portion of the general public that products, services or events were created for to fill a desire or need in the marketplace. Advertising is written by advertising copywriters and finished with artwork by graphic designers. The channels advertising is run through to reach its target audience includes Internet, print, broadcast, outdoor and _________. What part of the speech does this word belong to? Advertise (verb) What are the details of inflections of this word? Advertise (verb) Advertised Advertising Advertises What is the synonym of this word? How is advertising different from public relations? http://www.qureshiuniversity.com/publicrelations.html |
| Conversation Questions Advertising |
| Is advertising a good or bad thing? |
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Advertisement
What made you want to look up advertisement? Synonyms = ad, announcement, advertise, aggrandize, attract attention, publicize, promote, plug, announce, publish, push, display, declare, broadcast, advise, inform, praise, proclaim, puff, hype, notify, tout, flaunt, crack up, promulgate, make known, apprise, beat the drum, blazon, bring to public notice broadcast, circular, classified ad, communication, declaration, display, endorsement, exhibit, exhibition, flyer, literature, notice, notification, placard, plug, poster, proclamation, promotion, promulgation, propaganda, publication, publicity, squib, throwaway, Professional Advertising Legal Issues In Advertising Truth in Advertising Deceptive Advertising Unfair Advertising and Business Practices Bait and Switch Tactics Comparative Advertising Deception Copyright in Advertising Advertising regulation refers to the laws and rules defining the ways in which products can be advertised in a particular region. Rules can define a wide number of different aspects, such as placement, timing, and content. Advertising research Advertising by Mail Advertising by Telephone Advertising in electronic media Advertising in print media Social advertising Different Types of Advertising What Are the Different Types of Advertising? Billboards, Kiosks and Events Banners & Signs Bookmarks Brochures Business Cards Calendars Catalogs & Booklets Coffee Cup Advertising Celebrity Advertising Digital Out of Home Advertising Digital Signage < Directories Direct Mail Flyers Greeting Cards Internet Advertising In-store Advertising Leaflets Labels Magazine Mobile Devices Newspaper Niche Advertising Outdoor Advertising Print Advertising - Newspapers, Magazines, Brochures, Fliers Postcards Posters Print Publications Public Service Advertising - Advertising for Social Causes Radio Advertising Stickers Signage Surrogate Advertising - Advertising Indirectly Smartphone Advertising Television Advertising What is considered an advertisement? Under __________, an advertisement is defined as a “written or oral statement or communication which induces or attempts to induce” a person to use the services of a ________. It includes, but is not limited to, all publications, radio or television, all electronic media including emails, texts, web sites, blogs and tweets, business cards, letterhead, signs, and billboards. |
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Take a look at this. http://www.womencarecounseling.com/amy-chandler.htm What is it? What is the purpose of advertising? Is advertising a good or bad thing? How would you define advertising? Would you like to work in advertising? Do you prefer advertisements on TV, in newspapers, on the radio, on the Internet or in the street? Do you think advertising is an art? Would you like there to be no ads on TV? What do you think of the ads in other __________? Have you ever placed an ad in the classified section of a newspaper? What products depend most on advertising? What do you think of advertisements for language schools? Is advertising a good or bad thing? What factors are essential in making a good advertisement? Do pop-up ads on the Internet bother you? What adverts have you seen or heard that you particularly liked? Do you think you are easily persuaded to __________ things after seeing or hearing an ad? Do you agree with an advertising ban on cigarettes? What regulations should be applied to adverts to protect consumers? What would the world be like without advertising? Have you ever been angry about an advert? Which companies produce the best ads? Five Tips on Advertising Basics 1. Be consistent in your ad message and style, including business cards, letterhead, envelopes, invoices, signs, and banners. 2. Newspapers and radio and TV stations are helpful in producing the advertising that you will be running with them. 3. While word-of-mouth advertising has been around a long time, it usually falls short of being able to attract the number of customers needed to be successful in business. 4. Promote benefits rather than features. A benefit is the emotional satisfaction your product or service provides, or a tangible performance characteristic. 5. Know your competitors. Knowing everything about your competitors is just as important as knowing everything about your own business. Five Tips on How to Advertise, Cheap! 1. Advertising is expensive, so know why you are advertising and what you want to accomplish. Evaluate your advertising carefully and measure its effectiveness. 2. Develop appropriate sales promotion tools such as flyers, brochures, and signs. Carefully review each item for its effectiveness and evaluate what these tools say about your business. 3. Signage should be a major part of your marketing strategy. Signs are a vital part of small businesses and can be the most efficient, effective, and consistent device for generating revenue. 4. Every small business should be listed under the appropriate heading in the Yellow Pages, but not every business needs to buy expensive display ads. Be judicious. 5. Get involved in your community. Join the chamber of commerce, business organizations, service clubs, and charities. Network yourself and keep your antennae up. Five Tips on Good Business Signage 1. Make sure your signs are newsworthy. Good topics include the announcement of a major new client, a celebrity appearance at your store, and community service performed by your company. 2. Create news and put out a press release about it. Speak at a seminar, for example, or provide expert comment on developing news events. 3. Get your releases to the right people. Find out who at your radio and TV stations and newspaper will be the most interested in your news. 4. Capture editors’ attention by putting the news in the first paragraph. Then add the necessary details. 5. Make your releases look crisp and professional—that means no smudgy type. Include the name and phone number of a contact person. Then, answer media queries promptly. Four Tips for Choosing a Slogan To win the name game in the marketing world, you must make sure your prospects and customers do more than remember hearing your slogan—they have to associate it with your brand name, not your competitor's. To make sure your slogan or tag line hits home, follow these four tips: 1. Evoke your key benefit. Great slogans not only are built around a brand’s core promise—they also establish an exclusive connection in customers’ minds. You and your in-house marketing staff or advertising agency must create a slogan that evokes your key benefits and reflects the unique experience your product or service delivers. 2. Test with prospects and customers. Qualitative research is essential before putting your marketing resources squarely behind a newly developed slogan. It’s important to speak to potential customers as well as current ones to avoid skewing the outcome. If you query only your current customers, you may never figure out how to appeal to those who never considered your previous marketing messages very compelling. Phone surveys (particularly for B2B marketers) and focus groups can be used to test proposed slogans as well as uncover or verify information about the benefits your prospects and customers expect to realize when they use your product or service. 3. Include your company name. Evidence suggests slogans fare better when it comes to customer recall if they incorporate the company or product name. Wolf Group New York, an ad agency with such clients as Häagen-Dazs and Miracle-Gro, tested consumer recognition of 19 tag lines that were part of successful, long-running advertising campaigns backed by hundreds of millions of dollars. Each of the top-five brands in the survey included the product or advertiser’s name, while none of the bottom ten did. 4. Stick with it. Never adopt a new slogan as a quick fix or as part of a temporary campaign. Success requires committing to a slogan or tag line for several years—perhaps even decades—and incorporating it into all your marketing materials as a part of the company logo. If you want to protect your business’s marketing investment in the new slogan, you should consider trademarking it. At the Patent and Trademade, you can fill out a trademark application, search the trademark database, and research general information about trademarks. Whatever you do, just remember that a great slogan is like a partner in a happy marriage—it will share your company’s name and be your marketing partner for many years to come. So consider your options carefully. For help with creating slogans, go to www.adslogans.com. Tips for When Your Ad Falls Flat Is your ad working? If you didn’t get the response you were expecting, don’t panic. First ask yourself these questions: Is it a good ad in the wrong place? Check your media plan. Did you find the medium that best targeted your audience? Was the offer too weak? How does it stack up to your competitors’ ads? And don’t forget to test your offer, find what works best for you, and stick with that message until it stops working for you. Are there sales barriers? Do prospects know where to reach or find you? Did you provide a toll-free phone number? Do you have a web site where customers can find out more information and place an order? If they call, are they stuck in voice-mail hell? Are you consistent? Smart marketers build up awareness of their products or services by advertising with some degree of frequency. Questions to Answer Before Going to a Web Developer If you want an accurate assessment of what your web site will cost, you must have a clear idea about what you need. Take some time to answer these questions before you talk to a developer. 1. How will your web site function? As an online store where actual product is sold? As an online brochure to inform the consumer about your company or services? As an online community? 2. What will your web site look and feel like? What will be its corporate culture? Will it be light and fun, or hi-tech-looking, or businesslike and professional? 3. How many pages and what specific pages do you need for your web site? Here are some typical pages to think about for starters: Home About Products/Services Order Contact Resources Free Newsletter 4. What is your budget? Be reasonable. If you have only $500, you won't get too much out of your web site. There are affordable designers who can design a small business web site ranging in price from $700 to $2,500. 5. What is your deadline for project completion? Are you pressed for time or do you have several weeks to play with? If you need your site in a hurry, you may be able to get it sooner by paying a "rush" fee. 6. Will you require any specialized programming, such as a shopping cart, a database, or a contact form? If you need these items, make sure your web developer has the skills to meet these requirements. 7. What level of assistance do you need in development? By knowing in advance how much and what kind of help your project requires, you can confirm that the developer you’re considering can (and will) provide the level of service you need. Do you need full site design and concepting? Do you have the concept and just need it created into HTML pages? Do you just need some new graphics and a web site makeover? Do you have a logo or will they need to create one? 8. What guidance can you provide the developer? Find web sites that you like, list the URLs, and note what you like and why it appeals to you. Show this to the designer to give him or her a better idea about what you are looking for, so he or she can more easily provide a quote and conceptualize a graphic design to match your vision. Top Ten Things You Need to Know When Working with a Graphic Designer Designers are individuals, and every designer has a slightly different working method. There are several things that most professional designers do have in common, though. Here are a few things you can expect when you work with a graphic designer. 1. Expect to sign a contract before work. A contract protects the designer and you. It will spell out who owns what, how long the estimate is good for, payment terms, etc. Some designers call contracts by another name, such as terms and conditions, to make it seem a little less scary. Designers who don't require you to sign a contract most likely haven't been in business very long; that's not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a clue to the designer's level of professionalism. 2. Expect to pay a deposit before work. Many people believe that designers just make things pretty. A good designer tries to communicate your message, and that takes research. While your designer is researching your job, they cannot take on new work or promote their business. A deposit isn't payment for future work—it's a payment for the work that is going on right now. 3. Expect to pay more for rush jobs. People often have unrealistic ideas of how long it takes to get something designed. There's a lot of research and legwork involved in designing. If your job is a rush, you can expect to pay more—especially if it requires weekend work. Not all designers treat rush jobs the same, so it's a good idea when you hire a designer to discuss what constitutes a rush job and what extra fees rush jobs might incur. Just because your job isn't a rush now doesn't mean it won't become one. 4. Expect to pay more when you make changes. Changes that you make, that aren't errors on the part of the designer, are usually called author's alterations (AAs). You can expect to be billed extra for any AAs you request, so it's a good idea to go over your copy carefully before submitting it to your designer. If you change the actual specifications of the job (job specs), you can also expect additional charges. A professional designer will let you know what extra fees you are incurring before they begin to work on your changes. 5. Expect to be charged by the project, not by the hour. Most professional designers charge by the project. They may break it down for you so that you can see where all your money is going, but they usually don't charge by the hour. 6. Expect that you will get an agreed-upon number of concepts. Every designer's worst nightmare is the customer that will "know it when they see it." That's why it pays to do your homework ahead of time: if you really know what you want, like, and need, your designer is more likely to come up with something that works for you. Whatever price you agree upon will only include a limited number of initial design concepts; if you need more, the price will go up. 7. Expect to do your homework first. It's truly critical that you spend some time thinking about what you really need. Who is your target market? What's special about your company? Why your company and not some other company? While it's true your designer should spend time discussing this with you, you'll get better results if you've think about these issues before you meet with designers. 8. Expect to pay more for files. Most design projects are for a one-time use: a brochure, an ad, a postcard. When the designer quotes a price for you, they're assuming that you will use the design for only that one project. If you want to take that graphic from your brochure and use it in an ad, for instance, it will cost you more because you're using it for two projects. If you know that you want to use the design for several different projects, let the designer know; the designer will then price your job accordingly. 9. Expect GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). Designers are not miracle workers. If you hand a designer your 72-dpi, digital camera photos for a brochure that will be printed, your photos will most likely end up looking fuzzy in print. Yes, the designer can improve the photos somewhat, but there's a limit to how much such photos can be improved. The same is true if you give the designer already printed material to scan, torn photos, blurry photos, scratched photos .... You get the idea. 10. Expect that you will give final approval for the job. When all is said and done, this is your job; final approval (and responsibility) rests with you. While your designer will certainly proofread your work, most likely they will also have you proofread it and sign a form that says the work is approved. Don't sign off on the job unless you're completely satisfied. If you sign off and find a mistake later, it will cost you more money to fix the error. Top Ten Things to Look for When Choosing a Web Developer 1. Experience An experienced designer will have more skills to create a sophisticated looking and functioning web site. They will have more tools and tricks and knowledge to help you achieve your business goals. First, do you like the designer's own business web site? Next, here are some questions to consider for a potential web developer: Can I see your design portfolio? How long have you been doing web site design? How many web sites have you developed? What areas of web development do you specialize in? Do you know how to hand-code HTML or do you only use an HTML editor? (Hand coding can allow for an extra level of precision that may be difficult to achieve with various HTML editors.) Do you know Javascript? Can you do database work? Do you have a professional graphic design team or do you create the graphics yourself? Will you help market our web site? The whole process of interviewing the designer will not only give you the answers to those questions, but gives you insight as to who the designer is, their level of expertise, and how well you can work together. 2. Top-Quality Customer Service Equally important to experience is quality customer service. After all, what good is having a top designer if they are too busy to answer your e-mails and jump in during an emergency? Ask for a list of references—and call them! Don't be afraid to ask them if their web developer is responsive to their needs and assists them in a timely manner. 3. Professional, Original Web Site Graphics Anyone can put words on a page and create links. But only a skilled designer will have a good sense of page layout, know how to create a good color scheme, and be able to create tasteful graphics that will enhance the web site. Take a look at other sites the designer has created. Do they demonstrate a considerable range of "styles" or do they use templates? Do the web sites feature original web graphics? If you want a one-of-a-kind web site to brand your business, you must insist on original graphics for your web site. Can they create "extras" such as flash, animation, or mouse-over effects? 