By Chris Simpson
There are several differences between marketing your business online vs. offline. The first thing that you should do in order to effectively understand the differences between these two modes of advertising is to make certain that you have a sound understanding of what each is.
Offline media sources operate a tad differently than online sources. In many instances, individuals use a fine mix of marketing that is offline, as well as online in an effort to maximize their exposure to potential prospects. Here, you will learn the differences between marketing your business online versus marketing your business offline.
What is Offline Advertising?
There are many different forms of offline advertising that are very effective to many different companies. As a matter of fact, three of these advertising venues are quite popular among individuals who are looking to promote a certain good or service. These include television, radio, and even in print.
Many individuals have commercials created for radio and television, and others may have advertisements listed in classified advertisements. The whole idea behind offline advertising is to acquire the attention of leads that may not know your website is out there. Then, once the potential customers are alerted to your website, they are drawn to visit it.
What is Online Advertising?
Most of the time, when it comes to internet marketing, online advertising is the process in which a particular banner, flash animation, article, or video catches the attention of the potential consumer. The marketing endeavors, or messages, are intended as an attractive lure to the customer in which a particular website wants to attract. These messages typically place a visitor on a "landing page" or a "squeeze page" of a website. There are many different ways in which this can be done:
* Blog Marketing
* Video Blogging
* Social Networking Websites
* Online Classifieds
* Article Marketing
* Email * Rich Media
Online advertising is not just effective in attracting individuals to websites. There are many different businesses that are offline that work to attract individuals from the internet to their business in a certain community.
The Differences?
When it comes to similarities, the goal of both online and offline advertising are much the same - to simply attract business. However, when it comes to differences, there are quite a few. Advertisements online, for example, must be more visual as rich media holds a stiff competition. In addition to this, the process of search engine optimization and other techniques must be considered. In offline advertising methods, one must be creative, but not to the extent of online venues of marketing.
Conclusion
If you are working to ensure that you have a well rounded target audience, it is important to utilize both online marketing and offline marketing in order to optimize your potential for success. By ensuring that you have both components to your marketing strategy, it is much more likely that you will experience a higher ratio of profits to overall losses.
All it takes is a little creativity and a little bit of time, soon, you will have a whole pile of prospects that are seeking out what goods and services that you have to offer!
Chris Simpson is dedicated to helping people find honest and legitimate work at home jobs and home based business ideas. Find legitimate work from home jobs and many other great opportunities to make money online today at: http://www.HomeNetPro.com
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Marketing Automation and Business to Consumer Strategies
By Paddu Govindaraj
Marketing automation is a popular method of using modern information technology tools and internet to automate the marketing process. Marketing planning, budgeting, interaction and management can all be automated to a great degree. Automating the marketing processes can boost productivity by making routine processes out of an otherwise long and tedious manual process, and add more possibilities to the mix, as well. Automating your consumer marketing strategies can have a serious positive impact on your customer base, and help you manage your time much more efficiently.
Effectively marketing to new customers and existing clients are both crucial to the longevity of your business. Consumers are more interested in finding the information they need quickly and efficiently, and aren't willing to waste time waiting for a response. Effective marketing automation tools can respond to consumers immediately, giving them exactly what they're looking for to pique their interest until they can get to a live person.
Perhaps the most appealing aspect of marketing automation is that it can deliver personalized answers instantaneously, something not even a marketing expert can do. Automated marketing can be customized to your company's specific needs, and be used to give certain responses to certain inquiries. Used correctly, consumers may not even be aware that they aren't dealing with an actual service representative.
Automated marketing can also help you maintain and manage your leads and prospects much more effectively. This affords you the opportunity to track and respond to the sales inquiries quickly and efficiently, and flag important leads for further review. This can save you time and money in the process, by saving you from wasting effort on weak leads. Marketing automation can help you weed out leads that aren't worth pursuing, or that don't need you to focus as much attention.
With an automated marketing software system, you can keep your entire team of employees on the same level with regards to your marketing leads. The chances of leads being accidentally ignored, or contacted multiple times, will be drastically reduced by using a good software system. Employees will be able to manage all of your company's leads from one central place on the web, and reduce the amount of time they waste, which will boost your marketing efficiency and save you money at the same time.
