How Innovative Promotional Products Can Get Consumers Working For You

Writen by Alan Roberts

There are more promotional products out there than you can shake a stick at so how do you choose the one thats right for you?

The key is to find a product that, whilst leaving a lasting impression, fits harmoniously with your company's profile – should you go for quirky and fun or conservative and practical. Many companies find the plethora of products available daunting to say the least and turn to standard promotional fare to save time.

This can be a big mistake. These items say alot about your business and the way you present yourself and are as important as any other form of advertising. The goal should be to find the best product available for the budget allowed – always bearing in mind that there are costs involved with distributing these products to consumers. In addition, try to choose products that are useful and liable to be seen often by your target audience.

Most important of all, though, is to distribute a product that gets the targeted consumer's attention, holds their attention and gets them working for you without even knowing it. In short – use a product that is worthy of being shown to others.

One of the most innovative promotional products falling into that category is the Flagpen and is a shining example of what can be acheived with a little lateral thinking.

The quirky ballpoint pen cunningly hides a full-colour, double-sided promotional information sheet within the barrel. The sheet is 180mm by 70mm, onto which an incredible amount of information can be printed - combining the two sides together you have almost the equivalent of a full-colour 1/3 page magazine advert coiled up inside the barrel of a pen!

The beauty of items like the Flagpen lies in the self-promotion of the product itself – it works for you!

When a potential client sees a print advert, they alone see it. When they receive an innovative promotional product, they show it to others because it is such a quirky, fascinating product. These items get kept for weeks, months, years and shown or seen by any number of people – almost all of which would not otherwise have been privy to your message.

For the same cost as a single print advertisment or flyer, you could hand out items like the Flagpen and reach a much larger audience. Each time the pen is used, your information is at their fingertips – whether a special offer, calendar, map, price list, timetable, fixture lists or any other information.

Of course its one thing to grab their attention but it's up to you to make the most of it. The message needs to be clear, concise and, above all, liable to impress the consumer enough to do business with you. Advertising and promotion is nothing without a return on the investment and a quirky, practical and interesting promotional product is consistently proven to reach a far wider audience than any print advertisement.

More information on the amazing Flagpens can be found at www.flagpens.com

Build Your Business Through Networking

Writen by Joe Love

Here's one of the most important success principles you'll ever learn. It is this: The more people you know and who know you in a favorable way, the more successful you will be in your business or profession.

When you look around at the most successful people in your city, industry, or profession, you will find that they are the ones who are known and respected by the greatest number of people. One of the hallmarks of highly successful men and women, and most self-made millionaires, is that they network continually, everywhere they go and with almost everyone they meet. By learning and developing the skill of networking you can move ahead faster, rise further, and accomplish more in a shorter period of time.

Networking should be an integral part of any marketing plan. Networking produces word of mouth, which in turn produces referrals. Every businessperson and professional knows that word of mouth is the most effective and least expensive approach to attracting new business. Yet few people really understand how they can create it.

Networking is making contact to establish relationships that can lead to business. Sometimes the path to business is direct; other times it is indirect leading to referrals. Often times the person who you meet at a networking event will know someone else who needs your products or services.

Many people go to networking events hoping to business right then and there, but it very rarely works that way. Business is not done directly at networking event. When you attend a networking event, your goal should be to meet two or three people, find a reason to follow-up, and start a relationship. Any future business will come from an indirect referral, someone they know who might need your products or services.

Networks often have a greater impact than their size might indicate. Each member of a network knows dozens of people who, in turn, know dozens of others, and so on. Because of this mushroom effect, a group of 30 or 40 people might know literally thousands of other people throughout the local, national, and even international business community. The possibilities are enormous. Being a member of a well-organized network is like having dozens of salespeople working for you all the time. Each referring prospective customers your way.

Before you begin to network, you must have a positive attitude. When you join a networking group, remain focused on the reason why you're there. Too many people go to networking events and get caught up in nit-picking, such as "the speaker was mediocre," as so on. These factors are secondary to the quality of contacts you are making. Never loose sight of the reason why you're there.

It is also important to understand that people buy from people they know and trust. So to effectively network you must be a good listener. Listen to the people you meet to see how you might assist them in what they do. Giving first and giving more than receiving is a very important rule of networking.

Contacts to establish relationships that can lead to business, only happen when the relationship is mutually beneficial. Networking is giving first, and then receiving. If one party does all the giving, then the relationship will not last and the networking ends. Networking relationships takes work and cooperation by all parties involved.