4. Marketing Savvy Here are some questions to ask your designer to determine what level of marketing assistance he or she will provide you: Will you help create meta tags for our web site? Will you register our site with the search engines? What search engines do you submit to? Do you mass-submit or will you hand-submit our site to the important search engines? Note: If they claim to be experts in search engine positioning, check first to see how highly listed their web site is: it's the proof in the pudding for their techniques! 5. Creativity One thing you'd better know upfront is how involved your web developer will be in the creative process. Unless you are an experienced marketer, you probably will need at least a little help writing web copy and planning the layout of your web site. Will your web developer help you develop content? Writing for the web is a little different from writing for a print marketing piece. By using someone with experience in writing web copy, you can ensure that the message, like the look of your site, is geared to sell. Also, be aware of over-creative know-it-all designers who won't listen to your input. It's your web site; you should have creative input. The key is to finding a developer who will listen to your suggestions and work with your ideas and advice when planning your site. 6. Pricing The cost of a professionally designed small business web site can run anywhere from $500 to $5000. To ensure you don't overspend your budget, you need to get a written estimate. Depending on the complexity or your project, you may even have to pay to get an estimate. To get a complete picture of all costs involved, have the designer break out costs for domain name, hosting services, graphics, web development, and marketing fees separately. Will you be required to put down a deposit? Some firms may ask for half of estimated fees up front as a deposit. What methods of payment do they accept? Will they accept credit cards or do you have to pay by cash or check? Do they charge a flat rate or by the hour? Typical hourly web development fees can range from $30 to $200 per hour. But beware: cheaper is not always better! Whatever the hourly rate, make sure it is justified by the amount of experience and skill set they bring to the table. While a designer who charges $30 an hour might seems like a deal at first, it might take them twice as long to accomplish a task. What items will cost you "extra"? If there are items that will not be included in the estimate which will be additional, make sure to get the ala carte pricing. And finally, find out what the costs will be to maintain the site. If you will be updating your site frequently, this ongoing cost is an important one to keep in mind. 7. Communication Skills How easy is your designer to talk to? Do you trust them? Can you understand what they are explaining to you or do they use techno-babble? Do they take time to listen to your needs? If you are going to have a good long term working relationship, it's crucial that you feel comfortable with one another and can communicate clearly. 8. Time Frame to Completion Ask how long the web development process will take. And then you may want to ask their references how close they came to completing the project on target. A simple web site could be developed in one or two weeks, while a larger, more intense site could take several weeks or months. Knowing what to expect can help you manage your expectations. 9. Full Range of Services Does the developer offer a full range of web site services? Will your web developer help you acquire a domain name, set up a web hosting account, market your web site, write copy, and/or provide CGI and database programming? Working with a developer who can handle all these details will save you time, money, and frustration. You can rely on their expertise to handle some of the more technical questions that may arise. If they don't provide these services, then ask if they have companies that they recommend. Be sure to get prices from those vendors too so that the total web sites costs don't sneak up on you. 10. Availability Are they a full-time web developer or is web design a moonlighting job for them? A full-time developer will probably be able to complete your site in a shorter time frame than someone who is squeezing you into his or her spare time. What are their hours? Are they open to you calling with questions? Can they start your project right away? If you need maintenance down the road, how soon can you expect changes after you submit them? Four Tips to Make Your Ads Stick! These methods will make your next campaign memorable: 1. Engage prospects. The more time someone spends with your ad, the more likely he or she is to remember it. The best ads get the advertiser or brand into the minds of prospects as they consider different possibilities. How can you get prospects to spend more time with your ads? According to Philip W. Sawyer, director of Starch Communications, a Harrison, New York, testing firm specializing in readership studies, the most memorable print ads have messages that grab the reader. Those ads include headlines that contain a benefit and a strong visual focal point, such as a close-up of a model looking directly at you. One large photo works best in magazines; in newspapers, you can use multiproduct visuals. 2. Add color and contrast. For magazine readers, high-contrast images also boost recognition. When Starch Communications tested two identical ads for Stolichnaya vodka—one with a white background and another with a black background—twice as many people remembered seeing the version with the black background, even though everything else in the ad was the same. Testing also shows that, on average, larger ads in print media are more memorable. However, a creative ad in a small space can be more memorable than a so-so one that takes up a full page. Some colors enhance memorability in print media—including sky blue, golden yellow, and shades of blue-green. Red is a good spot color in newspapers, where Sawyer says color increases recognition by 20 percent. But there's new information about four-color ads in magazines: A few years ago, color ads earned 24 percent higher recognition scores than black-and-white ads. Now, full-page black-and-white campaigns are breaking through the clutter, and four-color ads have lost their advantage. 3. Communicate frequently. Repetition is important to memorability. At the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, psychologist Mark E. Wheeler conducted a study of memory in which a word was paired with a picture or sound many times over several days to test subjects' recognition rates. He says exposure to information in different contexts helps you remember it. So when you see a message in different formats, such as a print ad, a billboard, and a TV commercial, he says, "You associate the different impressions, and that helps you retrieve the information when you need it." 4. Use memorable benefits. Ads that grab and hold a prospect's attention are those that immediately communicate a benefit that answers the question, “What's in it for me?” The bottom line, says Sawyer, is that features aren't memorable—benefits are. "If you have a headline that states a benefit, people will read it, remember it and clip it out of the magazine or newspaper and hold onto it. And that's the trump card for everything." Great Tips for Creating a Headline In the beginning, most entrepreneurs not only run their businesses but serve as advertising copywriters as well. Here are some tips to help you write the most important part of an ad—the headline. Offer a benefit. Does your business save your customers money, time, energy, or what? Tell readers immediately why they should be interested in what you’re selling. Remember: in most cases, the shorter the headline, the better. In no case should the headline exceed 20 words. Make your message simple. The headline should focus on one benefit; address any others in the ad copy. Know your market. Target the headline to a specific audience. If it’s too broad, it won’t mean anything to anyone. Avoid all capital letters. They’re harder to read. And avoid fancy typefaces— unless you’re trying to make a point, don’t use strange fonts. Be provocative. Make readers want to keep reading. Effective headlines grab attention and compel prospects to read on. Ten Tips to Get the Clicks How do you write online ads that generate results? First, you need to choose a specific objective for your campaign. Once this is established, the following copywriting tips will help summarize, strengthen, and sharpen your ad's message: 1. Lead with a question. Want to write better online ads? Looking to ramp up your click-through rate? See how engaging this technique can be in getting potential customers' attention? 2. Create a lyrical rhythm. Well-written online ads follow a catchy word flow from frame to frame. The number of syllables chosen to convey the message is deliberate, like haiku. The pacing of the words is energetic, like a roadside Burma Shave ad. And the idea builds to a payoff, like a well-told joke (frame 1 is the setup, frame 2 the fill-in, and frame 3 the punchline). 3. Keep it single and simple. The more ideas you force your online ad to communicate, the more muddled it will be. Choose one easily digestible point and drive it home with as few words as possible. 4. Show, don't tell. If an image can get your idea across instead of words, use it. Your message will be communicated quickly, easily, and memorably. 5. Write visually. Online ads offer infinite choices of entertaining visual techniques that can enhance and sell your message (words and images shrinking, dissolving, stretching, morphing, zooming in, crawling, etc.). Keep these tricks in mind as you compose your text, and include them as suggestions for your designer. 6. Make an offer. When it comes to calls to action, offers rule. Free downloads, free demos, free white papers, free info kits, free shipping—pretty much anything free (or other incentives, such as percentage- or dollar-off savings) will get a potential customer clicking faster and more consistently than an uninspiring and ambiguous "Click here!" button. 7. Justify the click. If your online ad isn't offer-driven, continue its message by making the call to action specific to what the user would receive if her or she clicked the banner. For instance, "Click for more info!" or "Click to see it in action!" or "Click to get started!" 8. Drive home the benefits. Enumerate the enticing and absolutely essential benefits (e.g., save money, improve productivity, lose weight, etc.) that your brand promises. 9. Nix the tricks. Online ads using cute come-ons ("Catch the monkey and win $20!") may boost site traffic, but they can only work once. You also run the risk of alienating scads of potential customers who will never visit your site again. 10. Test as the user. Once your campaign has been conceived, imagine the mind-set of a potential customer who's viewing a web page where your online ad will appear. Reread each idea and ask yourself, "Is this ad's message communicated credibly, simply, and irresistibly enough to compel a user to leave the site that he or she is in and click to my site?” 1. The quest for instant gratification: The ad that creates enough urgency to cause people to respond immediately is the ad most likely to be forgotten immediately once the offer expires. It is of little use in establishing the advertiser's identity in the mind of the consumer. 2. Trying to reach more people than the budget will allow: For a media mix to be effective, each element in the mix must have enough repetition to establish retention in the mind of the prospect. Too often, however, the result of a media mix is too much reach and not enough frequency. Will you reach 100 percent of the people and persuade them ten percent of the way? Or will you reach ten percent of the people and persuade them 100 percent of the way? The cost is the same. 3. Assuming the business owner knows best: The business owner is uniquely unqualified to see his company or product objectively. Too much product knowledge leads him to answer questions no one is asking. He's on the inside looking out, trying to describe himself to a person on the outside looking in. It's hard to read the label when you're inside the bottle. 4. Unsubstantiated claims: Advertisers often claim to have what the customer wants, such as "highest quality at the lowest price," but fail to offer any evidence. An unsubstantiated claim is nothing more than a cliché the prospect is tired of hearing. You must prove what you say in every ad. Do your ads give the prospect new information? Do they provide a new perspective? If not, prepare to be disappointed with the results. 5. Improper use of passive media: Nonintrusive media, such as newspapers and Yellow Pages, tend to reach only buyers who are looking for the product. They are poor at reaching prospects before their need arises, so they're not much use for creating a predisposition toward your company. The patient, consistent use of intrusive media, such as radio and TV, will win the hearts of relational customers long before they're in the market for your product. 6. Creating ads instead of campaigns: It is foolish to believe a single ad can ever tell the entire story. The most effective, persuasive, and memorable ads are those most like a rhinoceros: they make a single point, powerfully. An advertiser with 17 different things to say should commit to a campaign of at least 17 different ads, repeating each ad enough to stick in the prospect's mind. 7. Obedience to unwritten rules: For some insane reason, advertisers want their ads to look and sound like ads. Why? 8. Late-week schedules: Advertisers justify their obsession with Thursday and Friday advertising by saying, "We need to reach the customer just before she goes shopping." Why do these advertisers choose to compete for the customer's attention each Thursday and Friday when they could have a nice, quiet chat all alone with her on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday? 9. Overconfidence in qualitative targeting: Many advertisers and media professionals grossly overestimate the importance of audience quality. In reality, saying the wrong thing has killed far more ad campaigns than reaching the wrong people. It's amazing how many people become "the right people" when you're saying the right thing. 10. Event-driven marketing: A special event should be judged only by its ability to help you more clearly define your market position and substantiate your claims. If one percent of the people who hear your ad for a special event choose to come, you will be in desperate need of a traffic cop and a bus to shuttle people from distant parking lots. Yet your real investment will be in the 99 percent who did not come! What did your ad say to them? 11. Great production without great copy: Too many ads today are creative without being persuasive. Slick, clever, funny, creative, and different are poor substitutes for informative, believable, memorable, and persuasive. 12. Confusing response with results: The goal of advertising is to create a clear awareness of your company and its unique selling proposition. Unfortunately, most advertisers evaluate their ads by the comments they hear from the people around them. The slickest, cleverest, funniest, most creative, and most distinctive ads are the ones most likely to generate these comments. See the problem? When we confuse response with results, we create attention-getting ads that say absolutely nothing. Nine Questions to Answer Before Planning Advertising 1. What does your client have to say that matters to the customer? Most ads are written under the assumption that the reader, listener, or viewer has a basic level of interest and is paying close attention to the ad. But customers tend to ignore all ads that do not speak directly to them. Your first task is not media selection; it's message selection. 2. Can you say it persuasively? Most ads are ineffective because the writer was trying to say too much, include too much, and be too much. Fearful of leaving someone out, these writers write vague, all-encompassing ads that speak specifically to no one. "We Fix Cars" is a terrible headline for an ad. 3. Are you speaking to a felt need? Let's say the "We Fix Cars" auto mechanic has a great deal of affection for older BMW 2002s. He knows that 2002 owners love their cars like few drivers on the road and that the only weakness of the 2002 is its evil Solex carburetor. Every 2002 owner knows this, too. So he writes the headline, "BMW 2002 Owners: Aren't You Tired of Fooling with That Solex by Now?" In the body of the ad, he talks about the fabulous new Weber two-barrel carburetor now available for BMW 2002s, raves about how it dramatically increases performance and reliability, explains that he keeps these new Weber carburetors in stock at his shop, then names the price at which he will install and adjust that carburetor for you. He closes the ad by saying, "You'll rocket out of here in a completely different BMW than the one you drove in." If a list of BMW owners in your area is available for a direct-mail card (such as the list from the local BMW club), then a direct-mail card or flier would be the way to go. But if no such list is available, the newspaper might be a second choice. In either case, you'd want to include a large picture of a BMW 2002 to serve as a recall cue and help gain the attention of your target customer. 4. How long is your time horizon? Some ads build traffic, some build relationships, and others build your reputation. If you don't have the financial resources to launch a true branding campaign focused on building relationships and reputation among potential customers, you're going to have to settle for traffic-building ads until you can afford to begin developing your brand. To what degree do you have financial staying power? 