Marketing automation solutions are available with a wide variety of features to meet your company's specific needs. It has also become increasingly affordable within the past few years, making it an excellent investment and a great way to improve your current consumer strategies without making a big change to your marketing practices. Marketing automation will allow you to maintain continuous contact with your leads, help you better retain your current customers, and show you where you can make improvements in your marketing techniques. Even the most seasoned marketing expert can benefit from the features that marketing automation has to offer. For the best results, just remember that marketing automation software is by no means a replacement for your current consumer marketing (also referred as B2C) strategies, but rather, a way to increase your efficiency and ease the current struggles that many businesses deal with in regards to sales and marketing operations every day.
Paddu Govindaraj, architect of LeadPro, specializes in Email Marketing, Auto-responder, Lead Management and Marketing Automation Software solutions, tools and resources for Small and Medium Businesses to embrace online marketing. He provides design, consulting, customization and implementation services in Email Marketing and Lead Management areas. He blogs on Sales Lead Management Best Practices, Web Analytics and Email Marketing subjects.
Please take a look at the features of LeadPro to see how it will help you grow your business by visiting the LeadPro Lead Management and Email Marketing services website. Request a free consultation and find out how to use LeadPro marketing automation tool for capturing leads, nurturing prospects using email marketing, and automate lead tracking processes for your business.
Marketing automation is a popular method of using modern information technology tools and internet to automate the marketing process. Marketing planning, budgeting, interaction and management can all be automated to a great degree. Automating the marketing processes can boost productivity by making routine processes out of an otherwise long and tedious manual process, and add more possibilities to the mix, as well. Automating your consumer marketing strategies can have a serious positive impact on your customer base, and help you manage your time much more efficiently.
Effectively marketing to new customers and existing clients are both crucial to the longevity of your business. Consumers are more interested in finding the information they need quickly and efficiently, and aren't willing to waste time waiting for a response. Effective marketing automation tools can respond to consumers immediately, giving them exactly what they're looking for to pique their interest until they can get to a live person.
Perhaps the most appealing aspect of marketing automation is that it can deliver personalized answers instantaneously, something not even a marketing expert can do. Automated marketing can be customized to your company's specific needs, and be used to give certain responses to certain inquiries. Used correctly, consumers may not even be aware that they aren't dealing with an actual service representative.
Automated marketing can also help you maintain and manage your leads and prospects much more effectively. This affords you the opportunity to track and respond to the sales inquiries quickly and efficiently, and flag important leads for further review. This can save you time and money in the process, by saving you from wasting effort on weak leads. Marketing automation can help you weed out leads that aren't worth pursuing, or that don't need you to focus as much attention.
With an automated marketing software system, you can keep your entire team of employees on the same level with regards to your marketing leads. The chances of leads being accidentally ignored, or contacted multiple times, will be drastically reduced by using a good software system. Employees will be able to manage all of your company's leads from one central place on the web, and reduce the amount of time they waste, which will boost your marketing efficiency and save you money at the same time.
Marketing automation solutions are available with a wide variety of features to meet your company's specific needs. It has also become increasingly affordable within the past few years, making it an excellent investment and a great way to improve your current consumer strategies without making a big change to your marketing practices. Marketing automation will allow you to maintain continuous contact with your leads, help you better retain your current customers, and show you where you can make improvements in your marketing techniques. Even the most seasoned marketing expert can benefit from the features that marketing automation has to offer. For the best results, just remember that marketing automation software is by no means a replacement for your current consumer marketing (also referred as B2C) strategies, but rather, a way to increase your efficiency and ease the current struggles that many businesses deal with in regards to sales and marketing operations every day.
Paddu Govindaraj, architect of LeadPro, specializes in Email Marketing, Auto-responder, Lead Management and Marketing Automation Software solutions, tools and resources for Small and Medium Businesses to embrace online marketing. He provides design, consulting, customization and implementation services in Email Marketing and Lead Management areas. He blogs on Sales Lead Management Best Practices, Web Analytics and Email Marketing subjects.
Please take a look at the features of LeadPro to see how it will help you grow your business by visiting the LeadPro Lead Management and Email Marketing services website. Request a free consultation and find out how to use LeadPro marketing automation tool for capturing leads, nurturing prospects using email marketing, and automate lead tracking processes for your business.
Top Ten Opportunities to Use Testimonials to Power Up Your Marketing
By Kathleen Ann
When it comes to marketing, testimonials are as important to your business as your list. There is no substitute for authentic verification from a third party of what you offer. We all know people do business with people they know, like and trust and testimonials provide the perfect vehicle to deliver these essential ingredients in a truly authentic way.
Without testimonials you will have a tough time getting people to sign up for what you are offering or to part with their money.
