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Andrew Michaels's Articles


Advertising (82)	Business (68)

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3 Basic Questions to Answer before Creating a Brochure Brochures are a great marketing tool because they provide additional (sometimes detailed) information about your business, products or services that you don’t have time to explain in person to potential customers. 3 Ways to Create Better Brochures Brochures are great marketing tools for businesses small and large. And brochures can be used to promote any industry. Brochure printing can be an affordable way to get the word out about your new product, to provide current customers with detailed information about your current offerings or to generate sales leads. 7 Key Advertising Materials Here is a rundown of 7 of the most popular advertising items and how they can help your business. A Checklist for Printed Catalogs When putting together the materials for catalog printing, use the following checklist to make sure that you don't forget anything important. A Need to Know the Basics How often do you get a new business card made? Do you get one every few years? Have you been using the same card for the past ten years and don’t feel like changing it anytime soon? A Small Market Doesn’t Mean Small Effort There are a variety of great reasons why you should check out a niche market for your company. Activate Customers with Postcards To produce a powerful and useful postcard campaign, you have to have a good plan. And this plan consists of 5 parts. Advertising From the Beginning Positioning Started When You Said Hello and Shook a Hand 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. Are You Guaranteeing Your Services? How often do you use the word guarantee when you mention your services? 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? Asking the Right Questions Sometimes it’s all in the phrasing. The way a question is asked can have a good impact on the kind of answer you’re going to get. This is particularly important if your goal is to elicit a certain response or a certain emotion. The real challenge is to have this kind of impact when you aren’t asking the questions in person. Balance Your New and Old Business Marketing can often seem like a bit of a high wire act where you’re constantly trying to find and maintain your balance between all sorts of different things at the same time. Basic Flyer Design Tips A good flyer can be a great marketing tool for your business. If you design them correctly and then place them in the right locations, they could actually generate a decent amount of revenue for your company. Here are a few tips to help you as you design your next flyer printing project. Beef up Your Marketing with Direct Mailing No marketing campaign is completely with a little postcard printing combined with direct mailing. Beware of Running Ads Too Often Even if you are distributing simple ads like night club flyers or postcards, you need to pay attention to the frequency that you send the ads in order to avoid advertising wear out. Breaking Down Your Market Analysis Before jumping into your marketing, and perhaps even before you start up your business you’re going to have to look at your marketplace and analyze what’s going to work best. But what are you supposed to be looking at and what’s going to work for your company? 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? Bringing Your Entire Company Under a Single Label Many companies have a wide variety of things that they do. They might have several different divisions that all handle different tasks, and even if each of these divisions is small, you still want to be sure that they all stay connected. Business Card Printing Basics If you are just starting out with your own home-based business, one of the essential tools you need for marketing yourself is a business card. 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. Choosing the Right Advertising Outlet So, are you taking advantage of the places most consumers look for guidance on available products? Here are a few of your best options: Convenient Information Convenience is always helpful for both you and your customers. Creating Business Cards for Higher Results Before designing and printing your business card, you may want to know the reasons that clients retain them. Just because someone you have met seemed eager to receive your card does not necessarily mean that they will contact you. 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. 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. Custom Envelope Printing: What's in It for You? Appearances are everything in business. Even though your small business provides top-notch services or products, if you look unprofessional to consumers, they won’t believe you to be otherwise. 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? 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. Design Principles for Newsletters Lots of businesses effectively use newsletters to keep customers informed of late breaking news or special promotions. Besides connecting with customers for the purpose of selling, newsletters make an excellent public relations tool as well. Design Tips for Advertising Posters Here are some design tips for your poster printing campaign: Designing Flyers on a Budget As far as economical advertising goes, flyers are often your biggest bang for the buck. 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. 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. 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. 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. Don’t Forget Your Message Sometimes when I look at the various posters companies have made up I feel as if I’m looking at some kind of experimental art that I just don’t get. Don’t Let Your Message Get Stale I can only hear the exact same thing said to me so many times in the exact same form before I just get tired of hearing it. 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. Everything You Do Has Marketing Potential You don’t just sit down and say to yourself, “Ok, this is marketing, but nothing else I’m doing is going to be.” Expand Your Current Base or Find a New One? Every company wants to keep their business strong by expanding it. This means pulling in more customers and people who have never done business with you before. Fabulous Brochures Read the following tips to give you some ideas for creating the best brochure possible. Figuring Out What Works Every business is going to need a marketing strategy if it wants to survive. I can't think of very many things more important than getting your name out there. A good product sells the best when combined with an effective means of getting the product into people's lives. Find Your Niche Even the largest company has some form of target market. 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: Get Personal with your Customers Here are some common times to send cards to customers: 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. 