5. What is the urgency of your message? If you need an ad to produce immediate results, your offer must have a time limit. This technique will simultaneously work for and against you. On one hand, customers tend to delay what can be delayed, so limited-time offers generate traffic more quickly since the threat of "losing the opportunity" is real. On the other hand, customers have no memory of messages that have expired; short-term messages are erased from our brains immediately. Therefore, it's extremely difficult to create long-term awareness with a series of limited-time-offer, short-term ads. 6. What is the impact quotient of your ad? How good your ad must be depends on the quality of the competitors' ads. A .22-caliber pistol is a weapon against an opponent with a peashooter. But aim that pathetic pistol at an opponent holding a machine gun, and you can kiss your silly butt goodbye. How powerful is the message of the opposition? If your competitor carries a machine gun, don't go where he goes. In other words, don't use the media he uses. 7. How long is the purchase cycle? How long it will take your advertising to pay off is tied to the purchase cycle of your product. Ads for restaurants work more quickly than ads for sewing machines, because a larger percentage of people are looking for a good meal today than are looking for a machine that will let them make their own clothes. Likewise, an ad for a product we buy twice per year will produce results faster than an ad for a product we buy only once a year. Remember: a customer first has to be exposed to your ad often enough to remember it, then you have to wait for that customer to need what you sell. How soon will he or she likely need it? Advice on Using Third-Party Advertisements Can you generate cash by putting third-party advertisements on your web site? You bet! Smarter than chasing down individual advertisers (and trying to collect!), join a net ad network, an intermediary that brings web sites and advertisers together. Literally dozens of companies want your business. Before signing any deals, check references, asking the following questions. Is payment prompt? Are advertisers as promised? Can you ban certain kinds of ads from your site? The model doesn’t always work, so be careful. Three Questions for Advertising Effectiveness To save money, many new business owners handle their own advertising. But it’s important to ensure you’re effectively spreading the message. So before you release your ad, make sure you can answer “yes” to the following three questions: Does your ad create a sense of immediacy? Response diminishes over time, so make sure your ad includes a call to action. Use powerful phrases like “act quickly,” “call now!” or “limited-time offer.” Have you hit as many “hot buttons” as possible? People have diverse tastes. Keep the old saying, “Different strokes for different folks,” in mind when writing your ad. Have you evaluated other ads? Check out all types of ads and emulate their strengths. Remember: nothing is more wasteful than reinventing the wheel. Five Cardinal Rules of Logo Design Your logo reaches everyone who has any contact with you and is the first impression someone will have of your company. Because of its potential impact, your logo must offer a favorable impression of your business. 1. Your logo should reflect your company in a unique and honest way. Sounds obvious, but you'd be surprised how many business owners want something "just like" a competitor. If your logo contains a symbol—often called a "bug"—it should relate to your industry, your name, a defining characteristic of your company, or a competitive advantage you offer. What's the overriding trait you want people to remember about your business? Consider an abstract symbol to convey a progressive approach—abstracts are a great choice for high-tech companies. Or maybe you simply want an object that represents the product or service you're selling. Be clever, if you can, but not at the expense of being clear. 2. Avoid too much detail. Simple logos are recognized faster than complex ones. Strong lines and letters show up better than thin ones. Clean, simple logos reduce and enlarge much better than complicated ones. But although your logo should be simple, it shouldn't be simplistic. Good logos feature something unexpected or unique without being overdrawn. 3. Your logo should work well in black and white (one-color printing). If it doesn't look good in black and white, it won't look good it any color. Also keep in mind that printing costs for four-color logos are often greater than those for one- or two-color jobs). 4. Make sure your logo's scalable. It should be aesthetically pleasing in both small and large sizes, in a variety of mediums. A good rule of thumb is the "business card/billboard rule": your logo should look good on both. 5. Your logo should be artistically balanced. The best way to explain this is that your logo should seem "balanced" to the eye—no one part should overpower the rest. Color, line density, and shape all affect a logo's balance. And once you commit to your logo design, be sure you have it in all three of these essential file formats: EPS for printing, JPG and GIF for your web site. Essentially, these file conversions render your logo as a single piece of art, so it's no longer a symbol with a typeface. Which brings us to the most important rule in logo design. Never, ever redraw or alter your logo! If you want to animate it for your web site, fine. But don't change its essence. Reduce and enlarge it proportionally. And if you become tired of your logo, that's good. Because that's usually about the time it's starting to make an impression on everyone else! Three Tips for a Radio Campaign 1. Grab attention. Right from the start, a great spot should grab and hold the listener's attention. Comedy is a common technique. With clever writing, the product itself can be the antidote to a comedic situation, for example. Many successful spots use sounds such as an unusual voice or compelling music to get people's attention. The key is to understand your target audience and fit your musical choices to their preferences. 2. Keep them listening. The best radio spots make you want to listen all the way through. For that, an audience must be able to relate to the story. Listeners will also pay more attention to your spot if it's part of a campaign. They'll associate each new ad with the previous ones and listen for the latest twist, helping to extend your brand message more successfully than if you were to run unrelated spots. 3. Reward the audience. Radio isn't a direct-response medium, although some advertisers mistakenly use it that way. While most listeners probably won't recall a telephone number at the end of a spot or a complicated call to action, what they will remember is how what's being advertised is going to make their lives better. Your spot should close with a solid payoff—the resolution of a humorous situation or some final bit of information that helps listeners take advantage of what you offer. Four Tips for Cable TV Advertising A small business owner of a flower shop asked for advice on how to get started in TV advertising. Here are a few tips: 1. Bad advertising is about your company—its product or service. 2. Good advertising is about your customers and how your product or service will change their world. Consequently, guard against using "I," "we," "me," "my," and "our" too often in your ads. Replace those words with "you" and "your" and watch how much better these new ads work. 3. Your customers aren't really buying flowers. They're buying the reaction of someone important to them. So don't focus on the flowers. Focus on the reaction of the person who will receive them. 4. Don't get hung up on reaching the right people with your message. I've never seen a business fail because they were reaching the wrong people. But I've seen thousands who have failed because they were saying the wrong things in their ads. Important Aspects to Consider Before Becoming a Sponsor As your business grows, you’re likely to be approached to sponsor some type of industry or community event. Because events often attract attendees with specific profiles and interests, this can be a great way to reach targeted clients and customers. Before you say yes to a sponsorship, first take these steps to protect your investment: Examine the event’s track record. Look for one that’s been around a while and has an established audience. If the event is new, make sure the producer is reputable. Get details about expected attendance—how many and who they are. Check references. Ask current sponsors about their experiences. Ask if sponsorship packages can be customized. Look for promotional opportunities. Find out how the event will be marketed, and see if co-op advertising is available. Be unique. Will you get industry exclusivity? Most important, get it in writing. Make sure your agreement is itemized. Have your attorney review the contract to be safe. Three Simple Rules When Picking Newspapers for Advertising Rule No. 1: Select newspapers that reach your target audience with the least waste. This rule is easy to apply. Since advertising costs are often based on circulation, just examine the readership breakdown for each publication to see whether it efficiently reaches your customers. For example, a major metropolitan daily with hundreds of thousands of readers may offer too much "wasted circulation" for a single retail operation that draws business from its immediate neighborhood. Rule No. 2: Select the newspapers your target audience reads for information on what you market. In some cases, rule No. 2 can completely override rule No. 1. Suppose you're choosing between a local, neighborhood newspaper and the major, market-wide daily. The small, local paper offers little wasted circulation when compared with the major daily. But if your customers are reading the market-wide newspaper for information on what you sell, you'll have to pay for the wasted circulation in order to reach them when they're predisposed to respond positively to your message. Rule No. 3: Select newspapers you can afford to advertise in with enough frequency to penetrate. Newspapers are rarely a one-shot medium, so you'll need to run a consistent campaign. It's better to advertise with sufficient frequency in one paper, rather than just a few times each in several publications. Four Choices to Make When Selecting Newspapers for Advertising Now that you know the basic framework for selecting the right newspapers for your campaign, here's how to make sense of all the choices: Free vs. paid: There are free newspapers of all types and descriptions in many communities nationwide. Some are excellent advertising vehicles; others are not. Many media buyers will tell you that people are more likely to read the publications they pay for. So all other aspects being equal, it's often a better choice to select newspapers that go to paid subscribers. Audited vs. unaudited: A newspaper that's audited, such as by the Audit Bureau of Circulation, can guarantee that its circulation figures are accurate and you'll get what you pay for. By comparing audits over time, you can tell if a newspaper's circulation is trending up or down. If a newspaper is unaudited, ask to see a sworn publisher's statement regarding circulation. Any publication unwilling to provide this form of verification is not a safe bet. Bulk distribution vs. delivered: When newspapers are distributed in bulk, such as the ones available for free in convenience stores and gas stations, there's significantly less control over who actually picks them up and reads them. While the publishers can guarantee the number of papers being distributed, it's more difficult to determine who they actually reach. However, many bulk-distributed publications meet special communications needs or are well targeted for unique purposes. Market-wide vs. neighborhood: One way to tell if a neighborhood paper is valued when compared with a market-wide paper is to try to determine which one people are most likely to read. Look at the household penetration of the major daily. If it's very high, then chances are that smaller, neighborhood papers have to fight much harder to secure readers by supplying special editorial or advertising sections, including classifieds. Evaluate the neighborhood paper by looking at other advertisers in your category. If they're advertising consistently, that's an indication they're getting results—and it's likely you will, too. Seven Ways to Attract Transactional Customers Here's how to write ads that trigger instant traffic: 1. Begin with a product that has wide appeal. Transactional ads don't create desire; they merely capitalize on a desire that's already there. 2. Reduce the price below what is considered the typical discount. The more desirable the item and the lower the price, the faster the traffic will come. 3. Explain why you're offering the price reduction. Your volume of quick-response traffic will be directly tied to the credibility of your desperation. 4. Create urgency by having a time limit. "Everyday low prices" may be a reasonable brand position in the long term, but it's no reason to rush to your store today. 5. Discount a highly respected brand that isn't usually discounted. A low price is unimpressive when there's a question about the quality. 6. Use specifics, which are more believable than generalities. Avoid ambiguous claims such as "up to 70 percent off" and vague disclaimers like "on selected items." 7. Schedule a high frequency of repetition for your TV or radio ads or use a second color (like red) in key lines of your newspaper ad, to support the perception of urgency. Leverage these seven factors and you'll increase your store traffic quickly. But be aware: the more often you use these tips, the less well they'll work. You'll know your company is addicted to transactional advertising when customers begin asking, "When does this go on sale?" The price of this strategy is that you train your customers to wait for the next sale. Their sense of urgency is diminished with every new "Sale!" ad you write. In the end, the brand you're building will be weak. A number of studies on customer loyalty have clearly indicated customers who switch to you for reasons of price alone will switch away to a competitor for the same reason. Types of Advertising Media 1. Outdoor advertising/billboards: Reach more people for a dollar than any other media, but are limited to a picture and no more than eight words. 2. Radio: Reaches the second most people for a dollar, but cannot be targeted geographically and can only be loosely demographically targeted. But if people will drive significant distances to buy your product, or if you're selling a "we come to you" service, this is likely your best bet. 3. Cable television: Offers the impact of moving images as well as spoken words. Can easily be geographically targeted. But your ad will likely look homemade. 4. Broadcast television: Big prestige. Big bucks. But able to target psychographic profiles. Buy specific shows; never buy a rotator. 5. Newspapers: Reach customers who are in the market to buy today. Unfortunately, people not currently in the market for your product or service are less likely to notice your ad than if it had appeared in another medium. 6. Magazines: Expensive, but high impact with tight targeting. Little waste. Weakness is infrequency of repetition. 7. Direct mail: Highly targeted, all the way down to the level of the individual. But shockingly expensive to do right. 8. Yellow Pages: Essentially a service directory for the customer who has not yet made up his or her mind. Very foolish for retail businesses. Five Steps to a Simple Marketing Plan Section 1: Situation Analysis This introductory section contains an overview of your situation as it exists today and will provide a useful benchmark as you adapt and refine your plan in the coming months. Begin with a short description of your current product or service offering, the marketing advantages and challenges you face, and a look at the threats posed by your competitors. Section 2: Target Audience All that's needed here is a simple, bulleted description of your target audiences. If you're marketing to consumers, write a target-audience profile based on demographics, including age, gender, and any other important characteristics. If you’re marketing B2B, list your target audiences by category (such as lawyers, doctors, shopping malls) and include any qualifying criteria for each. Section 3: Goals In one page or less, list your company's marketing goals for the coming year. The key is to make your goals realistic and measurable so that you can easily evaluate your performance. You'd be in a much better position to gauge your marketing progress with a goal such as "Increase sales of peripherals 10 percent in the first quarter, 15 percent in the second quarter, 15 percent in the third quarter and 10 percent in fourth quarter." Section 4: Strategies and Tactics This section will make up the bulk of your plan. You should take as much space as you need to give an overview of your marketing strategies and list each of the corresponding tactics you'll employ to execute them. Your tactics section should include all the actionable steps you plan to take for advertising, public relations, direct mail, trade shows, and special promotions. Section 5: Budget Breakdown The final section of your plan includes a brief breakdown of the costs associated with each of your tactics. If you find the tactics you've selected are too costly, you can go back and make revisions before you arrive at a final budget. Ten Design Disasters for Marketing Materials 1. Don't enlarge your logo so it's the main focus of the page. People are interested in what you're selling, not who you are. In fact, the smaller your logo, the more established your company will appear. Check out ads by pros like Nike or Hewlett-Packard. 2. Don't place your logo in the text of your piece. Of course it's fine to use the name of your company in the text of any of your marketing materials, but inserting your actual logo into a headline or body copy is design suicide. 3. Don't use every font at your disposal. Choose one or two fonts for all your materials to build brand equity. Your font choices should be consistent with your image and your industry. For example, a conservative industry means a conservative font. 4. Don't use color indiscriminately. More color doesn't necessarily make something more appealing. Often it just makes it loud and off-putting. Most, if not all, your text should be the same color, preferably black for readability. For a unique look, try duotone photographs or print in two colors. 5. Don't be redundant. Don't repeat the name of your industry or product in your company name and your tagline and your headline. Potential customers know your industry. Restating it implies you don't. 6. Don't choose low-quality or low-resolution photography. A photo may look great in an album, but unless it features balanced lighting and good composition, it's not print-worthy. Photos need to be at least 300 dpi. And yes, people can tell the difference. 7. Don't fill up every inch of white space on the page. White space, or negative space, brings focus to what's important and gives the eye a rest. You may have a lot to say, but cramming it all in creates chaos and minimizes impact. Your piece will end up visually overwhelming. Think less, not more. 8. Don't focus on the details of your product or service; instead, focus on how it benefits your audience. Unless your product is extremely technical, make your offering relevant to your audience by emphasizing its benefits, not its features. 9. Don't do exactly what your competitors are doing. When you're positioning your product, it's good to know your competition. But don't copy them. Find out what your customers want and are attracted to. Stand out without sticking out. 10. Don't change design styles with every marketing piece you create. Strive for a consistent look and feel, keeping the same fonts and logo placement. If you use photos in one ad, don't use illustrations in another. If you place your logo in the middle of one brochure, don't place in at the top-right corner in another. Six Ways to Make Time for Marketing 1. Make marketing a priority. You must commit to making time for marketing—whether to attend networking events, put together a brochure and business card, research prospects on the Web, or write a proposal. Without a strong commitment, you'll find yourself consistently putting off your marketing efforts, which could haunt you a month or two from now. 2. Plan ahead to diffuse crises. It's hard to market your business when you must spend the bulk of your day dealing with urgent matters. Anticipate potential problems and do what you need to do to diffuse them ahead of time. When you're proactive in managing your time, you reduce the number of unexpected crises that you'll have to face in the next week, freeing you up to devote more time to your marketing initiatives. 