Treat testimonials like gold. Seek them, collect them and use them at every opportunity.
Here's the top ten opportunities to use testimonials.
# 1 is on your website. Either on a particular page dedicated to testimonials or use the left and/or right margin and fill that with testimonials. Use pictures, audio or video for variety and impact.
# 2 is in a sales letter. Use throughout your sales letter, highlight them in boxes or filter into body copy to demonstrate or emphasise important aspects or benefits.
# 3 is in your newsletter. You could feature a testimonial to support your article or special promotion or simply have a little testimonial snippet. It might just be two sentences or part of a testimonial. Mix it up for variety.
# 4 is on the front and back cover of your information product. This is extremely valuable space as it will support the sale as well as re-enforce the product after the sale because whether shippable or downloadable it will be in the clients hands and read many times.
# 5 is woven into your articles. This is a subtle way to maximize the use of testimonials that will gently resonate with the reader. Weave them into your articles and quote clients to support a particular benefit or point you want to make or as part of a story you are telling.
# 6 is on a postcard or direct mail piece. Whether a solo mailing or part of a campaign, testimonials bring that third party endorsement right into the letter box . Keep it short and relevant and capitalize on this tangible, personal communication.
# 7 is in an email promotion. When you send out a promotional email for your preview call or sales page, you can use a testimonial one of two ways. Either use an outright quote or even better, as part of a before and after story to demonstrate your point.
# 8 is on your free articles page. If you have a dedicated page for free articles or resources, load it with testimonials to encourage people to sign-up to your list.
# 9 is on flyers, brochures or leave behinds. Whether mailing or handing out at networking opportunities a tangible item is a great place to feature testimonials.
# 10 is on the back of your business card. This is prime real-estate and will be read by everyone you hand your card to and most likely will be referred to more than once. Especially powerful place to use a celebrity endorsement.
In a nutshell, you want a testimonial on everything. Every product or service that you offer. Use them whenever and wherever possible and utilize every medium to exploit them to their full potential. You always need them and can never have too many.
Direct response marketing expert Kathleen Ann is the "Marketing Champion for Small Business and entrepreneurs". Delivering simple techniques and tools you can use to increase sales and profits. Sign up for her free audio workshop "7 Steps to Advertising Success" http://www.PowerUpYourMarketing.com
When it comes to marketing, testimonials are as important to your business as your list. There is no substitute for authentic verification from a third party of what you offer. We all know people do business with people they know, like and trust and testimonials provide the perfect vehicle to deliver these essential ingredients in a truly authentic way.
Without testimonials you will have a tough time getting people to sign up for what you are offering or to part with their money.
Treat testimonials like gold. Seek them, collect them and use them at every opportunity.
Here's the top ten opportunities to use testimonials.
# 1 is on your website. Either on a particular page dedicated to testimonials or use the left and/or right margin and fill that with testimonials. Use pictures, audio or video for variety and impact.
# 2 is in a sales letter. Use throughout your sales letter, highlight them in boxes or filter into body copy to demonstrate or emphasise important aspects or benefits.
# 3 is in your newsletter. You could feature a testimonial to support your article or special promotion or simply have a little testimonial snippet. It might just be two sentences or part of a testimonial. Mix it up for variety.
# 4 is on the front and back cover of your information product. This is extremely valuable space as it will support the sale as well as re-enforce the product after the sale because whether shippable or downloadable it will be in the clients hands and read many times.
# 5 is woven into your articles. This is a subtle way to maximize the use of testimonials that will gently resonate with the reader. Weave them into your articles and quote clients to support a particular benefit or point you want to make or as part of a story you are telling.
# 6 is on a postcard or direct mail piece. Whether a solo mailing or part of a campaign, testimonials bring that third party endorsement right into the letter box . Keep it short and relevant and capitalize on this tangible, personal communication.
# 7 is in an email promotion. When you send out a promotional email for your preview call or sales page, you can use a testimonial one of two ways. Either use an outright quote or even better, as part of a before and after story to demonstrate your point.
# 8 is on your free articles page. If you have a dedicated page for free articles or resources, load it with testimonials to encourage people to sign-up to your list.
# 9 is on flyers, brochures or leave behinds. Whether mailing or handing out at networking opportunities a tangible item is a great place to feature testimonials.
# 10 is on the back of your business card. This is prime real-estate and will be read by everyone you hand your card to and most likely will be referred to more than once. Especially powerful place to use a celebrity endorsement.
