Mismatched Marketing Materials Could Be a Good Thing!

It's not uncommon for startups, with modest financing, to start small. The first set of business cards and first brochure represent an informed yet best guess starting point for the marketing message and brand image. As the business grows, more companion items are developed ranging from letterhead to promotional pieces on new and expanded products or services.

Actual operating experience demands flexibility to remold, reshape and refine the marketing plan over time.

The more successful the new business becomes, the more each successive component of its marketing efforts improves its message but also moves further away from the materials preceding it.

Most recognize this collection of mismatched marketing and branding materials as growing pains and come to understand they're good pains to have (but even better pains to eliminate).

For more information about moving forward from do-it-yourself driven to an assisted, focused and cohesive presentation of your business, write to us by Clicking here

Towels Can Help You "Absorb" Brand Recognition

When we think of towels an promotional products we routinely think of Golf Towels, especially for those of us who are golfers. Golf Towels come in a surprising variety of sizes and models with a variety of hooks, carabiners and other methods of attachment. There is truly a towel for every budget.

Decorating methods for towels have gone beyond mere screen printing and embroidery. Towels can be digitally printed in full process color, your logo can be woven as part of the towel itself (jacquard) and you can have tone on tone effect.

But surely golf isn't the only opportunity to grow your brand with a towel . I wonder…

New Antimicrobial Fitness Towels, pictured… Click here to eMail us for More Info

The Unanticipated Cost of Too Many Free Emails?

It is true – free multiplied by two is still free, but there are other potential costs to your email marketing efforts other than out of pocket cash.

Using broadcast emails to keep customers informed is growing in popularity on a daily basis and makes good sense when our time spent online is ever increasing.

Is there a point of diminishing returns for email blasts?

In a blog post by Dana Blankenhorn (http://www.clickz.com/835961) on the problems with email marketing he asks "Who killed opt-in email?" While the point is pretty obvious today when we continually get included on email lists we never requested, he made that point in January 25, 2001 – nine years to the day! Point is, the volume of email ads isn't going down any time soon. Even when we opt-in the condition persists.

My completely unscientific and informal survey convinces me that the primary reason people unsubscribe from a companies email list is because of the sheer volume and frequency of the emails. Companies who would never consider telephoning a customer two times a week, week in and week out, will think nothing of emailing the same customer twice each week and even multiple times in one day.

If you send too many emails to market your business, causing people to unsubscribe, the cost is the complete loss of email as a path to that potential customer.

By all means, jump on the "bandwagon" – just don't make your concerts so frequent that they are no longer looked forward to.

Promotional Products with High Utility Make a Difference

When promotional products are utilized by your customers your brand is reinforced and enhanced. Usefulness, however, is not relied upon in a vacuum. We not only evaluate the overall usefulness of a particular product, but also
how the circumstances of its use compliments our product or service. As an example, a company that sells tires would likely benefit more from a promotional item used in a car as opposed to a household item. Likewise, a supplier of services provided in the home may benefit most from a product used in the home.

Then there are cross over products that are so useful on a daily basis that they provide high levels of brand building no matter what the product or service.

One such product is a Sticky Pad that keeps a cell phone, sun glasses or the like from slipping off the car dashboard. The soft, forever sticky, gel pads come in seven bright translucent colors, leave no residue, renew their grip with soap and water and come individually packaged with instructions. Click here to eMail us for More Info

Coffee Mugs Can "Perk" Up Your Brand

The National Coffee Association of the USA reports that "Daily consumption of coffee beverages among consumers remained consistent in 2009 with 54% of the overall adult population partaking." Factor in tea and hot chocolate and you have a lot of people using mugs.

Every business benefits from positive name recognition. Every business should reinforce their existence in the minds of their customers and prospective customers on an ongoing basis. (Even Coke, long one of the most recognized brands worldwide, continues an aggressive advertising campaign to maintain that level of recognition.)

An office environment utilizing numerous conference rooms and hosting clients on a regular basis is a natural for tasteful coffee mugs with the company logo. A radio station promoting a drive time program could benefit from a Travel Mug. The newly designed biodegradable travel mug (shown) is dishwasher safe and Made in USA! Click here to eMail for More Info

Coffee Mugs, although the perfect vehicle in many situations, are not everyone's answer. The key to implementing any promotional product into an overall marketing program is how the relevance, utility and message carried by the item accomplishes the goals of the plan.

Promotional products custom tailored to your specific needs are the result of consultation with a promotional products professional.