3. Cut the fat. A common mistake new entrepreneurs make is not focusing on their most important tasks. As a result, they're spending hours upon hours working but aren't really getting anything done. So, create time for marketing by evaluating your schedule to see where you can "cut the fat." 4. Consolidate your activities when possible. Plan ahead to accomplish tasks in a single trip. Bulk group-related activities together. If you have client and prospect meetings outside the home office, try to cluster them within the same vicinity. 5. Avoid telephone interruptions. Break the habit of answering the phone every time it rings. Schedule time for answering and making phone calls and checking your voice mail. This way, you can get more done without the stress created from the phone ringing off the hook. 6. Cultivate positive thinking. Negative emotions like worry, frustration, and anxiety waste time and cause you to panic. And it's hard to market your products or services when you're stuck in panic mode. Say no to anxiety and "rescript" worries into proactive and positive thoughts. Four Fresh Ways to Target Your Market Reach college students. The more than 15 million students in colleges nationwide spend $200 billion on products and services each year, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Now there's a down-and-dirty way to reach them—with ads posted in laundry rooms on college campuses. For information, contact Washboard Media (www.encompassmediagroup.com) and OnPoint Marketing (www.onpointmarketing.com). Hit the links. If golfers are your target, trying advertising on the sides and backs of hospitality carts—mobile units selling beverages and golfing supplies that stop once every hour at each group of golfers. Sports Cart Media (www.sportscartmedia.com) offers hospitality cart signage on nearly 1,000 golf courses, with seven advertising spaces available on each cart. Pump them up. Local business owners in select markets have a new form of advertising available to them via the nearest gas pump. DirectCast Network (www.directcastnetwork.com) has embedded computer chips in gasoline pump handles that play a mix of advertisements, information, and entertainment when a nozzle is placed in a fuel tank. Get in the swim. Take corporate sponsorship of sports facilities one step further with logos and ads in and around public swimming pools. You can place signage on scoreboards, timing clocks, starting blocks, walls, and supporting pillars—and even on the bottom of the pools. Contact your local community pools, aquatic centers, and universities concerning sponsorship. Six Tips to Boost Your Marketing Strategies Do your marketing strategies need a boost? Guerrilla marketing guru, Jay Conrad Levinson offers these smart tips: 1. Don’t just network—build relationships. Send notes to people you’ve just met to indicate you would like to talk again. 2. Make sure your ads answer every consumer’s No. 1 question: What’s in it for me? 3. Give something to your best customers. Gifts work best as a follow-up to a sale or a referral, on a holiday, or for the customer’s birthday. 4. Personalize your faxes. And add an easy-response device, such as “To order, sign here and fax back.” 5. Know the best ways to reach a prospect. A letter followed by a phone call is tops. Next best is a referral, then a cold call. 6. Always communicate with your customers, even when you’re not trying to sell them anything. That’s why you build relationships. Practical No-Cost Promotions 1. Ask your previous customers to write a letter of referral that you can show to prospects and post on your web site. My research has shown that as they give you these letters, their own referrals to you will also increase. 2. Create a one-page newsletter and distribute it wherever you go. Your cost will be just pennies, and you'll be able to tell people more about what you do in a newsletter than you could in a brochure. Visit OnePageNewsletters.com (www.onepagenewsletters.com) for more ideas and promotional strategies on this powerful marketing strategy. 3. Put on an educational seminar at a public place such as your local library. Keep it educational so attendees won't feel they're being sold to. Then offer a private 30-minute one-to-one session to your attendees afterward to get better acquainted. 4. Write letters to the editors of local newspapers and business publications. And be sure you mention your web site. 5. You do have a web site, don't you? Even though it's not free, if you forego just one of your specialty coffees per month you can cover the cost. 6. Ask for introductions from your accountant, your lawyer, and even your clergy. People who know people are golden for your marketing. 7. Circulate to meet as many people as possible, gathering business cards as you go. Then hit the phone and e-mail to follow up immediately. Almost no one follows up these days, and you'll be noticed for your thoroughness. 8. Triple the number of business cards you hand out. Give each person you meet one card to keep, and two to give to others they meet who might need your service. Merely the suggestion of this will get them thinking—and will sometimes result in real referrals. 9. Ask people you meet how their businesses are doing. Then ask, "Could what I do be helpful to your business at this time?" 10. Publish your own blog. Blogger.com, owned by Google, is totally free. By linking to your own site, you'll also boost your Google rankings. 11. Offer to speak to local civic groups. Most meet weekly, so they need 50 speakers per year. I've posted names of civic organizations on my web site, MarketingTalks.com (www.marketingtalks.com). 12. Team up with a colleague whose business complements yours and do joint promotions. As a copywriter and marketing consultant, I team up with graphic designers to mutually spread the word about our services. 13. Add a "tell a friend" button to your web site to encourage visitors to direct others to your site. 14. At every public meeting, make a commitment to say something useful. I know this works; it's how I found my lawyer! 15. Write thank-you letters to businesses you frequent. A quick print shop owner posted my letter above his self-service photocopier. His customers read my letter and called to ask me to write for their businesses. 16. Make a bold flier and post it everywhere your prospects might lurk, such as Laundromats, supermarkets, or community centers. Be sure to create tear-off tabs at the bottom so readers can take your phone number. Microsoft Publisher includes this form in its free template collection. 17. Create a dramatic handout with information about what you offer. Mine was entitled, "The 21 Most Common Direct Mail Mistakes and How to Overcome Them." Be sure your name, phone, e-mail, web site, and basic description are at the bottom of the document so readers can contact you. . Seven P’s of Marketing 1. Product—First, develop the habit of looking at your product as though you were an outside marketing consultant brought in to help your company decide whether or not it's in the right business at this time. 2. Prices—Develop the habit of continually examining and re-examining the prices of the products and services you sell to make sure they're still appropriate to the realities of the current market. 3. Promotion—The third habit in marketing and sales is to think in terms of promotion all the time. Promotion includes all the ways you tell your customers about your products or services and how you then market and sell to them. 4. Place—The fourth P in the marketing mix is the place where your product or service is actually sold. Develop the habit of reviewing and reflecting upon the exact location where the customer meets the salesperson. Sometimes a change in place can lead to a rapid increase in sales. 5. Packaging—Develop the habit of standing back and looking at every visual element in the packaging of your product or service through the eyes of a critical prospect. Remember: people form their first impression about you within the first 30 seconds of seeing you or some element of your company. Small improvements in the packaging or external appearance of your product or service can often lead to completely different reactions from your customers. 6. Positioning—You should develop the habit of thinking continually about how you are positioned in the hearts and minds of your customers. How do people think and talk about you when you're not present? How do people think and talk about your company? What positioning do you have in your market, in terms of the specific words people use when they describe you and your offerings to others? 7. People—Develop the habit of thinking in terms of the people inside and outside of your business who are responsible for every element of your sales and marketing strategy and activities. Three Rules for Niche Marketing 1. Meet their unique needs. The benefits you promise must have special appeal to the market niche. What can you provide that's new and compelling? Identify the unique needs of your potential audience, and look for ways to tailor your product or service to meet them. 2. Say the right thing. When approaching a new market niche, it's imperative to speak their language. In other words, you should understand the market's "hot buttons" and be prepared to communicate with the target group as an understanding member—not an outsider. In addition to launching a unique campaign for the new niche, you may need to alter other, more basic elements, such as your company slogan if it translates poorly to another language, for example. 3. Always test-market. Before moving ahead, assess the direct competitors you'll find in the new market niche and determine how you will position against them. For an overview, it's best to conduct a competitive analysis by reviewing competitors' ads, brochures, and Web sites and looking for their key selling points, along with pricing, delivery, and other service characteristics. Three Marketing Mistakes to Avoid 1. A pinch of this, a pinch of that. This mistake is often made by entrepreneurs with big appetites and small budgets. They want to try a little bit of everything—advertising in multiple magazines and newspapers, online ads on a variety of sites, and a list of special events. But with limited budgets, they end up with a tiny presence in each. To maximize results from your marketing program, narrow your media choices and consistently run larger ads with enough frequency to get noticed. 2. Tossing out the rule book. If you think most rules were made to be broken, you may want to think again. Sometimes thinking outside the box can produce surprisingly positive results, but generally not at the expense of tried-and-true rules for effective marketing. Thanks to the billions of dollars businesses invest in advertising every year, all aspects of it have been studied. 3. Focusing only on what's happening inside your business. Some entrepreneurs get so inner-focused that they lose sight of all else, while others are constantly listening, looking and learning from the changing marketing environment outside their own companies. Entrepreneurs who are too inner-focused often become complacent. Four Steps to Making Money in Mail Order Marketing Can you still make money in the crowded mail order field? Yes—if you follow these four steps to mail order success: 1. Know your niche. You should bring a special knowledge, insight, or talent to your mail order specialty. 2. Hit the books. Immerse yourself in other companies’ catalogs. Are they too long, too short? Do photos or illustrations work best? Make sure you also check out their order-processing methods. 3. Find a list broker—fast. Don’t wait until you’ve printed your catalogs to pick your list broker. You need to incorporate the proper tracking codes, ensure your design is appropriate to your audience, and print the right number of catalogs. 4. Know the code. Make sure you take advantage of postal discounts. Here’s a bonus tip: Be patient; mail order empires are not built overnight. Building successful mail order enterprises is one way small entrepreneurs can grow their businesses. Study the competition to help you learn what’s hot and what to avoid. Join a trade association, and pay attention to industry experts. Many predict annual trends based on extensive—and expensive—research. Don’t try to be a one-product wonder; it rarely works. Develop piggyback products to broaden your appeal. Consider selling products outside your industry that would interest your customers. For example, florists could sell floral books, stationery, or even jewelry in addition to flowers. Watch your costs. Catalog expenses are rising. Make sure postage and handling costs are covered. And don’t overlook the internet as an additional or alternative way to sell products. Tips for Proper Marketing Timing To get the most for your marketing dollar, make sure you properly time your efforts. Try to ensure that your direct-mail package arrives Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday. When relevant, tie your message to what’s going on in the world. Don’t launch your marketing too soon. Make sure you have worked all the bugs out, that your salespeople know all the facts, and that you can deliver on what you promise. If you’re in retail, wait a month before you have your grand opening celebration. This way, you will be more practiced. Don’t waste time telemarketing when nobody’s there. Find out the best time to call. Never rush through creating your marketing materials. The key words to keep in mind here? Economy and quality. Remember: when it comes to marketing, speed can kill. Five Tips for Low-Cost Marketing 1. Make yourself stand out. Nancy Michaels, owner of a marketing communications firm in Concord, MA, sends greetings and gifts at odd holidays, like Chinese New Year and the Fourth of July, instead of at Christmas and Hanukkah. 2. Create a memorable title for yourself. The business cards of one husband-and-wife team refer to them as “Dad” and “Mom” because their furniture store is named after their children. 3. Write educational articles for trade journals, newspapers, and other publications that reach your audience. They’ll get your name before the public and add to your credibility. 4. Don’t underestimate the market value of your name. By using their names over and over to promote their talents, 5. Make sure the name of your company is legible. Some logos use such fancy lettering that the company name is unreadable. Five Cheap Ways to Market Your Business 1. Talk with your clients. It's amazing how much money businesses spend to gather market information and attract new clients when they have a wealth of opportunity and information in their current client base. One of the best ways to increase revenue is to talk with current customers. When you assess perceptions, choose five to ten clients and contact them to ask if they'd participate in a phone interview. Here's how it works: 1. Send a letter asking permission to have someone contact them about your company. 2. Have the interviewer call and ask value-based questions such as: What problems were you trying to solve or what challenges were you facing when you considered the services of Company ABC? How important were Company ABC's services in solving your problems or addressing your challenges? What did you value most about this company's work? What other products or services do you wish they offered that could help you with other business challenges? 3. After conducting all the interviews, compile the information to discover trends and themes. 4. Send a thank-you letter to every client who participated. Include key lessons from the interviews and explain the specific changes you plan to make to your business based on this information. The important part here is to use what you learn. If you don't make changes to your business, then you've wasted everyone's time. Keys to success: The conversation with your customers is just that—a conversation. Don't fire questions at them; instead, have the interviewer engage in a conversation and gather as much valuable data as you can. 2. Creatively package your marketing campaigns. A postcard is one way to market your business. But how about putting a small box together with a fork, a knife, a spoon, and a custom-printed napkin that invites your prospect to "have lunch on us"? Think outside the box, and your marketing campaigns will have more impact. Keys to success: Set a clear objective for your marketing campaign, and identify how you'll measure its success. Then follow up to measure the results and adjust the program if necessary. 3. Get the word out with publicity. Think you can't do PR or publicity without employing the services of a high-priced firm? Although a good firm brings tremendous contacts and experience, most small companies can do enough PR on their own to spark the public's interest. Keys to success: In one word, leverage. Though it does happen, don't expect one story placement to generate thousands in revenue. Your success depends on leveraging each press release, each article, and each published mention. Remember: PR is more cost-effective and more credible than advertising. 4. Leverage existing relationships. Most people know at least 200 people. Do the math: if you know 200 people and they each know 200 people, that's 40,000 potential contacts! Spend time developing relationships with the people you already know—clients, colleagues, people you meet through professional networking organizations, friends, and even family. Keys to success: Educate, don't sell. The key here is to build relationships. Start from the perspective of giving more than you ask, and your network will become your most valuable marketing tool. 5. Commit to e-mail marketing. Marketing through e-mail is flexible, cost-effective, easy to measure (assuming you put the right tracking in place), and high impact. Remember: this is a marketing campaign. So be sure to think it through, develop an appropriate message, create a piece that reflects your brand, know your objectives, and make sure the information is valuable for your market, or people will quickly unsubscribe. Keys to success: Don't be seen as a "spammer"! Send e-mail only to those people who have given permission. When someone asks to be removed, respond immediately. Top Nine Ways to Give Yourself the Technology Edge Are you taking advantage of today’s technology to help market your business? Here are nine smart ways to give yourself the technology edge. 1. Fax or e-mail coupons or discount offers to prime customers. 2. Host an online forum or chat session with potential and existing clients. 