In a nutshell, you want a testimonial on everything. Every product or service that you offer. Use them whenever and wherever possible and utilize every medium to exploit them to their full potential. You always need them and can never have too many.
Direct response marketing expert Kathleen Ann is the "Marketing Champion for Small Business and entrepreneurs". Delivering simple techniques and tools you can use to increase sales and profits. Sign up for her free audio workshop "7 Steps to Advertising Success" http://www.PowerUpYourMarketing.com
The Sales and Marketing Relationship
By Rivers Corbett
Sales and marketing, two parts of business that are so different yet need to be connected to each other and some point or end. Sales people and marketing people are always in different worlds, it's like the jocks and the nerds (I wont say which is which, that's up to you). The school isn't going to be complete without either one missing and your business won't be either.
The job of the marketing people is seen as serious and analytical, they are the people always talking amongst each other, planning and playing with statistics and campaigns. Marketing is the path taken to get to the customers. There are many activities involved in marketing; cold canvassing, brand or corporate advertising, or more targeted types of marketing like direct response advertising and referrals. This is where the particular benefits of the product is explained to the customers. So all these different kinds of marketing are what get to the people, and these people are your leads. Leads are the connection between sales and marketing. Without leads, there is no connection, sales and marketing will never meet and business won't work out.
The sales people now are always on the run, going here and there, on the phone with customers or meeting them somewhere, always trying to grab some big deal that's going to bring the company to greater heights. What get's them moving is the leads they acquire from marketing. Now this doesn't mean sales is under marketing and is less important or is the department that needs a smaller budget. Marketing has no purpose with sales and sales can't occur without marketing. Both need to work together in order to reach maximum advantage.
This all looks so simple, but the bumps occur at the same place where sales and marketing meet. Leads are not all the same, you have good and bad leads. Depending on the leads, sometimes the marketing or the sales approach needs to be different. That's why sales and marketing departments or people always need to be in constant contact with each other. The more you understand the way the other team is working, the more you can use the knowledge to your advantage when getting to the lead.
Following up is an essential part of sales and marketing as well. It can be following up on a potential lead or following up on a previous customer, the communication should not stop after one transaction, it's a continuous process that requires sales and marketing to always be working hand in hand. Here's to your Success!
PS...Award Winning Global Entrepreneur, Rivers Corbett offers entrepreneurs an insight into what prevents most entrepreneurs from experiencing success. Rivers series 13 Fears of an Entrepreneur is must knowledge for any entrepreneur wanting to succeed at any level in business. Click on http://www.DiscoverTheKnowledge.com for more information and also receive his FREE gift of what started him on his global entrepreneurial journey.
Sales and marketing, two parts of business that are so different yet need to be connected to each other and some point or end. Sales people and marketing people are always in different worlds, it's like the jocks and the nerds (I wont say which is which, that's up to you). The school isn't going to be complete without either one missing and your business won't be either.
The job of the marketing people is seen as serious and analytical, they are the people always talking amongst each other, planning and playing with statistics and campaigns. Marketing is the path taken to get to the customers. There are many activities involved in marketing; cold canvassing, brand or corporate advertising, or more targeted types of marketing like direct response advertising and referrals. This is where the particular benefits of the product is explained to the customers. So all these different kinds of marketing are what get to the people, and these people are your leads. Leads are the connection between sales and marketing. Without leads, there is no connection, sales and marketing will never meet and business won't work out.
The sales people now are always on the run, going here and there, on the phone with customers or meeting them somewhere, always trying to grab some big deal that's going to bring the company to greater heights. What get's them moving is the leads they acquire from marketing. Now this doesn't mean sales is under marketing and is less important or is the department that needs a smaller budget. Marketing has no purpose with sales and sales can't occur without marketing. Both need to work together in order to reach maximum advantage.
This all looks so simple, but the bumps occur at the same place where sales and marketing meet. Leads are not all the same, you have good and bad leads. Depending on the leads, sometimes the marketing or the sales approach needs to be different. That's why sales and marketing departments or people always need to be in constant contact with each other. The more you understand the way the other team is working, the more you can use the knowledge to your advantage when getting to the lead.
Following up is an essential part of sales and marketing as well. It can be following up on a potential lead or following up on a previous customer, the communication should not stop after one transaction, it's a continuous process that requires sales and marketing to always be working hand in hand. Here's to your Success!