Networking is not a skill you are born with, it is an acquired skill. It is developed through education, training, and practice. Many business people spend plenty of time trying to network, but very few spend any time trying to learn how to do it correctly. The way you learn to network is by reading books and listening to audio programs about networking, and by talking to other people who network well. And most importantly, practice what you learn.

Before you attend any networking event you must have clearly defined, realistic goals. Most people go to networking events with the goal of handing out as many business cards as they can. This is wrong. Your goal in networking should not be to pass out business cards. Your goal should be to receive as many business cards as you can. Your goal should be to make as many contacts and get as much information as you can that will lead to increased business.

At networking events, make sure your nametag identifies your company or profession. Always carry plenty of well-designed business cards with you. Use the backs of the cards you receive from others to make notes that will help your memory kick in about each individual. And, carry a card case with the cards of other people you network with, so you can hand one to anyone interested in their services.

When you attend a networking event, greet people, hand out your card, and then ask for their card. Introduce yourself in a way that is brief, effective, and memorable. Take the time to plan and rehearse your introduction so you can make the most out of your first 60 seconds. Prepare an easy-to-understand overview of what you do, or the product or service you offer.

Here's an example of a simple and effective introduction sequence you can use:

* Give your name.

* Give your business name or profession.

* Give a benefit statement about one particular product or service you offer that tells people what you do that benefits others.

* Then, get them to talk about themselves, and listen carefully.

The key to success in networking is follow-up. Just like any other form of marketing, it takes time to cultivate the relationship before a lead can be converted to a referral or an actual sale. You must follow-up with your new contact with an invitation to coffee, lunch, or an after-hours meeting. Always send a card, note, or e-mail to the people you've met within twenty-four hours after the event. Mentioning some key points from your initial contact in your follow-up note is a great relationship builder.

Always remember that the most successful people and companies are those that are the most trusted. Trust doesn't happen overnight. You must gain the confidence of other people by nurturing long-lasting relationships. Only then will you see a steady crop of new customers, referred by the people with whom you've networked.

What it really comes down to is this: You can have anything you want in business, or in life, if you're willing to help enough other people get what they want. It is a simple and time-tested universal law. Yet, it is still a mystery to so many people in business. When you send a few people a day out to help other businesses in your network, you'll find that the door also swings the other way: thousands of customers every year will go out of their way to buy from you, because they will be driven to your business through the power of networking.

Copyright© 2004 by Joe Love and JLM & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide

Joe Love draws on his 25 years of experience helping both individuals and companies build their businesses, increase profits, and achieve total success. A former ad agency executive and marketing consultant, Joe's work in personal development focuses on helping his clients identify hidden marketable assets that create windfall opportunities and profits, as well as sound personal happiness and peace.

Reach Joe at: joe@jlmandassociates.com

Read more articles and newsletters at: http://www.jlmandassociates.com

Follow Your Strategy

Writen by Adam Urbanski

Did you know that most solo-professionals hire the Cheshire Cat as their marketing consultant? Frankly that's the only conclusion I can come up with watching so many excited entrepreneurs eager to build a great business but ending up overwhelmed by too much information and frustrated by their lack of good results.

Remember Alice in the Wonderland facing a fork in the road and asking the Cheshire Cat for directions? More importantly remember the cat's answer? "If you don't know where you are going what doesn't matter which road you take?" I call this lack of clarity and not having a master marketing action plan a "hop and drop" strategy.

Have you ever seen a rabbit running away? Those creatures can't seem to run straight. They change directions with every hop! What does this have to do with your business? See if this sounds familiar:

Monday you read an article about attracting more clients with info-products. So off you go, spending most of the day brainstorming ideas and planning your first ebook or audio CD.

Tuesday you remember that submitting articles is a great way to build visibility. After a few hours of searching the net you've got a great list of article submission sites. Now you are ready to write your first few articles. But it's late in the day so you set your intentions to start fresh the next morning.

Wednesday you wake up with a brilliant idea to put together a new training program. Oh, this is going to be so great! People will be lining up to sign up. Maybe you could sell a license to others who could teach it. Yep! Easy money. You can already taste it. So you get busy developing a curriculum for your program, but mid-day you realize it going to take a bit more effort than you initially thought...

Thursday and Friday don't look much different. A whole week of perfect "hop and drop" and at the end you've accomplished… NOTHING! NADA! ZIP! Even though each of the tasks you began could have paid off handsomely if you stayed with it long enough, all you've got is a bunch of started projects, a lot frustration, feeling overwhelmed, and a massive headache!