3. Create a customer fax-request ordering system. 4. Use online advertising to reach people and markets previously beyond your geographical boundaries and your budget. 5. Create customer databases loaded with client information, including special dates, orders, and preferences. 6. Check your competitor’s web sites regularly. 7. Be creative. Use graphic software to create fliers, brochures, and newsletters. 8. Stay in touch—no matter where you are—with e-mail, pagers, cell phones, and voice mail. 9. Post your message on as many free message boards as appropriate. Eight More Marketing Mistakes to Avoid 1. Putting all your eggs in one basket. If your entire marketing budget is used on just one method of promoting your business, you won't realize the highest return on your investment. Diversifying your efforts will increase the frequency and reach of your messages and stretch your marketing dollars. 2. Not measuring results. Measuring the results of your marketing efforts allows you to reinvest in vehicles that are working—and ditch those that aren't. Try tactics like surveys, coded coupons, in-store response cards, or focus groups to find out how well your messages are being received. 3. Firing before you take aim. If you find yourself throwing money at every promotional opportunity, take a step back and realize the benefits of planning. Set objectives, define the audience you wish to reach, and set your budget over the next six to 12 months. 4. Eliminating marketing efforts when things get tight. When cash flow slows, advertising, direct mail, and other forms of marketing are the easiest expenses to reduce, right? But cut these, and you eliminate the very activities that will bring in new customers to turn your business around. 5. Not getting help when you need it. If you find you're too busy to handle your marketing efforts or that your materials aren't looking as professional as they should, it's time to call in the reinforcements. Hire a full- or part-time employee, a marketing or public relations agency, or an independent business consultant, but make sure you're getting the message out in a manner that reflects your business. 6. Fixing programs that aren't broken. If your advertising campaign or direct-mail program is producing results, don't change it just for the sake of changing it. Once you see returns slow down, look for new approaches, but always test them before implementing changes on a full scale. 7. Allowing ego to get in the way of common sense. Ego tempts very bright people to do very dumb things. Your marketing decisions should be based on factors that will positively impact some area of your business—usually its bottom line. Hiring an expensive multinational agency for a small account, sacrificing valuable frequency for full-page advertising, and buying blanket mailing lists without matching criteria to your customer profile are all examples of an ego that's sabotaging effectiveness. 8. Relying on hunches. It came to you in the shower: the Big Idea for promoting your business. So you put all your marketing dollars into, for instance, painting your delivery trucks with neon colors. Before you blow your money on hunches, however, you need to do your homework. Talk to your customers and others who may have done something similar. Then test your theory by trying a small-scale version of the Big Idea. Tips for Using Coupons as a Marketing Tool All of us have clipped coupons at one time or another. But did you know that these simple pieces of paper could be one of the most powerful marketing tools? Coupons are merely incentives to do business with you. But with them, you can achieve several goals. Are you introducing a new product or service? Do you need to increase your repeat business? Coupons help you fend off competitors, reinforce a current ad campaign, or even soften the blow of a price increase. Direct mail is not your only choice for distribution. Consider running coupons in local newspapers or even on the internet. Coupons are more than words on a piece of paper. Be sure your coupons are clear, stating precisely what the offer is, how long it lasts, and how many customers can redeem them. Most importantly, most entrepreneurs report that coupons increase their business significantly. Tips on Giving Free Gifts Do you bribe your customers? You might quickly answer, “Of course not.” But free gifts can be great marketing tools. Free gifts like T-shirts, caps, coffee mugs, scratch pads, and mouse pads can be really effective. Giving those away can generate leads, boost store traffic, and increase awareness of your business. When considering free gifts, first figure out who you want to reach and how much money you have to spend. Then focus on the gift and the message you want to print on it. Are freebies worth it? Experts say 40 percent of recipients remember the name of the company that sent the gifts and about one-third still use the gifts six months later. Best yet, free gifts can increase your average order by 300 percent. Advice for Using Civic Marketing “Civic marketing”—the kind practices by people like Ben & Jerry—is one of the newest business buzzwords. But even the smallest businesses can use community outreach as a low-cost, high-impact marketing tool. Here’s some information about it: The benefits of civic marketing are plentiful: it raises community awareness of your business, builds customer and employee loyalty, helps you stand out from your competitors, and positions you as a community leader. Select your causes carefully. Look for ones truly meaningful to your community, your industry, or your target market. Depending on your situation, you can donate money, time, or resources. Some business owners encourage their employees to volunteer at the charity or cause of their choice. Others may establish scholarships for high school or college students. Whatever your involvement, don’t forget to use public relations campaigns, promotional signs, or in-store displays to let the community know what you’re up to. Five Tips for Sprucing up a Tired Image 1. Identify who your customers and other stakeholders are and what they want from you. Through interviews or questionnaires, have them help you evaluate your image. 2. Pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of your current image. What misconceptions or negative perceptions need to be corrected? 3. Devise a strategy. It could include changing your company’s name and logo, changing your product mix, or even dropping some customers and courting others. 4. Get expert help. Image makeovers usually call for professionals who can help you devise and implement a new concept. 5. Follow up to make sure the makeover is doing its job. Are sales up? Are you attracting the customers you want? Online Trade Show Resource Centers TSNN.com www.tsnn.com This is a great resource if you are looking for suppliers or venues, whether you want to exhibit or to attend. Easy to navigate and find trade shows nearest you. tradeshowspecialist.com ga.tradeshowspecialist.com This web site contains helpful information on everything: trade show display booths, online trade, trade show displays, and trade show gifts. Tradeshow Week tradeshowweek.com This site features a tradeshow directory that is consistently updated, an exhibit hall directory, and a newsletter to keep you informed on trade show news. GearMX, Inc. www.gearmx.com This company works with organizations to build high-traffic exhibits and coordinate trade shows. These consultants advise your staff on any improvements needed and follow up with detailed show reports to help you plan your next event. They work on a per-project basis to develop a trade show management package that fits your organization’s budget and time constraints. List of Places to Find Trade Show Displays Displays2Go: Trade Show Displays www.displays2go.com Manufacturer of trade show displays. Stock selection includes portable presentation boards, pop-up display walls, and folding display stands. Quality One Engineering, Inc.: Trade Show Displays www.showbooth.com Designs and manufactures trade show booths, displays, and fixtures since 1990. Servicing all of southern California. Industrial Export Express: Display Crating and Shipping www.crating.net Offers corporate and industrial crating nationwide, including heavyweight packaging and certified export crating designed to ensure safe arrival. TradeShowJoe.com: Displays www.tradeshowjoe.com Sells, rents, and services a variety of new and used portable and custom trade show displays and trade show display accessories. Displayit: Event and Trade Show Displays www.exhibitstogo.com Provides trade show exhibits and trade show displays, including pop-up, portable, counters, kiosks, screens, flooring, lighting, and truss systems. Tradeshow Supermarket: Trade Show Displays www.tradeshowsupermarket.com Supplies displays for trade shows, including pop-up displays, panel displays, modular displays, tabletop displays, podiums, counters, and banners. Above & Beyond Balloons: Inflatable Trade Show Displays www.balloons.biz Manufactures inflatable balloons, blimps, kiosks, and tents to increase sales and visibility at outdoor and indoor trade shows. Ships worldwide. Tips for Attending Trade Shows One of the best methods for new entrepreneurs to market their wares is to exhibit at trade shows. But the costs of attending can add up considerably, so before you go, ask yourself these questions: Have I set specific goals for participating in this show? Make sure you know what you hope to accomplish at the show, including how many leads you need to get, how many sales you must generate, and how many connections you need to make. Is this the right show to meet my needs? You’ll want to make sure the show audience fits the profile of your best customer. For example, if you only distribute regionally, is a national show a waste of time and money? Am I ready for this show? You should always market to attendees before you get there. Mail a flier, postcard, or coupon to current customers and past show attendees. Your goal is to make it worth their while to stop by your booth. Helpful Trade Show Prep Tips The key word here is prepared. The last thing you want to do is just throw together a booth with a tablecloth on it, set out your products, prop up your feet, and expect buyers to rush over and gush. Plus, there are a lot of details to consider—paperwork to fill out, travel arrangements to be made, and so on. It's imperative, then, that you are organized and prepared for anything that comes your way. Keep track of everything, down to the person you talked to at the convention center who told you what you need to do to become an exhibitor. Make sure you are in close contact with the event sponsor, taking care to read through the exhibitors’ manual carefully and follow whatever guidelines the sponsor has set forth. Trade shows themselves are easy to find; nearly every major city hosts at least one show relevant to a particular retailer. Contact your local chamber of commerce or convention and visitors’ bureau to find out about upcoming events in your area. You can also find them via online searches; use the trade show finder tool at Tradeshow Week magazine online (www.tradeshowweek.com). As for your display, unless you're skilled in graphic design or visual merchandising, we would recommend getting help from an exhibit designer. They will know what kind of signage you need and how to display your product. But don't let your display speak for itself—you need to talk to people about your product, demonstrate if necessary, answer any questions, collect business cards, and network. Get help with the exhibit so you will have adequate staff on hand so that somebody acknowledges every person who visits your booth. And when the show is over, it's not really over—you've got all those leads to follow up on in a timely fashion. The Dos and Don’ts to Ensure an Effective Trade Show Display 1. Get there early. Even though you have most likely been given the dimensions of your space, it’s a great idea to survey the hall before you set up your tradeshow displays. Many have been caught off guard when they arrived and were forced to scramble at the last minute. 2. Survey your neighbors. Look around your area at the types of trade show displays others are setting up. Will yours be lost in the crowd? If so, make adjustments to bring more attention to your booth. Have someone standing in front of your area to greet visitors—instead of behind a counter. Offer free samples or a drawing. Visit a nearby store and buy lots of colorful, helium balloons to use in your booth. 3. Have a backup plan. Nothing strikes fear in the heart of an exhibitor like hearing, "I’m sorry—the shipper must have lost your boxes." Now what?! Trade show displays from Showbooth.com are lightweight, easy to transport, and affordable. Carry an extra display in your car or check it as baggage when you fly to your new destination. This way you can be sure your event will go off without a hitch. 4. Have professionally designed displays. "Homemade-looking" trade show displays do little to impress show visitors. They also present a cheap image of you and your company. Go all out with professionally designed tradeshow displays in order to gain attention and draw traffic to your booth. Showbooth.com offers graphic-design services for tradeshow displays. 5. Use a variety of sizes. Let your imagination go wild! To create an eye-catching booth, choose several sizes of tradeshow displays. Use one for a backdrop, add pop-up displays on tabletops, and create an entranceway or border for your booth with banner stands. The more creativity you use, the more traffic you’ll stop. Nine Tips for Getting the Most out of Exhibiting at Trade Shows 1. Set goals for the show. "Develop clear goals for participation at each exhibition and write them down," says Casey Seidenberg, director of promotions and events for Guru.com. "It's important to remember what your ultimate goals are for the show so that appropriate decisions can be made. It's too easy to get busy and lose site of the big picture." 2. Read the exhibitor manual, cover to cover. In it, you'll find a wealth of information: forms to set up booth services (furniture, electricity, carpet, and so on), show hours, sponsorship opportunities, and hotel and airfare discounts. Contact the event sponsor or exposition company if you have questions. 3. Watch those deadlines! "Miss a deadline, and costs go up significantly," says Sheryl Sookman, a principal at The MeetingConnection. Setting up show services on-site is expensive, and you'll spend lots of valuable time standing in line. Complete and submit your paperwork early for substantial discounts. 4. Pack important paperwork in your luggage, not with the booth. This includes contracts, service orders, and shipment tracking numbers. Take a backup copy of electronic presentations and make sure you have the contact numbers for any vendors you used in connection with the show. 5. Take your tools. Create a show toolbox labeled "open first," and ship it with your booth. Include such items as office supplies, tools you need to set up the exhibit, a small first aid kit, preprinted shipping labels, snacks, and water. Don't forget plenty of business cards. 6. Individually label each box. Include your company name, contact information, and booth number. Without proper identification, it's highly unlikely the loading dock will be able to identify your shipment and deliver it to your booth. If it can't be identified, it can't be delivered. 7. Staff the booth; work the show. Working a trade show booth is exhausting. Set up shifts of three or four hours each and give everyone time to take breaks (preferably away from the booth). You should also schedule time for your staff to walk the floor and check out the competition, make contacts, and see what's new in your industry. 8. Don't let your leads get cold! Immediately contact leads and thank them for dropping by your booth. Your prompt handling of requests for additional information will show potential clients you value their time and provide quality customer service. 9. Evaluate your success. Did you reach your goals? Was this the right audience? Note your successes and brainstorm for ideas while the show is still fresh in your mind. Direct-Mail Marketing Seven Steps to a Direct-Mail Campaign Once you've outlined your target market, a direct-mail campaign has seven key steps. 1. Develop a mailing list. Put your description of the targets on this list in writing, so you know exactly to whom you're mailing. If you're mailing to a larger-sized list (more than 20,000), you'll probably want to provide your letter shop with Cheshire labels: unglued labels that are affixed to your mailing piece with special glue. These labels require machine application at the mailing house. For smaller quantities, you might just provide self-sticking labels. Your list supplier will provide you the labels in whatever format you want. 2. Create a mailing piece. You don't just mail out a brochure to your list. That gets too expensive, and your brochures weren't designed for it. You need to create a direct-mail piece with a strong offer that will spur the recipient to action. All direct mail leads to the "call to action": what do you want the recipient to do next? Mail back the business reply card? Call the 800 number? Fill out the order form and fax it to your number? Your goal is to get action. You don't want a direct-mail piece to inform. That's what your brochures are for. You want action! 3. Code your response vehicle. Whatever way you ask recipients to respond, make sure you code your mailing. All you have to do is assign each mailing a batch number, such as 03062103: 0306 is the month/year of the mailing, 21 is the identifier for the particular mailing you used, and 03 is the identifier for the particular offer. Coding provides a simple device for revealing just who has responded to which mailing and which offer. It makes individual responses much more valuable, since you can easily tabulate the codes to see what's working the best for you. 4. Test the campaign. Even a modest campaign of a few thousand pieces can run up the budget with mailing and duplication costs. So you should always test-mail a portion of your mailing list and check the results. No one can predict the response rate you'll get; there are just too many variables. What percentage of your mailing makes for a reliable test? Again it varies, but most authorities would tell you to test ten percent of your list and no fewer than 250 pieces. This will give you enough of a spread across the variables to make the results worth something. Before you do your test, you should decide what response rate will support your going ahead with the planned major mailing. This will depend on your budget. Writers on direct mail duck the issue of response rates because there are so many variables—and because no one really knows how to predict response. Experience suggests that if your rate is less than two percent, something is wrong. Either your list is wrong or your offer is too weak. If you get a response rate above seven percent for a mass mailing (without giving away the farm), you've done very, very well. 5. Run the campaign. Keep your mailing pace in line with your ability to handle the potential responses. Your test mailing will give you some sense of the rate of customer response. Use that as a gauge for how many pieces you should mail in a given week. Mail only those pieces you can support with your sales effort. 