PS...Award Winning Global Entrepreneur, Rivers Corbett offers entrepreneurs an insight into what prevents most entrepreneurs from experiencing success. Rivers series 13 Fears of an Entrepreneur is must knowledge for any entrepreneur wanting to succeed at any level in business. Click on http://www.DiscoverTheKnowledge.com for more information and also receive his FREE gift of what started him on his global entrepreneurial journey.
Grabbing the Eye is Not All You Need to Do
By Janice Jenkins
What are print posters supposed to do? Color posters are large; they are often colorful with big lettering and large titles and quickly get a person's attention. They have to be, because unlike most other forms of marketing, if you are going with poster printing you are accepting that people cannot take your advertisement home with them.
This is the main drawback to color posters, and the reason why they have to get a person's attention quickly or else your advertising will not have much of an impact on people. But the thing of it is getting a person's attention is far from the only thing you have to do, and you need to consider what message you are sending, and what a person is going to walk away with.
In the quest to form an interesting poster companies have walked down all sorts of different paths. Some go for risqué images that might invoke a certain mood or feeling and will instantly get a persons interested. Others go for very unique images and colors that make a person wonder what that poster is all about. Still others use giant wording to get right to the point so people will be intrigued by what the poster has to say.
All of these things can lead to effective posters, but only if they then follow up with the proper amount of information, or if they give the right message. For some of those risqué posters you might have their attention, but are you attracting the right audience, are you delivering your message in the best way possible? Are you substituting solid information for flashy images instead?
I have seen plenty of posters before that made me look over, but once I was looking I did not know what the poster was trying to say or do. The images did not really convey any kind of specific message, and I was left scratching my head as to why this company paid for poster printing if they did not have something of significance to say with their poster.
Posters need to accomplish two goals, and only the first one is getting a person's attention. It is true that if no one bothers to look over no one will ever read your message, but do not allow that to confuse you into thinking that you need to substitute a solid advertising theme for a catchy image instead.
You might simply run your posters by a group of people to see what they take away from them. Do they understand the message you are trying to push, or are they just seeing the image without understanding why the image is there?
Be sure that both image and message work well together and that both are delivering what you want them to. This is what the best kind of advertisements is always going to do.
Janice Jenkins is a writer for a marketing company in Chicago, IL. Mostly into marketing research, Janice started writing articles early 2007 to impart her knowledge to individuals new to the marketing industry.
For comments and inquiries about the article visit: Print Posters, Color Posters.
What are print posters supposed to do? Color posters are large; they are often colorful with big lettering and large titles and quickly get a person's attention. They have to be, because unlike most other forms of marketing, if you are going with poster printing you are accepting that people cannot take your advertisement home with them.
This is the main drawback to color posters, and the reason why they have to get a person's attention quickly or else your advertising will not have much of an impact on people. But the thing of it is getting a person's attention is far from the only thing you have to do, and you need to consider what message you are sending, and what a person is going to walk away with.
In the quest to form an interesting poster companies have walked down all sorts of different paths. Some go for risqué images that might invoke a certain mood or feeling and will instantly get a persons interested. Others go for very unique images and colors that make a person wonder what that poster is all about. Still others use giant wording to get right to the point so people will be intrigued by what the poster has to say.
All of these things can lead to effective posters, but only if they then follow up with the proper amount of information, or if they give the right message. For some of those risqué posters you might have their attention, but are you attracting the right audience, are you delivering your message in the best way possible? Are you substituting solid information for flashy images instead?
I have seen plenty of posters before that made me look over, but once I was looking I did not know what the poster was trying to say or do. The images did not really convey any kind of specific message, and I was left scratching my head as to why this company paid for poster printing if they did not have something of significance to say with their poster.
Posters need to accomplish two goals, and only the first one is getting a person's attention. It is true that if no one bothers to look over no one will ever read your message, but do not allow that to confuse you into thinking that you need to substitute a solid advertising theme for a catchy image instead.
You might simply run your posters by a group of people to see what they take away from them. Do they understand the message you are trying to push, or are they just seeing the image without understanding why the image is there?
Be sure that both image and message work well together and that both are delivering what you want them to. This is what the best kind of advertisements is always going to do.
Janice Jenkins is a writer for a marketing company in Chicago, IL. Mostly into marketing research, Janice started writing articles early 2007 to impart her knowledge to individuals new to the marketing industry.
For comments and inquiries about the article visit: Print Posters, Color Posters.