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? Getting Specific: A Folder for Each Occasion When someone is giving a specific presentation, a big presentation, they usually walk around the room ahead of time and hand out information to people. This is typically a packet of various details that cover what they’ll be going over and helps the audience follow along, as well as giving them something to take home afterwards to remember what was talked about. 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. 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. Give a Clear Point by Point Break Down Learning shouldn’t be a difficult process but I often find that for people like me it certainly can be. Give Your Customers a Smooth Ride The easier it is for a person to find out information and get details about something the more likely they are to buy it. For even small companies they often have a lot of things going on at the same time and they have a lot of products and services for people to choose from. 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 Guidelines for Choosing the Right Commercial Printer Many printers specialize in certain types of printing. Part of what kind of printing a printer does depends on what kind of printing press it has. 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 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. 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. How to Increase Your Direct Mail Response Rate To have a successful direct mail campaign, you must employ certain postcard marketing techniques. How to Organize Your Catalog: 10 Choices When you are planning your catalog, you have many things to think about: What products should I feature? How to Run a Marketing Focus Group Done correctly, focus groups can help you market and grow your business. 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. How to Undo Negative Feedback on Your Brand "If you plan effectively, and react boldly, you can actually lead your business out of the depths and on to even greater heights. Here are some tips for managing a crisis: 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: 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. It Isn’t Always About the Best Sellers The front of a catalog is naturally going to be filled with the most prominent items. I’ve said again and again that certain items just need to be given more attention. If these are the things that you know you’re going to make the most money from than these are the things that need to be given all the attention they deserve. 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. " 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. Keep Things Consistent For most companies who have a strong department centered on catalog printing, consistency becomes a very important detail. Know How to Market In Person There is a vast difference between normal marketing material and marketing in person to people. Some parts of this are rather obvious, but I have talked to many people before who I could tell were probably quite good at writing marketing material, but bad at talking in person about their products and services. 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? Know the Rules Every industry is full of them. No matter what kind of profession you’re in you’ll be confronted with them. The world of advertising and marketing tips is going to be no different. 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. Knowing the Specifics: Envelopes Specifically using envelope printing for marketing means that you have some message or connection to your company on the front of the envelopes. Typically this may mean just having your company name and logo on the upper corner of your envelope. Let Them See The Inner Workings of Your Business I see shows all the time on TV dealing with what goes on behind a company’s door. This can be as technical as how various products are made in warehouses, or something more akin to how decision are made and other important aspects of how the companies are run. 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. 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. 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. " Make Your Advertising Error Free There are few things worse than taking all the time to design and print out a full color poster only to receive it in the mail and see some kind of error. Maybe a few words are misspelled or maybe the colors look all wrong. No matter what the mistake is, the feeling that comes with it is never pleasant. Here are some tips for making sure this never happens to you. 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. 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. Making the Best Brochures Possible Brochures are not the cheapest commercial printing you could go with. People expect a higher level of quality from brochure printing than most kinds of advertising. Marketing for the Short Term and the Long Term If you want to have consistent sales throughout the year while growing your business, you need to do some short term and long term marketing. Short term marketing usually make sales increase, but the increase only lasts a little while. Long term marketing keeps your sales steady and gives you that constant customer presence that you need to keep your doors open. Marketing Isn’t Something You Just Turn Off There’s a reason why not all small businesses make it in the end. Marketing Specifics: Expanding Your Brand There are two primary things to consider when it comes to expanding your brand name. The first is helping people to know exactly what your brand stands for, and the second is making sure people remember your brand name. Marketing Tips that Won’t Break the Bank Here are some marketing tips to use when your budget is tight or if you just want to try something new that won’t empty your bank account. 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. Newsletters: Too Complicated or Highly Beneficial? Newsletter printing may be one of the more lengthy marketing endeavors available. Offline Marketing Tips to Draw in Business Offline marketing can be cost-effective as well as just plain effective; use these tips to get back to offline marketing while everyone else is online! Partnering Up for Better Savings The smaller your business is, the bigger even the smallest cost can begin to appear. What can really be annoying is when you just know you have to spend the money if you want your company to keep growing. 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. Plan Your First Impression When it comes to most things in life you don’t have that much control over the first impression that you make on a person. 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. Postcard Printing Paralysis If you have hit "printer's block" and are feeling a bit stuck, review these tips to make sure you have covered your bases: 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. 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. Product Label Recommendations to Make Your Product Shine If you sell a product, you need a label for that product. Your label might be the last thing you think of, but product label printing is actually a very important piece of your marketing program. Proper Timing Marketing comes in a lot of different forms, and with each form comes different important details to be aware of. 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.
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