6. Handle customer responses. You can't handle the fulfillment end of a direct-mail campaign without considerable planning. If you're asking respondents to request additional information, what are you going to send them? How soon do you want to mail the information out? What else will you do with the responses? In other words, how will you make maximum use of the names you've spent so much time to acquire? If you're a company with distributors or sales offices, it's common to pass along the names of prospects so that follow-up can be handled on the local level. The quicker the response the better, since your speed in dispatching information can quite justifiably be viewed as reflective of your commitment to customer service. Why should respondents have to wait for materials? 7. Analyze the results of the campaign. This is perhaps the most important, and underrated, aspect of the campaign. Did the final results match what you expected from the test? What parts of the demographics responded better than expected? Are there subsets of your target audience that you can focus on in future mailings? Every direct-mail campaign you run should contribute not just to your sales figures but also to enhancing your customer database. In very real terms, it represents the future of your business. Secrets to Making Your Direct-Mail Marketing More Effective Knowing these secrets to success can help you avoid some direct-mail pitfalls. 1. Converse first. If your mailing is going to require a team effort—printer, list broker, mailing house, graphic designer, and writer—be sure to consult in detail with each person at the project's onset. Discuss your goals and invite feedback. Ask the mailing house whether the list should arrive on disk or on labels. And make sure your graphic designer knows the size and weight restrictions for the postage classification you need to meet before he or she starts designing. 2. Buy from a broker. Because selecting the right list is the single most important element in your direct-mail effort, consult a reputable list broker. To find a broker, one good resource is the Standard Rate and Data Service (SRDS) direct-mail book, which can be found in many libraries. You can also ask your local chamber of commerce or post office for recommendations. A knowledgeable broker will be able to help you find a list that will meet your criteria with minimal waste. Be sure to ask what the "deliverability guarantee" is—in most cases, it's 93 percent. Find out whether you'll be compensated if your return rate from incorrect addresses is higher than that. 3. Use the list ethically. Most lists are rented for one-time use (although you can usually pay for multiple uses) and have minimum purchase requirements. Don't even think about poaching the list to use more than once—most are salted with dummy names that allow list companies to track who's mailing without authorization. 4. Be careful with creativity. It's important to be creative when you're competing for a prospect's attention. But if your piece is an eighth of an inch too big or a fraction of an ounce too heavy for the standard Postal Service weight and size classifications, you could end up wasting big bucks in extra postage. Be creative—but run unusual sizes or shapes by your local post office first. 5. Be benefits-oriented. Too many direct-mail pieces get bogged down in details that don't sell the prospect. Be clear, show your prospects what's in it for them, and make sure your response mechanism is easy to understand. 6. Testing 1-2-3. Test different lists, mailing pieces and offers, and don't be afraid to try new approaches. Jack Rein, owner of Rein Associates, a direct-mail marketing consulting firm in Little Silver, New Jersey, cites a Columbia House example: by changing its offer from 10 records for $1.99 plus free shipping and handling to 10 records for a penny, plus $1.98 shipping and handling, the direct-music seller increased its response rate by 23 percent. 7. Check your timing. Rein suggests sending local, first-class mailings on Monday. Most pieces will reach prospects on Tuesday, the lightest mail day of the week. Different industries have different times of the year that work best for them; check with your trade association or list broker for recommended times. Ten Direct-Mail Marketing Secrets 1. Develop a visual sense for what works and what doesn't. You have an abundance of learning materials right inside your mailbox. The next time you go through your mail, take a minute to examine what's there, what catches your attention, what attracts you, and what repels you. Do you have examples of previous campaigns you've sent out? Or pieces from your competitors that you can learn from? "Junk mail" has a unique style—learn to recognize it and think about how you can create the opposite. 2. Don't insult your prospects' intelligence by using cheesy tag lines or see-and-say visuals. Believe it or not, "FREE MONEY" doesn't attract much attention in the inundated world of today's consumers. So avoid using bold with italics, ALL CAPS, and multiple exclamation points (!!!!), as these are the clichéd visual cues of junk mail. 3. Don't assume your audience knows everything. An educated consumer is one who's more willing to make a purchase. Your headline should draw attention to your body copy, which is your most powerful selling tool. Ignore what people say about how no one reads anymore—if compelled by a good headline and provoking imagery, a potential customer will want more information immediately. Directing them to a web site or phone number is asking a lot of your audience, so instead include essential information right on the mail piece. When writing copy, start from the beginning, be direct, and include as much information as you can in five sentences or less. 4. Use what you know. If you know your customers inside and out, by all means, use that information in your mail piece. Meeting your potential customers where they are is a great way to attain trust quickly 5. "You Won't Believe This Amazing Offer!" At least that part's true, when it comes to your prospects—people are much more skeptical these days. So do something completely unusual with your direct-mail piece: tell the truth. Exposing your weaknesses make your strengths seem even greater and (yes, believe it) creates a sense of honesty and trust. 6. Ask and you shall receive. Know exactly what action you want your mail piece to elicit, and then ask for it. Then ask again. This is known in the world of direct mail as the call to action, and it's the consumers' cue for getting what they want. If there's no call to action, your direct-mail piece is just creating brand recognition. Is there a number to call? Don't just list the number—ask them to make the call. Is there a web site to visit? A response mail required? Ask, suggest, and entice your audience to respond to your piece. 7. Consider the medium. What will your message be delivered on? Postcards are an effective medium for most products, because they cut down a barrier (the envelope) between the consumer and the message. However, some direct mail is more appropriate when crafted as a letter, especially those that involve high-dollar sales and financial services. 8. Use color wisely. Color will always catch more attention than black and white, but when it comes to color, more is not necessarily better. Additional colors may cost more money to produce—and too many colors can make a piece confusing and cluttered, so it's important to find what's best for your project. Begin by choosing one or two main colors and one or two supporting colors based on the feelings they elicit. Warm colors are exciting and energizing; cool colors are relaxing and refreshing. Bright colors speak loudly; dull colors suggest quietly. Think about your product, corporate image and your audience when choosing color. Metallic colors are a great option for one- or two-color jobs. 9. Personalize your pieces. You've seen them: "[your name here], you've got to check out this deal!" Personalization can enhance a consumer's inclination to read your direct-mail piece by creating a sense of familiarity. It also emphasizes their importance to your business. When it comes to personalizing a direct-mail piece, there are a lot of options, ranging from addressing it to a specific consumer or including his or her name in the letter portion to printing his or her name in the art area on the postcard or letter. Some of these options can get pricey, so if you think it's appropriate for your mailer, talk with your printer about your personalization options so you'll know what options fit your budget. 10. Determine the best way to mail it. When it comes to mailing your direct-mail pieces, you have options regarding the postage you purchase. Think about your customers and the value of your product, as well as time sensitivity. Will presort (formerly bulk rate) arrive in time? Do your potential customers care about first-class postage or not? Are you eligible to receive special, not-for-profit postage rates? And don't forget to consider the type of postage for your direct-mail piece. You can use first-class or presort stamps or you can print the first-class or presort postage directly on the piece. (This is known as the indicia.) In pieces that are highly personalized and look official, a stamp can increase response rates because consumers infer a human touch. On postcards, indicia work just as well as stamps and don't cost anything to apply to the mail piece. Great Tips for Direct-Mail Marketing Success Let’s get direct—with direct marketing. Sometimes the best way to increase your sales is to go straight to the source. Here are some suggestions on how to make direct marketing work for you: Why not send old customers who you haven’t heard from in the past six months a discount coupon? Bargains are usually great motivators. If you want to poll your customers, it’s traditional to give a monetary incentive. Sending the unexpected usually increases response—try a two-dollar bill for a change. Acknowledge your customers’ birthdays or other special occasions with a special offer. It may sound sentimental, but customers love the attention, and that translates into increased sales. Direct-marketing guru Jerry Fisher recommends you send a “lumpy” mailer. Few, says Fisher, can resist opening an envelope with a lump or small box in it. Why bother with direct marketing? Because it is especially designed to get people to stop ogling and start ordering. Direct-Mail Tips to Increase Response Rate Direct-mail marketing is popular with entrepreneurs nationwide, who rely on it to sell products and generate leads. But with an average two-percent response rate, the difference between a good package and a great one can mean the difference between spending a fortune and earning one. 1. Use five components: an envelope, a letter, an order form, optional inserts, and a return envelope. For a small test, mail 2,500 to 5,000 pieces. Mail to the same list at least three times. 2. "The envelope is your ‘handshake,’" says Don Dailey, president of Dailey Direct Inc., a Gaithersburg, Maryland, graphic design firm specializing in direct marketing. "A teaser on the envelope is vital." 3. Your letter should explain the benefits of your product or service, followed by the features. 4. Be sure your letter includes a "Johnson box"—the sentence or headline before the salutation that highlights your marketing hook—and a P.S. "The second thing people read in a letter is the P.S.," says Dick Goldsmith, president of the New York City direct-mail production agency The Horah Group. It should contain some aspect of the offer that makes the recipient want to read on. 5. Make your order form clear, brief, and easy to fill out. Include a fax number. 6. Include a toll-free number on every page, because you never know which component your prospect will keep. 7. "Avoid a monochromatic package," warns Dailey. Keep your carrier envelope and letter stock consistent, but for the rest, use different textures, sizes, or colors. 8. At the same time, says Dailey, "Don't overdesign. Some of the best packages are simple-looking." 9. "Lack of a single focus is one of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make," says Dailey. If you have a good offer, it should lead the package. If you have a one-of-a-kind product, make that the lead. 10. The more pieces you include, the better, as long as each explains an additional benefit. Include brochures to explain complex services. Use coupons for offers. 11. Testing is vital and should be ongoing. If you're serious about using direct mail to build your business, use it continually. Recommendations on Mailing List Databases Access to over 14 million businesses and 200 million residents to add to your mailing lists. Phone: (800) 321-0869 E-mail: help@infousa.com Web: www.infousa.com American List Counsel Lists Access to millions of national businesses and residential contacts. 4300 U.S. Highway 1, CN-5219 Princeton, NJ 08543 Phone: (866) 767-1154 Web: www.alclists.com The List Company Delivers your target consumers to you by demographic characteristics and others. 11906 Arbor Street Omaha, NE 68144 Phone: (877) 247-4770 Fax: (402) 778-0124 E-mail: info@tlclists.com Web: www.tlclists.com AmeriList Mailing List Company Accurate responsive business and consumer mailing list and sales leads. 978 Route 45, Suite L 2 Pomona, NY 10970 Phone: (845) 362-6737, (800) 457-2899 Fax: (845) 362-6433, Web: www.amerilist.com B2B Marketing Database Unlimited access to U.S. businesses, sales leads, mailing lists, and more. P.O. Box 541034, Omaha, NE 68154 Phone: (402) 334-1824 Fax: (402) 991-7701 Web: www.goleads.com Source: compiled by Contributing Writer Candice Watkins Top Mailing List Hosts and Solution Centers Bravenet www.bravenet.com Build mailing lists or send newsletters. Keep your visitors up-to-date with your site changes or product news. Send HTML or plain text messages and manage your list subscribers in a Mailing List control panel. Topica www.topica.com The Online Marketing and Sales Solution integrates e-mail marketing and automation tools with performance-based advertising services, data integration, and online conversion capabilities. G-Lock Software www.glocksoft.com Create different kinds of mailing lists, newsletters, subscribe lists. Prevent spam. Keep the database clean. Mailloop www.mailloop.com Mailloop is an all-in-one e-mail marketing and management solution. This software provides everything for setting up, managing, and sending e-mail promotions, newsletters, and auto responders to the e-mail list you have or plan to build. Spark List www.sparklist.com This company provides e-mail list hosting. L-Soft www.lsoft.com L-Soft created LISTSERV, which set the industry standard for e-mail list management software. It allows you to easily manage opt-in e-mail lists, such as e-mail newsletters, announcement lists, and discussion groups. Lyris www.lyris.com Services include List Manager, List Hosting, and an E-mail Advisor iMakeNews www.imninc.com An application service provider that delivers e-communications solutions for boosting business performance by using e-newsletters, HTML e-mail, micro-sites, and blogs, with tracking and analytics. Cooler Email www.cooleremail.com A state-of-the-art, user-friendly, do-it-yourself e-mail newsletter tool Mail Chimp mailchimp.com The easy way to send e-mail marketing. It tracks opens and clicks. Managing Mailing Lists, by Alan Schwartz (Reilly & Associates, 1998) This comprehensive guide is for anyone who wants to run or manage a mailing list, including the system administrator who needs to ensure that user-owned mailing lists run as trouble-free as possible. Email Addresses www.emailaddresses.com The best e-mail resource on the Web, with reviews of hundreds of free e-mail services and for-fee e-mail services, advice on using e-mail, a guide to setting up your own e-mail service, and more. The Email Universe Network emailuniverse.com/list-lingo “The Newbie's Guide to Email List Terminology.” List Server Mailing Lists “Creating and Using List Server Mailing Lists” www.public.iastate.edu/~majordomo/psg211.html Develop an Online Presence Ways to Make Your Web Site Globally Friendly A web site is important to building an international business, but remember that not all nations use the same equipment or web standards. Here are some smart ways to make your web site globally friendly: 1. Keep images to a minimum. Not only can they slow the downloading process, but in many cases, images developed for the American marketplace may not be relevant or global users may misunderstand them. 2. Make sure your site is easy to navigate. Don’t try to dazzle the user with cleverness. Provide clear instructions and text guidelines. 3. Use international formats for dates, times, and currencies. For instance, instead of 3:30 p.m., say 15:30. 4. Develop an e-mail response form that includes automated options, such as radio buttons. This minimizes the amount of translation needed. 5. Make it easy for customer to request information via e-mail. Source: Rieva Lesonsky, 365 Tips to Boost Your Entrepreneurial IQ Four Fatal Web Site Design Mistakes Fatal Mistake #1: Trying to "dazzle" customers instead of trying to sell to them. A lot of new business owners want their sites to be as eye-catching as possible. They think that by including a lot of flashy graphics and nifty animation effects, they'll capture their visitors' attention. Graphics should be used only to support the main purpose of your site: to get people to buy what you have to sell. Anything that distracts visitors from your copy is guaranteed to lose you sales. So if a graphic doesn't directly relate to your product or service, then it shouldn't be on your site. You also don't want to chase your visitors away with long, unnecessary Flash presentations and splash pages. The best way to drive sales is to design a simple, clean site using only two or three colors and one or two fonts throughout the entire site. Avoid using colored or patterned backgrounds—you might think they look cool, but they make it really difficult to read your sales copy. Fatal Mistake #2: Making your site too large. One of the worst mistakes people can make is building massive, multipaged sites that take forever to load. Wherever possible, try to reduce the number of files on your web pages. The more files a page has, the longer it'll take to load—especially if they're large graphics files. Use colored text instead of graphics to grab attention. If you must use a graphic, make sure it's a small file. You need only 72 dpi (dots per inch) for screen resolution. And most graphics only need to be 256 colors or less. Fatal Mistake #3: Designing confusing navigation. Some Web designers like to show off their skills by creating new and different ways to navigate through a multipage site. Sometimes they hide links beneath icons or images, so that users can't find the links unless they mouse over the graphics. This may be very clever, but it certainly doesn't help people find what they're looking for. Fatal Mistake #4: Burying essential information too deep within the site. Web surfers are impatient! They don't want to spend a lot of time trying to find what they're seeking on your site. Top Ten Things Customers Look for on Your Web Site 1. Contact information, such as phone numbers, e-mail addresses, and physical location 2. Product information, which means in-depth information on the products or services you provide, including prices 3. Samples of your products or previous work 4. Support, including product information, troubleshooting help, FAQs, etc. 5. The ability to shop, so they can purchase products online or at least find a physical location where your products are being sold 6. Company information, such as background information on the business and the management team 7. News and announcements, including press releases and updated product or service enhancements 8. Employment opportunities 9. An easy way to get back to your home page, the place where all paths begin in the customer's mind 10. Simple navigation that makes all these other items easy to find 12 Ways to Increase Online Sales Test everything; assume nothing! You never know what strategy or angle is going to work best for you until you test it. Testing is the only way to discover what works and what doesn't on your web site. Keep that in mind as you try the following dozen possibilities. 