Business Gifts - Perfect For a Raft of Scenarios
By Imogen Brown
There are various reasons why company executives utilise promotional products. The major one, though, is to enhance or solidify a customer relationship. If you have business dealings with a client that extends over many years, you gift corporate branded business gifts to say thanks to that customer for their loyalty to your business. You might also want to give a business gift when a brand new customer begins to spend money with you. You might also want to distribute a promotional business gift to show your appreciation. In fact, you may even think about passing out promotional business gifts to your staff.
Informing people, including your colleagues, know that you value them and their custom is a major part of the relationship process. It is human nature to want to feel appreciated and it is not really that tough to make someone a long standing customer or employee, just by handing them a token of your appreciation.
So when do you decide to hand out these corporate business gifts? Is there a rule of thumb to help you to determine when you purchase corporate business gifts and distribute them? The answer to these questions is yes, there are some key times when corporate gifting is appropriate. Set out below is a good guide you can use. Promotional gifts are a good idea when:
1. You need to kick off some competition and challenge employees to stretch to make a quarterly or monthly target so you arrange what is universally known as an Incentive Program. Incentive Programs, when perfectly put together create a healthy sense of competition and frequently improve moral. If you peek into Incentive Programs you will find there are in effect two types:
1) you purchase a business promotional gift or reward and it is won by the first employee who meets the target you put before them, and
2) you start a program where each and every employee who meets the target is rewarded the business gift.
The choice of promotional gift(s) you buy depends on how many you are intending on distribute. If you are gifting only a single product you can purchase a proportionally more costly corporate gift; for instance a three - day excursion somewhere or tickets to a concert etc. If you are intending to provide numerous people with the corporate gift, you may need to go for those that are not as costly.
2. An alternative time, when promotional gifts might be appropriate, is during various holidays. You need to do this carefully as it would be culturally insane to offer Xmas promotional business gifts if you have members of staff or clients who are not Christian.
3. Thanking clients and employee birthdays is another time when business gifts can be handed out. If you are handing out a business gift for a birthday to a member of staff, you must make sure that you do the same for all employees. Nothing will lower moral faster than treating one member of staff different than the others. If you are handing out client's corporate gifts on their birthdays, you could consider vouchers for a reduction off of their next purchase.
4. We all like to thank members of staff who are retiring and a corporate retirement product is an excellent way to say goodbye and thanks. If you have a sizable company, you may start up a variety of different types of retirement promotional for various numbers of years served. It would be unprofessional to give someone who had been with the company for 25 years the same keychain that the retiree who has been with the organisation 2 years receives.
Without a shadow of a doubt, there really are no absolute, written in stone, times when promotional gifts should be distributed. It is a matter of what suits what organisation best.
Imogen Brown is the marketing manager for Clickpromogifts one of the UK's premier suppliers of promotional keyrings and promotional keyrings.
There are various reasons why company executives utilise promotional products. The major one, though, is to enhance or solidify a customer relationship. If you have business dealings with a client that extends over many years, you gift corporate branded business gifts to say thanks to that customer for their loyalty to your business. You might also want to give a business gift when a brand new customer begins to spend money with you. You might also want to distribute a promotional business gift to show your appreciation. In fact, you may even think about passing out promotional business gifts to your staff.
Informing people, including your colleagues, know that you value them and their custom is a major part of the relationship process. It is human nature to want to feel appreciated and it is not really that tough to make someone a long standing customer or employee, just by handing them a token of your appreciation.
So when do you decide to hand out these corporate business gifts? Is there a rule of thumb to help you to determine when you purchase corporate business gifts and distribute them? The answer to these questions is yes, there are some key times when corporate gifting is appropriate. Set out below is a good guide you can use. Promotional gifts are a good idea when:
1. You need to kick off some competition and challenge employees to stretch to make a quarterly or monthly target so you arrange what is universally known as an Incentive Program. Incentive Programs, when perfectly put together create a healthy sense of competition and frequently improve moral. If you peek into Incentive Programs you will find there are in effect two types:
1) you purchase a business promotional gift or reward and it is won by the first employee who meets the target you put before them, and
2) you start a program where each and every employee who meets the target is rewarded the business gift.
The choice of promotional gift(s) you buy depends on how many you are intending on distribute. If you are gifting only a single product you can purchase a proportionally more costly corporate gift; for instance a three - day excursion somewhere or tickets to a concert etc. If you are intending to provide numerous people with the corporate gift, you may need to go for those that are not as costly.
2. An alternative time, when promotional gifts might be appropriate, is during various holidays. You need to do this carefully as it would be culturally insane to offer Xmas promotional business gifts if you have members of staff or clients who are not Christian.