Print Design Tips for the Non Designer

1. No matter what anyone tells you – do not put two spaces after a period. That practice served a purpose in the typewriter era when all characters were the same width. With current computer generated true type, postscript or open type, the characters vary in the amount of space they occupy so the eye does not need more than one space after a period to identify the end of one sentence and the beginning of another.
2. When using black type over a tinted background, a 20% tint is a good rule of thumb. Depending on the final printing device you should find the right percentage within the range from 15% or 25%.
3. Resist the impulse to use all or many of your favorite typefaces. There is seldom any benefit from utilizing more than two fonts in any given print project.
4. When putting type inside a tinted box or a box with a solid rule, keep the type away from the edges. (indent all 4 sides)
5. Avoid using ALL CAPS almost always (never say never) except never use any script typeface in all caps, never - ever.
6. A quick and easy way to access your company logo is to right click on it and download its image from your website. Don't do it. The version of your logo used on your website is geared for the 72 ppi computer screen and is not suitable for a quality print project. What you need to get is the original version of the logo which would be in eps, pdf or adobe illustrator format (essentially variations on the same format). This format will look sharp and clean at any size used.
7. Although paper is routinely cut and packaged to 8 ½ x 11, there is no rule that says every marketing piece, form or flyer has to be on that size paper. Go green, save paper and use a size that fits the message. (Double your money with two 8 ½ x 5 ½ flyers out of each 8 ½ x 11 sheet.
8. Resist the temptation to use more words than necessary to make the point. Write your copy then trim it.
Finally, and perhaps most important after all that hard work...
9. When you are creating documents to distribute by email make sure that no matter who views the document they will see it exactly as you created it. Insist on a work flow which enables you to ultimately create PDF files. Anyone and everyone can view those files exactly as you intended with Adobe Acrobat or the Free Acrobat Reader.
10. If your project is destined to be printed by a commercial printer, using software that is up to the challenge will save both you and your printer lots of headaches. Adobe InDesign has every feature you could ever need to create credible projects. There is a learning curve with InDesign but better to spend time on learning than troubleshooting issues created by lesser software packages. Added benefit: seamlessly export your creation to a PDF file so all will see it as you created it.

Restaurant "Specials" When No Price Given (A Mild Rant)

The common wisdom regarding those oral restaurant specials that offer up every minute detail but the price is that the price is not a selling point. Those specials might be more accurately called featured items and very often shock the diner when the check comes. While many people will ask the price and thus prevent sticker shock, many more do not ask for any number of reasons.

Some assume the price is high and ignore the "specials", some find it embarrassing so do not ask the price and also avoid the "special" while others don't ask, assume "special" pricing and are unpleasantly surprised when the check comes.

This all too common practice can be especially unfriendly when someone is hosting a number of diners.

When everything on a restaurant's menu routinely lists pricing there is no good reason why specials pricing should be concealed from customers nor should they be required to ask the price. There is no good purpose (from a customer standpoint) for concealing the price. Let's all chip in to discourage this unfriendly business practice!

Call Me. My Phone Number is on My Coffee Mug.

When I posed the question on LinkedIn, "You are giving a Ceramic Coffee Mug to both existing customers at a scheduled open house of your new offices and to prospective customers on your first sales call. Should you imprint you telephone number along with your logo?" I fully expected a rash of NO's but was instead surprised to find many replies answering in the affirmative.

Actually, the bulk of the answers were essentially,

 "Yes-it's advertising and you want them to reach you, so both your web address and phone number should be on there."

My answer is NO for the same reason that I wouldn't put a phone number on a logoed shirt or hat, a Banner promoting a company's sponsorship of an event or a golf ball, to name just a few (I agree with the website address).

Yes, they are all "advertising," but they are not all yellow page ads. Keep in mind that this is being given at an open house and is not a purely promotional item like a calendar that sticks on the computer monitor, a keyboard or a nail file.

Its purpose is to both thank existing customers and entice potential customers to evaluate your product or service further. Existing customers know your phone number and first timers are not likely to rush back to their office and dial your mug. They might use the web address from your mug to get more information about your company. Your web address says, "Find out more about us," while your phone number says Call Me - prematurely.

Branding is the steady process of building credibility for and recognition of your name, product or service over time. Every form of advertising (or contact with potential customers) need not end with a call to buy, buy, buy, or your audience will be inclined to go bye, bye, bye.

With today's internet I can find the phone number of my 5th grade teacher, who retired 20 years ago and moved three times. If your marketing efforts haven't incentivized your potential customer to find your business card or pull your phone number off your website, your real marketing shortfalls are beyond the failure to put your phone number on your coffee mugs.

Shortfalls of Computer Software Self Training

Gone are the days when business productivity software programs (spreadsheet, word processing, graphics, page layout …) were so limited in features that they came with printed manuals that could be read and mastered in just a few short sittings.