1. Offer just one product or service on your home page. It's all about focus. Instead of trying to please everyone who visits your site by offering a large range of products with minimal detail about each one, if you offer just one product—or one set of related products—you can really focus on one key set of benefits and answer all the possible questions and doubts your visitors might have about your product. And you don't have to stop selling your other products; you can always offer them to your customers from other web pages or by using follow-up offers. 2. Reposition your opt-in offer to boost your opt-ins and build a bigger list of loyal subscribers. Your opt-in offer is your tool for gathering your customers' e-mail addresses and building your e-mail list, which allows you to regularly keep in touch with your subscribers, build relationships of trust and loyalty, and sell them your products or services. If you don't use a long sales letter, test placing your opt-in offer in as prominent a position as possible on your home page—the top left of a page is where visitors' eyes are often drawn first. The more sign-up opportunities you provide, the more subscribers you're likely to get. Test it and see. 3. Add impact to your promotions with hover ads. I'm sure everyone's familiar with pop-ups, the small windows containing a special offer or other information that sometimes pop up when you visit a web site. But that was before we discovered a very impressive technology that actually lets you use ads that behave like pop-ups but that aren't pop-ups—so they don't get blocked. They're called hover ads, and they're well worth testing on your site. 4. Feature different benefits in your headline. Your headline has a huge impact on your sales. It's often the first thing visitors to your site see, so it must grab their attention and compel them to read your sales letter. A successful headline should highlight a problem your target audience faces and stress the main benefit of your product or service in solving this problem. 5. Establish a problem in your copy and show how you can solve it. In the first few paragraphs that appear on your home page, you need to go into more detail about the problem you introduced in your headline—showing your audience that you relate to them. (Only when your visitors feel you understand their problem will they feel confident that you can solve it.) Once the problem is established, you can then begin introducing your product or service as the solution to this problem. By emphasizing exactly how your product or service will solve your visitors’ problem, you're guaranteed to see a boost in sales. 6. Add credibility to your copy, so your visitors trust you more. It's vital for your sales copy to establish your credibility. There are several ways you can do this effectively. One of the best ways to establish your credibility is to include customer testimonials in your sales letter. These should be excerpts from genuine e-mails or letters from customers expressing how your product or service helped solve the particular problem they faced. This last point is important: A customer testimonial that states how your product benefited them is much more effective than one that just says something like "Your product is great!" 7. Focus on your site visitors, not yourself. The most successful sales copy focuses on the reader. Too often, business owners neglect this simple golden rule. Look carefully at your sales copy. Is it filled with references to "I," "me," and "we"? Instead of using sentences like "I designed my time-management software with the busy homeowner in mind," try "Your new time-management software will free up hours of time for you to spend with your family." So try searching for "I," "me," and "our" in your sales copy and replace them with "you" and "your." 8. Instill urgency in your copy—and convince readers they need to buy now! It's very important that your sales copy instill a sense of urgency in your visitors, compelling them to buy now. The best place to do this is toward the end of your sales letter, near the call to action (when you ask for the sale). Here are a few of the most effective ways to create a sense of urgency. Try testing each one against your current copy: Offer a limited-time price discount where visitors must buy before a certain date in order to qualify for the discount. Offer additional bonuses for free if visitors buy within a certain time frame. Offer only a limited quantity of your products or services. Offer a limited quantity bonus. 9. Remove any references to "buying" from the top fold. (That’s the part of the screen that's visible without scrolling.) People usually go online looking for free information. If you start your sales pitch too early in your copy, you may end up losing them before you've had the chance to hook them. Try removing references to "buying," "cost," and "sale" from the top fold and compare the results with results from the copy you're using now. Remember: don't mention anything to do with making a purchase or spending money until after your reader is interested in your product and trusts you enough to buy from you. 10. Boost your product's desirability by adding images. Images of your products make them seem more tangible and "real" to your visitors and are a powerful sales tool. Test placing images near the top of the page vs. placing them near the call to action at the bottom (where you're asking for the sale). 11. Grab the attention of "scanners" by changing the formatting and appearance of your copy. Very few visitors to your site will read every word of your sales copy from start to finish. Most will "scan" your copy as they scroll down the page, reading only certain words and phrases that jump out at them or catch their eye. That's why you need to test highlighting your key benefits to find the right combination that will grab the attention of people who scan rather than read online. These include the following: Use bold, italics, and highlighting (sparingly) to emphasize the most important benefits of your offer. Vary the length of your paragraphs so the page doesn't just look like a block of uniformly formatted text. Add sub-headlines that emphasize your key messages and compel your visitors to read the paragraphs that follow. Leave the right-hand side of your text ragged: that's easier to read than justified text that uses the whole width of the page. Center important—but short—chunks of text or sub-headlines to further draw them out of the main body of text. Use bullet lists (like this one) to emphasize key points. 12. Fine-tune your follow-up process to maximize sales and attract more repeat business. Following up with your customers and subscribers using auto responders (automated e-mails) is crucial to generating more sales as it often takes several contacts before someone buys from your site. In your follow-up e-mails to new subscribers who haven't bought from you yet, you can restate your offer and ask for the sale again. Try sending an immediate follow-up after new subscribers sign up, giving them a reason to return to your site the same day they subscribe. Ten Tips for Creating Online Ads That Perform Do you want a better response from your online ads? Of course! Here are ten tips that will help you improve your ads—and your response rate. 1. Define the goals of your advertising campaign. That may be to produce 100 transactions. It may be to generate 1,000 visitor sessions. It may be to produce 500 leads. Whatever it is, clearly define your objective. 2. Identify the most effective sites for achieving your goals. Sites that are most relevant to your product or service will more than likely be your best bet, but also consider larger sites or networks that can target the audience you're trying to reach. They can be very cost-effective. If you have multiple products or services that appeal to various target markets, you'll have to consider sites that reach all those various segments. 3. Craft your message to fit the needs of the audience you're targeting. That comes down to understanding the audience of the sites you're advertising on. The message you use on a technology site to appeal to technologically savvy customers won't have the same appeal for visitors on a small-business site. 4. Formulate the specific promotional messages that correspond to your goals. Those promotional messages should concentrate on the major selling points of your product or service and have a strong call to action. For instance, "Get a FREE Trial Issue of Entrepreneur magazine. Sign up Today and Download Our FREE Report, '23 Tips for Closing a Sale.' Click here for your FREE Trial Issue!" 5. Make the desired action clearly visible. That doesn't mean the desired action should necessarily blink, bounce, or do flips, but it should be visible within an accepted format for the media you're using. In the case of the internet, underlined text links, "click here," text-entry boxes, and pull-down menus are all ways you can make the desired action clearly visible. 6. Use rich media to expand your message. Static ads can be effective, but they're one-dimensional in terms of response. Animated ads can be effective, but like static ads, they're also one-dimensional in terms of response. Use HTML, DHTML, Javascript, layered ads, etc. to add more depth to your creative and expand the capabilities for response. 7. Maximize the use of your space when using rich media. If you have limited space in your ad, use HTML to create an animated message in one portion of the ad and a pull-down menu or text-entry box in the rest of the space, depending on your goals. With DHTML, you can use simple scripting to take a confined area and have it expand upon mouse over or click, giving you more room to communicate a desired action such as a sign-up form, quote check, etc. As more and more sites start to provide larger ad units for advertisers, use the space to your advantage by including simple Javascript forms to promote a desired action or have text links that depict categories potential customers can choose from. There are numerous resources on the internet to help you understand and build rich creative through the use of scripting. One such resource is Builder.com (builder.com.com). 8. Don't restrict the response when using rich media. Each portion of your creative should have a function. For instance, if you're using an HTML ad with a pull-down menu, make sure the other portions of your ad have a function such as a link. Having just the pull-down menu active restricts the ability of your potential customers to respond. 9. Design the ad so it looks like it belongs on the sites where you're advertising. For instance, you may want to use the site's font faces in your text, color schemes in your background, font color choices overall, and emulate images where appropriate. Try to conform to the environment so potential customers visiting the site don't gasp in shock when they see your ad. 10. Produce multiple versions of each ad. Create three or four versions of each ad, changing the promotional message, call to action, font faces, and color schemes. This is especially important if you're doing price testing or gauging reaction to specific promotions. By splitting your advertising buy among the various versions of your creative, you can then start to optimize your buy based on the message that works best. Finally, don't be afraid to experiment. One of the beauties of the internet is that you can gauge reaction to your ad right away. You can then make adjustments based on the initial reaction. Don't be one of those marketers who settle for poor response from their advertising creative. Make it work for you! Five Dos and Five Don'ts of Search Engine Optimization The Dos 1. Ask relevant sites to link to your site. In the past, scoring a high ranking with a search engine was all about positioning your keywords in "prime real estate" positions in your text and site coding. All that has changed, however, because now search engines place a huge amount of importance on the number of sites that link to yours. But it's not just the quantity of links that matters; it's also the quality. Search engines look at how relevant the links are, that is, how much the content of the linking site has in common with the content on your site. 2. Pay attention to keyword inclusion and placement. Keywords may no longer be the sole determining factor of a site's ranking, but they're still pretty important. The most useful places to include them are: In your domain name—only make sure your keywords are in the root of your URL, not the stem. For example, if your main keyword phrase is "cell phones," try to get a domain name such as "www.cell-phones.com" instead of "www.mobileusa.com/cell-phones." Some search engines will actually penalize sites for including key words in the stem of a URL. In the title tags in your source code In the meta description of your site. This is much less important than it used to be, but it can't hurt. In your meta keyword tags 3. Create content-rich information pages to direct traffic to your site. An easy way to boost the number of pages that link to your site is to create some pages yourself. Be sure the information relates to the content on your site and has your keywords placed in advantageous positions. This will boost the ranking of your pages with the search engines and ensure they get lots of traffic—which they can then redirect to your site. 4. Submit your site to online directories. Be sure to submit your site to important directories such as www.humanservicesglobe.com, as well as smaller directories. Your listing on these directories will help your ranking with the major search engines. 5. Multiply and conquer. Create a community of related sites that link to each other. Why stop at only one information page? The more content-rich sites that point to your site, the better. You can also boost the number of links that point to your site by dividing it into several separate sites that all link to each other. This works especially well if you sell a number of different products or services. If you build a different site to focus on each of your products and services, then you can also concentrate the use of specific keyword phrases on each site. That's another great way to boost your search engine ranking. The Don'ts 1. Beware of irrelevant links. Yes, it's a good idea to get a lot of different links pointing to your site, but the search engines like only relevant links. If they find sites that have nothing in common with the content on your site linked to your web site, they'll lower your relevancy rating. 2. Beware of irrelevant keywords. Search engines hate finding irrelevant keywords on your site—especially in your meta tags. If they catch you using keywords that have nothing to do with the actual content of your site, they'll penalize you for it. 3. Don't "keyword-stuff" your meta tags. In the past, people used to repeat their keywords in their meta tags over and over again. This used to get them a high ranking with the search engines—but not any more. Search engines are on to this trick and will punish you for it by dropping your ranking. 4. Don't create "link farms." Link farms are the evil cousins of the information pages we discussed above. In the past, some spammers used to build multiple "doorway" sites that existed only to multiply the number of links pointing to their sites. Unlike content-rich information pages, these doorway pages would usually only include a string of keyword terms that would earn them a high ranking with the search engines. The search engines have caught on to this tactic, however, and will drop you from their listings if they find you using it. 5. Avoid "free for all" link pages. Don't bother placing links to your site on pages where everyone and their cousin are invited to put up a link. Such sites have extremely low relevancy ratings and will cost you points with the search engines. Top Four Paid Online Advertising Techniques 1. Get your site listed on the major pay-per-click search engines. Without a doubt, pay-per-click (PPC) search engines are still the best value for your advertising dollar. If you want to get listed on a PPC search engine, bid on keywords that relate to the content of your site. If you're the highest bidder on a given keyword, your site will be the first listing that appears at the top of the "results" page when someone performs a search for that keyword. If you monitor the click-through and sales-conversion rates of the keywords you're bidding on, there's no way you can lose money. Just be sure to keep your bids lower than your visitor worth, and you'll be set. 2. Place text ads in popular e-zines and online trade journals. E-zines are popping up everywhere on the internet these days, all catering to very different niche markets. And just like offline magazines, a lot of them need to sell advertising in order to stay profitable. 3. Get your site listed on paid inclusion directories and portals. A great way to get your site seen by a lot of people—and boost your ranking with the free search engines—is to buy a listing on paid directories or portal sites. A directory is an indexed listing of sites that's managed by human editors (as opposed to the free search engines, which are entirely run by computers). Some directories are free, while others charge anywhere from $10 to $100 for a listing. Do some research to discover which directories are popular with your niche market before deciding where you want your site to be listed. 