3. Thanking clients and employee birthdays is another time when business gifts can be handed out. If you are handing out a business gift for a birthday to a member of staff, you must make sure that you do the same for all employees. Nothing will lower moral faster than treating one member of staff different than the others. If you are handing out client's corporate gifts on their birthdays, you could consider vouchers for a reduction off of their next purchase.
4. We all like to thank members of staff who are retiring and a corporate retirement product is an excellent way to say goodbye and thanks. If you have a sizable company, you may start up a variety of different types of retirement promotional for various numbers of years served. It would be unprofessional to give someone who had been with the company for 25 years the same keychain that the retiree who has been with the organisation 2 years receives.
Without a shadow of a doubt, there really are no absolute, written in stone, times when promotional gifts should be distributed. It is a matter of what suits what organisation best.
Imogen Brown is the marketing manager for Clickpromogifts one of the UK's premier suppliers of promotional keyrings and promotional keyrings.
Maximize Marketing Tools For Business Growth
By Joan Marcus
In today's difficult economy, you need to find the most cost-effective ways to grow your business if you want to succeed. When you develop marketing tools, from websites to brochures, electronic newsletters to direct mail, maximize their value. Here's how:
Develop a hard-hitting message. Your prospects and clients need to know three things about your products and services to make a purchase: what need or pain point you address, your solution to their problem or need and what makes your solution better than other options. Summarize these thoughts in a memorable statement of 25 words or less. Use this message in all of your marketing tools as well as in networking situations.
Amplify your story. Your marketing message is the core of what you do and why you believe customers should do business with you. Your message should elicit questions and spark a desire on the part of customers and prospects to learn more. Amplify your story by answering these questions. Use this copy in a variety of ways, such as on your website and in brochures, newsletters, email campaigns, proposals and presentations.
Develop a professional look. At the very minimum, every company should have a professionally designed logo with standardized colors. You should have your logo saved in an electronic format that allows you to use it in email and other programs that you use on a regular basis. Your marketing tools - print and website - should complement one another, in message, style and color. Use the "cringe" test to honestly evaluate your marketing tools. If you cringe every time you need to use your logo, hand out a brochure or send someone to your website, your marketing tools need an overhaul.
Be open to new perspectives. Change is the only constant in life. If you are marketing your company the same way you were ten years ago, you are probably missing out on a lot of opportunities. While your core product or service may be the same, find new ways to tell your story. You will be glad that you did.
Copyright 2008. Joan B. Marcus Communications LLC
May be reprinted with the following, in full: Joan B. Marcus, president of Joan B. Marcus Communications LLC, is a pro in all forms of writing -- from website copy to grant proposals, brochures to electronic newsletters. She helps small businesses and nonprofit organizations achieve their goals by developing and delivering their marketing message with impact. Sign up for a free newsletter and learn more about Joan B. Marcus Communications at http://joanbmarcuscommunications.com
In today's difficult economy, you need to find the most cost-effective ways to grow your business if you want to succeed. When you develop marketing tools, from websites to brochures, electronic newsletters to direct mail, maximize their value. Here's how:
Develop a hard-hitting message. Your prospects and clients need to know three things about your products and services to make a purchase: what need or pain point you address, your solution to their problem or need and what makes your solution better than other options. Summarize these thoughts in a memorable statement of 25 words or less. Use this message in all of your marketing tools as well as in networking situations.
Amplify your story. Your marketing message is the core of what you do and why you believe customers should do business with you. Your message should elicit questions and spark a desire on the part of customers and prospects to learn more. Amplify your story by answering these questions. Use this copy in a variety of ways, such as on your website and in brochures, newsletters, email campaigns, proposals and presentations.
Develop a professional look. At the very minimum, every company should have a professionally designed logo with standardized colors. You should have your logo saved in an electronic format that allows you to use it in email and other programs that you use on a regular basis. Your marketing tools - print and website - should complement one another, in message, style and color. Use the "cringe" test to honestly evaluate your marketing tools. If you cringe every time you need to use your logo, hand out a brochure or send someone to your website, your marketing tools need an overhaul.
Be open to new perspectives. Change is the only constant in life. If you are marketing your company the same way you were ten years ago, you are probably missing out on a lot of opportunities. While your core product or service may be the same, find new ways to tell your story. You will be glad that you did.