Today's feature rich applications arrive with online help files boasting 600, 700, 800 pages and more. Our preferred method of "learning" these programs is to consult the electronic manual as and to the extent needed to complete the current assigned task. The upside to this method is avoiding the substantial investment of hours necessary to master the entire program. The downside is the amount of computing power we leave on the table, the number and breadth of features we could benefit from greatly if we only knew they existed.

Three solutions:
1. Do nothing. Ignorance is bliss.
2. Read the manual cover to cover, supplement with off site courses and on online training.
3. Based on the description of the specific types of projects you need to produce, have a qualified trainer create a custom training program for you, at your site, with the same hardware and computing resources you will use to put the truing to use.

For customized, on-site training in Adobe InDesign in the Greater Cleveland Area, write to print4you@gmail.com

XIII Commandments of Good Customer Service

I. Thou shalt honor the promises that are made to close the sale (if thoust wants repeat business).

II. Thou shalt be reachable so that no phone shall ring long before either a human being or, at worst, voice mail picks up the call.

III. Thou shalt promptly return calls with answers or otherwise confirm receipt of the call with an estimate of when answers will be provided.

IV. Thou shalt treat customers the way thou would want to be treated when thou is a customer.

V. Thou shalt truly enjoy serving the needs of thou customers or thou shall find a different way to make a living.

VI. Thou shall use words like shall, will, is, yes, no and certainly and avoid words like should, might, maybe, sometimes and usually.

VII. Thou shalt treat every inquiry with respect even if there be no immediate benefit, knowing that what shall go around - shall eventually come around.

VIII. Thou shalt be educated on thou product or service so as to provide bona fide advice and guidance to customers and potential customers.

IX. Thou shalt not point a customer to a different area of the store with a vague reference to the proper area but shall escort them to the desired location (or the equivalent thereof to your business).

X. Thou shalt know that the way thou handles problems is one of the greatest measures of the true quality of thou service.

XI. Thou shalt understand that receiving no complaints is not a measure of good service. Receiving compliments is.

XII. Thous shalt not concern thyself with the order of commandments since all should be followed.

XIII. Thou shall think of other commandments and post them here as comment, as there can never be too much customer service!

Do You Really Give Good Service?

Feel free to correct me, but I don't think anyone has ever promised bad service in their marketing materials. It's pretty obvious to every business person, either on or off the planet, that good service is essential if the business goal is to "live long and prosper".

Why then, if good service is so important, is it so much the exception rather than the rule of thumb?

What does your company actually do that qualifies as good service?

Do you evaluate, on an ongoing and formalized basis, the quality of your service?

Do you follow the "no news is good news model" and assume if you don't get a complaint that all is good and well?

The next post will be the 13 Commandments of Good Service

Does Your Color Logo Look Good in Black & White?

So you have this great logo designed. Aside from making your company look great, it is a constant reminder to you of your two favorite colors, a rich dark blue and jet black. So how does it play with black and white?

Who cares you say. "I didn't have a color logo designed so I could use it in black and white!" Fair enough — but you're going to be using in black and white more than you might think.

If you're still sending faxes (are faxes so yesterday yet?) your color logo comes out black on the other end. If the visual separation of the elements of your logo is achieved solely with the change of colors and you have two dark (or two light) colors, or two colors that "appear" similar to the fax scanner, the logo will likely be an indiscernible blob in the recipients hands.

Another instance where you will want to have a version of your logo that will play well in a single color is on any number of products you use to promote your brand. While it is true that two, three or four color imprints are routinely available on most promotional products, there are many where the additional cost of the colors in excess of one are not justified by a cost benefit analysis. Nonetheless you want your logo to look sharp. It is an option you are certain to benefit from sooner than later. Every logo needs to be available in a single color version.

Note: (The cost of embroidered corporate apparel is unaffected by the number of colors, but the decorating costs of silk screened T's and Sweats are affected.)

Left Handed Coffee Mugs

Let's face it. the world doesn't exactly go out of its way to accommodate left handers. Lefties get no special treatment unless they can pitch a 90 mph fastball. On the golf course, when they walk up to address the ball, there is always someone telling them the hole is the other way. Four left handed diners seated in a booth- just not fair. At least these south paws can enjoy a genuine left handed coffee mug!

You've never seen a left handed mug?

The anatomy of an imprinted promotional coffee mug offers three imprint choices. It can be printed with a wrap, much of the area from one side of the handle to the other but that most often doesn't offer the best or easiest to read imprint. The front ( also called side A) is what you see when the handle is held in your right hand. The other or back side (side B) can be imprinted but is often left blank to increase the potential for the cups use. The coffee drinker can use the mug without advertising the logo to those sitting across their desk or conference table.

But alas, on that next order for mugs, while you will have the bulk printed on side A, consider having some percentage printed on Side B, reserving them for what will almost definitely guarantee grateful left handed recipients.