Andrew Michaels's Articles in Business

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Why You Need a Marketing Calendar It’s never too early to start planning your marketing calendar for the next year. Customize Your Catalogs How much control do you have over your catalogs? Do you pay attention to where everything is going in them, what products are featured on what page along with how large the advertisements are? Do you track all of your sales in order to help redesign your catalogs to better serve your customers? Power of Appearance People put a lot of stock into appearances. When you first look at a person you’re going to be forming opinions about them, and in the business world this is even truer of a statement. How to Design a Poster that Works for You To be sure you have an effective poster that people understand, you need to do some planning first. Get Personal with your Customers Here are some common times to send cards to customers: Rejoice if You Have Competition Not very many companies would respond by thinking such a thing. Competition is exactly what you don’t want, is what many companies would believe. These are the people trying to steal away your customers, the companies trying to paint you as inferior to them, and the companies who want to kick you out of the marketplace Find Your Niche Even the largest company has some form of target market. Direct Mail Benefits It may be hard to believe nowadays, but there’s a lot more to marketing than the Internet. Offline marketing techniques still work, and work well. Direct mail still especially works well, according to a survey by Universal McCann, who found that direct mail spending has kept climbing in recent years by about 8% per year. The Five Characteristics of a Good Poster A poster that is missing any of these characteristics is likely to underwhelm you with its performance. Keep these five characteristics in mind as you design your next poster printing project. Take Advantage of the Wait It often seems like this world is filled with non-stop waiting. I go to the store only to wait in line. I go to the dentist, the doctor, the mechanic, and I have to expect at least a half-hour or more of my time spent waiting around. 7 Key Advertising Materials Here is a rundown of 7 of the most popular advertising items and how they can help your business. Postcard Marketing Ideas But finding ways to incorporate a postcard printing project into your marketing strategy can sometimes be very difficult. Here are some ideas. Get Your Referrals Going You want people to only say positive things when it comes to talking about you. This isn’t just about them being happy with your services, either. When someone really enjoys a company they’ll be inclined to tell their friends and family about it as well. Maximizing the Impact of your Newsletters If your small business relies heavily on communicating with your customers (and what small business doesn’t) a newsletter may be a good idea for you. Newsletters allow you to keep in contact with your loyal customers and some prospective customers, while getting feedback from them at the same time. They are relatively inexpensive advertising tools that have much more flexibility than most ads. Design Tips for Advertising Posters Here are some design tips for your poster printing campaign: Cutting Catalog Costs Let’s say your company has a history of using catalog printing to send out a monthly, or perhaps yearly catalog. The problem comes along when business is down during one period or another and you don’t want to spend the same money you had before to get those catalogs out there. What Makes You Different? You can’t get away from competition. Direct Mail Statistics You Can Use A recent study by Vertis Communications in Baltimore found that 46% of adults responded to direct mail in 2007. This remains steady from 47% in 2003. So what does this mean to you? It means that Internet has not yet taken over the world of marketing and you can and should still use direct mail as part of your marketing strategy. You Have to Spend Time to Make Money We all know the old claim that you have to spend money to make money, and it’s still going to be true, but too many people take it a little too much to heart. Don’t Fear the Poster There are a few simple things to keep in mind that can help you design and deploy a winning poster campaign. Advertising From the Beginning Positioning Started When You Said Hello and Shook a Hand Eight Unique Business Card Trends No self respecting businessperson carries around boring, black and white business cards anymore. Those relics belong in an “expired marketing idea” museum somewhere. These days, business cards are colorful, vibrant, and unconventional. Posters: an Economical Advertising Tool Every small business struggles to come up with ways to advertise itself. Advertising is not cheap, and effective advertising tools are very costly. In order for a small businessperson to adequately market itself, it must take advantage of every cost effective marketing tool available. Posters are one of these tools. Quick Tips for Small Business Branding A product's brand is akin to the clothes you put on your body. It is how it dresses and appears to the public. Effective branding adds great value to your product. Simply compare the prices of name brand jeans with discount off brand outlet store jeans. Oftentimes, it is the