Copyright 2008. Joan B. Marcus Communications LLC
May be reprinted with the following, in full: Joan B. Marcus, president of Joan B. Marcus Communications LLC, is a pro in all forms of writing -- from website copy to grant proposals, brochures to electronic newsletters. She helps small businesses and nonprofit organizations achieve their goals by developing and delivering their marketing message with impact. Sign up for a free newsletter and learn more about Joan B. Marcus Communications at http://joanbmarcuscommunications.com
How to Keep an in Sync - Marketing and Product Development
By Kaye Marks
In any company communication can be a difficult thing to achieve, and different departments regularly seem to avoid talking to each other if at all possible. Often this can work just fine, because most departments do not have anything to do with each other, but for marketing, you might be facing some very painful results if you are not careful.
Just to skim the surface, a loosely knitted communication network in the office might cause problems if you promote a new product and send out a huge postcard printing campaign that you start getting inquiries for which you get confused looks from your employees. Do you get the picture?
Nowhere is this more prevalent than when you are introducing a new product, and I have seen so many blunders based on bad communication before and it is rather sad each time it happens. The results can hurt a company a lot and waste them plenty of cash.
The problems almost always come from the development and release of the product being out of sync with the marketing for it. For any new product release, you want to have your marketing out in the public ahead of the actual release, and then another prominent marketing push on the day of the release. You might get a large number of color postcards out to people a month before the product release, and all of those postcards are going to mention the date of the release.
But then the product gets pushed back. The development team needed more time and did not bother to tell the marketing department, so suddenly you have a lot of marketing material that says the wrong thing, and all of your planned marketing pushes for the day of the release need to quickly be scrapped or moved back. You have been boosting up support for a while and you have to turn around and tell your customers they have to suddenly wait.
All it takes to avoid this is to have regular, maybe even weekly, updates between the two sides. Be sure the development team is constantly aware of what kind of marketing pushes are going on, and that the marketing team knows of any potential delays before they send out those color postcards.
This also requires both sides to be completely up front with their progress, and that no one is making assumptions or overestimating the chance of a specific release date.
Really, communication should be a strong part of any kind of department and everyone should be well aware of what is going on in the other departments. I have found that sometimes the reason why a product gets delayed is because one subdivision of the development process is not properly communicating with everyone else.
Sit down before everything starts, get every single person working close to the project together, and make sure all of them have a strong system set up for communicating. Yes, it might take longer to do this, but in the end, you will avoid a lot of nasty pitfalls and have a smooth product release. All it takes is a little communication.
Kaye Z. Marks is an avid writer and follower of the developments in postcard printing or color postcard industry.
In any company communication can be a difficult thing to achieve, and different departments regularly seem to avoid talking to each other if at all possible. Often this can work just fine, because most departments do not have anything to do with each other, but for marketing, you might be facing some very painful results if you are not careful.
Just to skim the surface, a loosely knitted communication network in the office might cause problems if you promote a new product and send out a huge postcard printing campaign that you start getting inquiries for which you get confused looks from your employees. Do you get the picture?
Nowhere is this more prevalent than when you are introducing a new product, and I have seen so many blunders based on bad communication before and it is rather sad each time it happens. The results can hurt a company a lot and waste them plenty of cash.
The problems almost always come from the development and release of the product being out of sync with the marketing for it. For any new product release, you want to have your marketing out in the public ahead of the actual release, and then another prominent marketing push on the day of the release. You might get a large number of color postcards out to people a month before the product release, and all of those postcards are going to mention the date of the release.
But then the product gets pushed back. The development team needed more time and did not bother to tell the marketing department, so suddenly you have a lot of marketing material that says the wrong thing, and all of your planned marketing pushes for the day of the release need to quickly be scrapped or moved back. You have been boosting up support for a while and you have to turn around and tell your customers they have to suddenly wait.
All it takes to avoid this is to have regular, maybe even weekly, updates between the two sides. Be sure the development team is constantly aware of what kind of marketing pushes are going on, and that the marketing team knows of any potential delays before they send out those color postcards.
This also requires both sides to be completely up front with their progress, and that no one is making assumptions or overestimating the chance of a specific release date.
Really, communication should be a strong part of any kind of department and everyone should be well aware of what is going on in the other departments. I have found that sometimes the reason why a product gets delayed is because one subdivision of the development process is not properly communicating with everyone else.
Sit down before everything starts, get every single person working close to the project together, and make sure all of them have a strong system set up for communicating. Yes, it might take longer to do this, but in the end, you will avoid a lot of nasty pitfalls and have a smooth product release. All it takes is a little communication.
Kaye Z. Marks is an avid writer and follower of the developments in postcard printing or color postcard industry.
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