4. Post a banner, classified, or pop-up ad on industry "hot sites." Whenever you come across sites that are popular with your niche market, do whatever you can to get your site listed on them. If they sell classified ads on their site, buy one. You can even submit your ad to classified ad web sites and databases automatically using software like Power Submitter (www.becanada.com). You can also pay these industry hot sites to place a banner ad or pop-up on their site. Ten Tips to Improve Online Survey Response 1. Clearly define the purpose of your survey. Effective surveys have focused objectives that are easily understood. For a survey to be successful, you need to spend time upfront to identify, in writing, the following objectives: What is the goal of this survey? What do you hope to accomplish with this survey? How will you use the data you are collecting? What decisions do you hope to be able to provide input to from the responses to this survey? 2. Keep the survey short and focused. Keeping it short and focused helps with both the quality and quantity of the responses you'll get. It's generally better to focus on a single objective than try to create a master survey that covers multiple objectives. Shorter surveys generally have high response rates and lower abandonment among survey takers. It's human nature to want things to be quick and easy—once a survey taker loses interest, he or she simply abandons the survey, leaving you with the task of determining how to interpret the partial data or whether to use it at all. Make sure each of your questions is focused on helping to meet your stated objective. Don't toss in 'nice to have' questions that don't directly provide answers that will help you reach your goals. 3. Keep the questions simple. When crafting your questions, make sure you get to the point and avoid the use of jargon. If you're asking something like "When was the last time you used our RGS?" you're probably going to get a lot of unanswered questions. Don't assume your survey takers are as comfortable with your acronyms as you are. Try to make your questions as specific and direct as possible. Compare “What has your experience been working with our HR team?” and “How satisfied are you with the response time of our HR team?” The second is much more likely to garner useful responses. 4. Used closed-ended questions whenever possible. Closed-ended questions make it easier to analyze results and can take the form of yes/no, multiple choice, or a rating scale. Open-ended questions are great supplemental questions and may provide useful qualitative information and insights. However, for collating and analysis purposes, close-ended questions are best. One warning: make sure your closed-ended questions don't force survey takers into choosing a "less bad" answer. 5. Keep rating scale questions consistent. Questions that offer rating scales—for example, a scale of 1 to 5—are a great way to measure and compare sets of variables. But if you elect to use rating scales, you need to keep them consistent throughout your survey. Use the same number of points on the scale for each question, and make sure the meanings of high and low remain the same. Switching your rating scales around throughout the survey will only confuse survey takers, leading to untrustworthy responses. 6. Make sure your survey flows in a logical order. Begin with a brief introduction—don't reveal the survey objective. Next, start with the broader-based questions, later moving to those that are narrower in scope. It's usually better to collect demographic data and ask any particularly sensitive questions at the end (unless you're using this information to screen out survey participants). If you're requesting contact information, put those questions last. 7. Pretest your survey. Before launching your survey, be sure to pretest it with a few members of your target audience to help you uncover glitches and unexpected question interpretations. Also, to make sure it's not too long, time a few of your test subjects as they take the survey. Ideally the survey should take no more than five minutes to complete. Six to ten minutes is acceptable, but you'll probably see significant abandonment rates occurring after 11 minutes. 8. Schedule your survey by taking the calendar into account. When you're planning your e-mail blast date—the e-mail that asks people to visit your site to take the survey—keep in mind that Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays are the best days to do it: you'll generate more responses than if you send it out on one of the other four days. You want to catch people's attention, and you won't do that on Friday, when your survey respondents are most likely gearing up for the weekend, on Saturday or Sunday, when the last thing on people's minds is a customer survey, or Monday, when most people are wading through a loaded in-box. 9. Offer an incentive for responding. Depending on the type of survey you're conducting and your survey audience, offering an incentive can be very effective in improving your response rates. People like the idea of getting something in return for their time—incentives typically boost response rates by an average of 50 percent. 10. Consider using reminders. While not appropriate for all surveys, sending out reminders to those who haven't yet responded can often provide a significant boost to your response rates. Advice for Launching Your E-Mail Campaign Reaching people by e-mail is still a relatively new marketing method. Before you launch your campaign, keep these tips in mind: Get a good list. List sources can be found in the Yellow Pages, in books, or online. Opt-in lists are lists of people who are interested in receiving information. Keep your message short and concise. E-mail readers want to know upfront what they’re reading, or they won’t bother to continue. Keep it to one screen length. Be clear. E-mail readers tend to be more suspicious. If your message is vague, it will quickly get deleted. Get to the point. Ask prospects to talk some sort of action; this doesn’t mean do a hard sell—just don’t waste their time. Start now! E-mail still generates interest and curiosity, so get started before it becomes ordinary junk mail. Tips for More Effective E-Mails When writing a message, leave the recipient field blank as long as possible. This prevents accidentally sending your message prematurely. Most e-mail packages allow you to include the sender’s original message in your reply. This helps remind the person of what you are replying to. If you have more than one e-mail account, try to have your mail forwarded to the account you use the most. This can save you considerable time. Answer your e-mail. Many companies don’t. If you’ve told people they can get in touch with you via e-mail and you don’t respond, you’re making an unprofessional impression that will badly reflect on your business. Eight Common Misconceptions About Business Web Sites 1. "If I build it, they will come." Marketing your site may not be as easy as it seems. You'll need economical ways to direct traffic to your site on a national—or international—level. Perhaps the most obvious way is to advertise on search engines like Google and Overture, but this can get expensive. Unfortunately, it can take months or even years for your URL to turn up near the top of organic searches. Investigate other ways to get eyes to your site, like affiliate programs, e-mail newsletters, and partnering. 2. The more you offer, the more you'll sell. Trying to be all things to all people rarely works. It may seem logical that the more things you have for sale online, the more people you'll attract. But even if you attract them, will they buy? The "general" aspect of your offering will communicate that the value of your product or service is equal to that of others—so price becomes the only issue and branding becomes more difficult. 3. The best way to generate sales is to copy the competition. It can be tempting to copy your competitors in everything from marketing strategies and positioning to sales offers and design choices. Remember the adage that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery? This means that when you imitate, you're not just reminding your audience about your competition—you're suggesting they're better! 4. Your home page should explain everything about your business or you'll lose visitors. You've got about three seconds to hook visitors—not bore them with visually overwhelming text. Grab their attention by being concise, clear, and compelling. 5. Once I get my site up and running, sales will skyrocket. Yes, your potential customer pool has grown exponentially—but so has your competitions'. How will you stand out? How will you locate the people most likely to buy your product or service and get them to visit your site? 6. Web sites should be slick, with lots of bells and whistles. On the internet, functionality is king. High-tech gimmicks may look great, but they load slowly. It's best to find a good balance between form and function. 7. Building a web site is easy—I'll just buy a how-to book. Whether or not you can do it yourself depends on the type of site you want and your own experience and skills. For example, will you require shopping cart functionality or database programming? Building a web site is deceptively complex and requires a variety of skill sets, from HTML savvy to good artistic taste. You might want to think about hiring a web design pro. 8. Everybody else has a site, so I should, too. Determining the real purpose of your site is crucial. Is it to sell your product? Increase awareness of your business? Provide information to drive local sales? Add credibility? Despite what some critics say, creating an "online brochure" is a legitimate reason to build a site. However, that's a very different purpose than selling directly over the internet. Tips on Avoiding Legal Issues for Your Web Site Are you planning a web site? There are some legal issues you should be concerned about, so heed these tips. First of all, naming your site is like naming your business. You’ll need to conduct a search looking for conflicts and then register your name. If you plan to use text, music, or graphics on your site, find out who owns the rights to the material and get permission to use it. Have you hired someone to design your site? Establish upfront the ownership of the product. Are you planning to sell your product online? Then make sure your product liability insurance covers online transactions. E-commerce rules are constantly changing. Be aware of consumer privacy regulations and observe them. If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry; you can always find an experienced consultant to help you. Tips to Help You with Pay-per-Click Advertising Pay-per-click (PPC) search engines can be a powerful, instant source of qualified traffic for your web site—provided you do your homework and invest a bit of time in managing your campaign. 1. Figure out what you can afford to bid. This might sound obvious, but it needs to be said: don't bid more than you can afford! A lot of businesses make this mistake. Before you pay for advertising of any sort, calculate the value of a single visitor to your site. Once you know what one visitor is worth, you'll know the maximum amount you can afford to pay per click. 2. Being "No. 1" isn't always best. You don't always need to be ranked first for certain keywords to attract visitors. Sure, it helps if your ad appears in the top ten results. But people click on listings featured on the second and even third page of results for competitive keywords. So run some tests. Vary your bids so that your listing appears higher and lower on the page and see what effect the ranking has on your profits. You may actually find that for more costly keywords, a slightly lower ranking is more profitable. 3. Bid on low-cost variations and common misspellings of particular keywords. Frequently, you'll see businesses bidding as much as $5.00 per click for popular keywords—while nobody is bidding on common misspellings and similar keywords that cost just pennies per click. Use Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com) to locate keywords that relate to your business and are frequently searched by your market, but that none of your competitors are bidding on. 4. Bid on highly targeted phrases with less traffic. Rather than bid on a handful of general keywords, which tend to be more expensive because they get the highest number of searches, bid on dozens—or even hundreds—of highly targeted keywords, which tend to be cheap. For example, instead of bidding on "pet supplies," you might bid on "red dog leash," "oversize dog kennel," and "cat toys with bells." You're sure to see better sales conversions on the more targeted keywords because they attract more qualified buyers. And since no one is bidding on these keywords, your advertising costs associated with this traffic are extremely low. Another benefit of this strategy is that you can direct these qualified visitors to a page that gives them exactly what they're looking for. In the above example, your listing for the keyword, "oversize dog kennel" could link directly to your dog kennel catalog page, rather than to just the home page of your pet supply store. 5. Bid on keywords in the lesser-known PPC search engines. Overture and Google are the PPC industry leaders, but some of the smaller PPC search engines are worth checking out as well. The most popular ones are: Findwhat (www.findwhat.com) Kanoodle (www.kanoodle.com) Enhance Interactive (www.enhance.com) LookSmart (www.looksmart.com) Espotting (for the UK and Europe) (www.espotting.com) These engines won't get you the same exposure you might get with Overture and Google AdWords, but you can still generate a respectable amount of traffic with them. And best of all, they're much cheaper. 6. Create separate ads for each product or service you sell. This is an extremely effective strategy, but very few businesses are using it. Write ads specific to each keyword and phrase you bid on. For example, instead of writing an ad for "sporting goods," write one for "quality leather soccer balls," another for "discount ladies' tennis shoes," and so on. These customized ads will attract more attention (and clicks!) from qualified buyers. And of course, you'll be able to convert more of these visitors to buyers if you direct them to a page on your site with the exact product or service they're searching for. 7. Get listed in relevant specialty search engines. Public Relations Smart Publicity Pointers on a Budget You don’t need a big budget to get a lot of attention for your business. Try these smart publicity pointers: Write a column. Approach your local newspaper, and offer to write a column—for free—on your area of expertise or about business in general. Speak up. Volunteer to talk to business, civic, and educational groups. Again, speak about what you know best, but don’t try to sell anything. Your growing reputation will take care of that. Get personal. Include a very short personal message—one or two lines—when you send out your literature. Join up. Find the groups that are important to you—the local chamber or industry association—and join. Then make sure you show up for meetings. Be a good neighbor. Sponsor a Little League team or donate time, money, or goods to a local cause. A few hundred dollars can go a long way toward gaining good will. Secrets to Putting Together Media Kits 1. A one- or two-page fact sheet. Fact sheets provide quick overviews of companies in an easy-to-read format, and typically include information such as a description of products or services, company history, key personnel, the number of employees, the number of offices and locations, statistical information (number of products produced, sales, number of clients), any other notable company facts, and information for reaching a contact person. 2. Biographies of key individuals. If possible, keep them to one page and focus on information that's pertinent to your company. 3. A list of products and services. When applicable, include retail prices and outlets, or other information on how consumers can acquire your goods and/or services. 4. Photograph(s). Depending on your specific business, you might want to include professional photos of your product(s), your service(s) (or somehow depict the service being delivered), your facility, and/or your key people. 5. A news release. Ideally, the release should be specific to the reporter's needs or it may be about any timely or event of interest to the reporter. Always include a cover letter, which should either make reference to the fact that the kit was requested or, if you haven't had any previous contact, pitch a specific story. Keep in mind that more is not necessarily better. Reporters don't have time to wade through pages of material looking for the information they need, so make sure everything you include in your kit has a reason for being there. Let the media kit work for you in other ways. Seko says he's adapted Axsys's media kit to use as a tool to attract new investors. The client can also use it as a recruiting device for top employee talent, to support loan applications, or on any other occasion when there’s a need to showcase your company in a positive way. Establishing a Presence in Your Community 1. Create an advisory board representative of your customers (even if they’re kids) and publicize it. Listen to the board’s ideas. 2. Publish a newsletter about your business for customers and potential customers. Send it via regular mail or e-mail and post it on your web page. 3. Make your values clear. One couple promotes their commitment to family—sometimes closing their store early to attend soccer games when their children or employees’ children are competing. 4. Make donations that represent your business. If you have a garden supply business, for example, contribute seeds and simple tools for a community garden. 5. Serve as a volunteer in your community and encourage your employees to follow suit. Let them contribute some hours on company time. Holiday Season and the Entrepreneur The holidays are the season not only to be jolly but to be creative as well. They are a great time to cement business relationships. Try these tips to get the most out of the holiday season: Make a list—lots of them. Make sure your card or gift list includes loyal clients, colleagues who’ve referred business to you, former customers you’d like to win back, and valuable employees. Party on. Be creative; you needn’t spend a lot on a holiday bash. Rent an unusual location, such as a skating rink or a boat. Be sure to manage the alcohol intake of the partygoers. Stand out in the crowd. Your invitation or card will be one of many received by clients, so be creative. If you can’t afford a professional, try hiring an art student to design your cards. Deck the walls. Help your employees and customers get in the mood by decorating your office or shop. Be sure you don’t overdo it; you want festive, not gaudy. Be card smart. Your cards will stand out if you use a personal touch. Consider using a photo of your staff—it shows the real people behind your business. Give gifts that keep on giving. Make a lasting impression by sending thoughtful, creative gifts rather than the standard food baskets or pen sets. Think about your clients’ likes and try tickets to a ballgame or show or books about their hobbies and interests. Next |