exact same pair of jeans except with a different label. The value is in the brand. Make Your Designs Great No matter how great a product is it will need some help to get the sales it deserves. Few products are so sought after that people will buy them no matter what the advertising is like for them. The Incredible (but True) Story of Flyers Let me share with you my point of view as an advertising aware consumer to help you get the most of your flyer printing. Making a Difference There’s nothing new under the sun, they say. Maybe they’re right. Regardless of field, most products can be broken down into a handful of categories that encompass groups of like products. Focus on the Message for Marketing Success Here are some reasons why marketing campaigns fail and what to do so that you don’t make these mistakes: Do Not Ignore the Good Old Mail In today’s e-mail world many are ignoring proven traditional modes of delivery. Direct mail presents a great way to deliver a custom tailored message to a niche audience. The growing popularity and consequent cost of online advertising has now made direct mail quite competitive in terms of ROI. Selling Life Its easy to get wrapped up in the sort of short sighted thinking that dictates marketing focus solely on selling products. That, of course, is what you’re shooting for in the short term. A broader based view of marketing will tell you that it is equally about selling an image and a lifestyle. How to Up Your Marketing Response Here are six reasons that might be making your marketing campaign dead in the water when it comes to getting a response from customers: Tips To Build Client Relationships Your product's brand is its reputation and personality all rolled into one. Branding is critical to any successful marketing effort. How to Create an Engaging Brand What do people think of when they hear your company’s name or see your logo? If you don’t know and people you ask don’t know what you’re about, it’s time to update your brand. How to Run a Marketing Focus Group Done correctly, focus groups can help you market and grow your business. Illuminating Ad Design A lot of times, pundits like myself will spout off at the mouth with sage advice about how amazing and utilitarian color printing is and it can solve all of your business woes (don’t fret, it still can). But we are far to often remiss in our duties and omit the basic ins and outs of how to effectively put it into action for your business. Know Who You Are Writing To I always hate it when I pick up a business brochure and I can’t tell who the person who wrote it was trying to sell to. Half the time it almost looks like they were writing to themselves more than they were writing to the potential customer. Alternatives to Spam If you’re like me, you’re probably sick to death of opening you’re e-mail inbox only to be overwhelmed by a deluge of spam ads that of no interest to me. It seems like everyone is in a rush to take up the e-marketing banner without a lot of thought how effective or ineffective it is. Understanding Trade Shows Putting yourself in the shoes of your booth's visitors can do a world of good for your trade show productivity. How to Save Money When Printing Catalogs If you’ve never printed a catalog or used booklet printing in your marketing materials, you need to know some basics before you start using them. Know the Competition If you don’t know what everyone else is doing than how are you supposed to know how to do it better than them? Target Smaller Groups, Make Bigger Sales There is an old saying that if one attempts to be everything, then he ends up being nothing. This cliché has merit when it comes to a company's strategic marketing plan. If you cast a wide net it is often likely to come back empty. When one employs a more focused strategy the results are a hearty catch. Looking Like a Pro Below are a few tips to help guide you along your way to creating attractive and powerful print ads that can help establish your company‘s image. The Need for Advertising There seems to be a trend among a lot of smaller business owners that they don’t really need to advertise. After all, the job they do is good, and word of mouth will be able to do all the advertising they need for free. Looking Like a Pro Below are a few tips to help guide you along your way to creating attractive and powerful print ads that can help establish your company‘s image. How to Increase Your Direct Mail Response Rate To have a successful direct mail campaign, you must employ certain postcard marketing techniques. Grab Their Attention and Keep It How many people are really looking at your posters? Are you giving them something they just can’t help but stop to look at? Is your writing so strong that once you have their attention they gladly let you keep it until they’re done reading everything you have to say The Formula for a Great Brochure Brochure printing acts as a good way for companies to get a lot of information about themselves directly to their customers. Cultivating a Corporate Identity Why do products with a known brand cost more? Because consumers are willing to pay more for a product they trust and like. Reel Them in With Laughter Here are some tips to create a winning humorous ad: You’ve Got to Know to Grow There are steps you can take to minimize the chances of a failed marketing campaign. Are You Treating Your Customers Right? What is it