Fortunately, outlining and following a master strategy before jumping into action can save you from wasting time and effort, and eliminate of lot of frustration. Here are a few tips to get you started:

1. Understand the difference between strategy, tactic, and action steps. For example, driving new business through networking is a strategy. Putting together your own networking group or attending meetings of other groups are tactics. Making a list of local groups, developing a good Audio Business Card™, writing a "pleasure meeting you" card or sending out an article or audio CD afterwards are all action steps.

2. Develop clear objectives. What exactly do you want to accomplish? Identify your goals, time-frames, investment of time and many required to implement your strategy, and the implementation model you'll follow. Calculate your possible maximum and minimum return on investment of time, money and effort. These are all critical elements and skipping just one of them may take you on a never-ending chase after a white elephant!

For example, one simple exercise I reveal in my Marketing Action Plan reveals if your existing model can even support your desired financial results. Most people never stop to take a look at this and end up beating their heads against the wall – wondering why they can't generate better results.

3. Identify your implementation tactics. There are thousands of things you could be doing right now. You probably already have more ideas than you can implement. That's why you often end up overwhelmed. Make a list of things you could be doing, than select your top three to five things and IMPLEMENT THEM COMPLETELY - ONE AT A TIME!

OK, STOP HERE for a moment and re-read this last sentence. Read it a few times until it sinks in how vital it is to your success. FINISH ONE THING AT A TIME!

4. Take action. One mediocre and poorly implemented idea is better than 100 brilliant ideas still locked in your head! Implementation beats perfection any day of the week.

Based on your desired results identify specific action steps that will be most effective in achieving your goals. Look for activities that will bring the biggest payoff for the least amount of effort. Start small and focus on quick implementation and completion!

5. Set milestones and measure your progress. How will you know you are getting closer to your goal? How will you know you are there when you arrive?

In your plan identify ways to measure your progress then check the reality against your plan at least weekly. If you are not moving forward as fast as planned – go back and re-evaluate your tactics and action steps. Then refocus on taking the right action again.

So stop this "hop and drop" nonsense. Tell the Cheshire Cat to "go pound sand", and quickly get the results you want following your own personal marketing action plan.

© 2006 Marketing Mentors. All Rights Reserved.

The author, Adam Urbanski, teaches service professionals and business owners how to develop marketing strategies that increase sales and profits. His website offers more how-to articles and free tips to create a winning marketing action plan at http://www.themarketingmentors.com

Great Marketing Is Like Making A Great Movie

Writen by Allison Bliss

KNOW YOUR AUDIENCE

The Oscars will be handed out soon, and it's a perfect time to keep this in mind: If you're a business owner or manager, it's wise to think of yourself as a great film director who's telling a story. Having directed films, stage, television, and stage productions we noticed that the principles of great directing or filmmaking apply exactly to great marketing.

OK, so you don't need the baseball cap or the megaphone like a film director. But in order to attract the right "audience," you do need to communicate something critical – the talents and services of your company. And, you need to connect with your audience – so they will appreciate what you have to offer.

Think about it: When you're positioning your company, you'll craft an intriguing 'script' which you know as 'promotional messages'. You're conveying the fact that you offer something of interest, you do it well, you've hired the best talent (even if Tom Cruise isn't available) and really connect emotionally with those who need your services.

In great drama, you want to evoke emotions and meaningful reactions in your audience to make them laugh or cry. In great marketing communications, you want your audience to buy. They won't, if they feel there is no compelling reason . . . just as they won't cry watching a film if the heroine dies and they simply don't relate to her — or if they're emotionally conflicted or confused.

CREATE THE BUZZ

Now consider the last film you absolutely loved. It gripped you, didn't it? You wanted to tell all your friends about it, because it had such an intriguing affect on you, right? In marketing, it's all about creating that "buzz" — you want to evoke that reaction in your audience (or target market) through your marketing materials, your print ads, TV commercials, presentations, networking, and of course … by doing great work, which offers lots of value!

In a film, the director carefully builds and develops each character so the audience can get to know her, to laugh with her or feel her pain, and to understand how she acts and reacts. In marketing, it's all about reaction — you want your audience to grow with you, to feel connected, and to relate to and trust in you. And you especially want them to learn about the enormously useful solutions you offer.

But, first you have to understand your audience. And that requires that you have in-depth knowledge of your existing clientele. In that way, you can attract more clients like the ones you already have and cherish, and enjoy helping.

FINDING YOUR IDEAL MARKET

We recommend a method for truly understanding your clients, and finding out what they value in the work you provide—having a third party interview them—but only one highly experienced in marketing interviews. When you fully understand what makes your clients tick (and more importantly, what they love – or don't love -- about doing business with you), you can promote those qualities to other potential markets.

In this investigative work many wonderful surprises emerge. You might find that your clients need other services you could offer, or that you are undervaluing your services and could easily raise your prices (this is actually a very common discovery). Also, you might find that a simple change to your invoice system would make everyone much happier — your "audience" will laugh instead of cry. Or, you might learn that even though you believe you offer lightning-fast response time, your clients don't perceive it that way. From this information, you can often make improvements that lead to significantly more income.

Generally, your clients won't share this information directly. Most humans want to please others, and steer clear of offering suggestions that might provoke an uncomfortable or unwelcome response. And sometimes clients are fearful of hurting your feelings. While this is understandable, you might be missing some valuable lessons your clients are dying to share with you, that could benefit your business enormously. Or maybe they just need some prompting to think more deeply about the real value your business offers so they can share that with you.

BREAK FROM HO-HUM MARKETING … IT'S TOO BORING!

Using the "great films as marketing" metaphor, think about how many classic films have taken radical departures from the ordinary … from "Schindler's List" to "The Wizard of Oz" to "Gone With the Wind." These movies were huge attention-getters in their day, and became major cultural influences. Don't you want your work to be recognized as a significant influence, too?

Once you break from ho-hum marketing, and learn to put your deeper beliefs and values into your promotion, a remarkable thing will happen: You will attract precisely those clients who really need and appreciate the products or services your company provides. In other words … once you know what your clients really value, making it available to them will be an incredibly simple process.

We firmly believe: "Knowledge is Bliss."

MARKETING IS AN INVESTMENT. SPEND IT WISELY.

Sometimes a company needs special tools to expand its marketing, promotion, or outreach. That's exactly why we've developed these Marketing Products Under $20 that will help busy business owners get what they need right away!

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Allison Bliss Consulting, the creator of "Marketing as a Spiritual Practice" method, rebels against misleading, pushy, spam-filled marketing offering Fortune 500 companies and entrepreneurs an integrated range of do-it-yourself marketing products & customized marketing strategy, plans, promotional materials, websites, and hands-on services.

Having studied with Frances Ford Coppola and other film greats, Bliss is a member of the Directors Guild of America where she crafted hundreds of films, tv shows, and commercials. She moved into marketing to help worthy businesses get noticed, and because she figured they needed her help more than Hollywood did. Her website offers tools to make marketing idiot-proof for under $20

Its A Marathon Not A Sprint

Writen by Larry Galler

Thirty-three years ago Heinz Ketchup lost their business with their biggest account, McDonalds. Since then they have been working to win it back. They lost McDonalds' business back in 1973 because there was a small tomato crop and, instead of shorting the supply of bottled ketchup, Heinz shipped less to the "Golden Arches." In the past few years they had some success when they won McDonald's business in parts of Europe and Asia, but they have yet to crack North America. Michael Hasco, the Heinz executive with the responsibility of capturing this significant business was quoted as saying, "I'm not giving up, it's a marathon, not a sprint."

I took that statement, "It's a marathon, not a sprint" as a lesson for myself and also for every businessperson.

In my practice I see business owners and executives that make one, two, three attempts at breaking into a new account, retrieving a lost account (like the Heinz / McDonalds story above), bringing out a successful new product, or creating a new process. They usually quit if the first few attempts don't bring the desired results. I hear all sorts of excuses, but I rarely see a long-term sustained effort. Everyone wants instant success, but if the target is big enough and the payoff worth the effort, think of business success in terms of a marathon event and, when that payoff comes it will have been worth the effort.

Sprints are exciting but ephemeral. They represent a tremendous amount of energy expended quickly. Marathons require a sustained effort over time so adrenaline needs to be budgeted so one can reach the finish line. Maybe we're all adrenaline junkies and go from sprint to sprint, chasing every opportunity, never looking at the long-term goal.

In business it is important to always keep one eye on the long-term goal to keep from being distracted by a short-lived opportunity. Every time an opportunity arises, as they inevitably will, always ask whether it will help attain your goal. If it doesn't, then don't go down that path towards an exciting sprint. Stay in the marathon.

Larry Galler coaches and consults with high-performance executives, professionals, and small businesses since 1993. He is the writer of the long-running (every Sunday since November 2001) business column, "Front Lines with Larry Galler" For a free coaching session, email Larry for an appointment - Larry@larrygaller.com. Sign up for his free newsletter at http://www.larrygaller.com