that you expect from a store when you first walk in? What kind of service are you expecting to get and what kind of product do you expect to walk away with? Watch The Cash Pour in With These Marketing Pointers Here are a few of the best marketing pointers to get you on your way to producing more leads and more profits today. Getting the Most from Your Tradeshows "The first reaction most companies have to any kind of perceived or actual economic uncertainty is to start slashing budgets. Certain areas are going to be more likely to be cut than others, and are usually in the area of marketing or proper training, especially in relation to tradeshow appearances. Stretch Your Marketing Budget If you think you have to have a multi-million- or multi-thousand-dollar marketing budget to draw in customers, think again. Yes, you do have to spend some money – marketing is an investment. You just need to make smart marketing decisions and make the most of your marketing budget, whatever it may be. Plan Out Your Binding Before you send those booklets to the printer, stop to ask yourself if you’ve put any consideration to the binding. Business Cards: A Powerful Tool There are many different ways a company can use a business card as a successful marketing tool. Quite often people think that the only thing they can use business card printing for is to make a basic card with their name and contact information on it. The truth is a business card can serve many different functions if handled right. The Power of the Business Card The truth is there are a lot of finer details to making a really good business card. Let’s go over some of the issues to look at when you start your business card printing. Keep in Touch with your Customers Have you ever lost touch with an old friend? At first, you talk to each other regularly, through email or on the phone. After a while, the phone calls stop, and the emails become less regular. A few months later, and even the emails come to a halt. Eventually, you stop thinking about that old friend. You did not keep in touch, so the friendship suffered. Breathing Life into Your Business Card In some regards it’s best to pay attention to what everyone else is doing to see what works. This is true when it comes to the idea of using business card printing. Who doesn’t have a business card, right? Every successful business is likely to have a business card ready to hand to someone, so shouldn’t you have one too? Cultivating Loyal Customers for Your Business There are many, many different components that go into your company’s advertising campaign. You probably run ads in newspapers, perhaps even in consumer magazines. If you have a relatively large advertising budget, you might record radio ads or, if you are really fortunate, television ads. You probably also send out literature to past customers or prospective customers. All of these components work together towards one goal: getting more customers and, thus, increasing sales. When Not to Copy Your Competitors There is an old expression that states that, if you come in second, you are no better than the first loser. This is the perfect way to describe the cutthroat environment in today’s business world. If you are not the leader, you are nothing. How to Effectively Use Product Positioning If you look around right now, you’ll find that you're surrounded by examples of product positioning. I think anyone would be hard-pressed to ignore the vast benefits it offers. Every commercial on TV is an example of it. If you go to the store, the very look of the containers a product is in reflects the positioning the makers have decided to use. Getting Crazy With Your Business Cards I am a freelance writer, which is just a fancy way of saying that I need all the help I can get when it comes to finding work. I do not limit myself to asking established companies for an assignment; I ask almost everyone I meet if they need any writing done. My biggest tool in that quest is my business card. Getting Lost Can Be Great For Business You’ve probably heard the phrase, “think outside the box.” What does that mean? What is this box that people are talking about, and how can you think “inside” of it, much less “outside” of it? Jumpstart Your Product’s Debut With Color "Too many businesses, when starting up, make the mistake of cutting costs by having their literature printed in black and white, either by a less-than-reliable printing company, or by doing it themselves. That is a big mistake. " Getting to Know Your Customers If it feels like your advertising efforts are not being effective, it may be because you are not targeting the right people. You should be targeting people who are just like those reliable customers that you have. You know they like your product or service, so people like them probably will, too. Sell Through Information Printing business brochures and newsletters acts as an effective method of creating that personable feel. No one likes the idea of the cold, emotionless corporate machine that cares about nothing but the almighty dollar. Make Catalogs That Stand Out "In today’s business world, customers routinely do a lot of their shopping – if not most of their shopping – on the internet. Buying merchandise online has become the norm, even when it comes to items that were traditionally bought in brick-and-mortar stores. "

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