1. What is your target market?

2. What media does your target market watch, listen to or read?

3. Which media can extend your message to the most people in your target market per advertising pound spent?

4. What are your objectives for advertising and how will this help you achieve them?

5. How will this medium allow you to measure your return on your investment (ROI)?

What are the advantages and disadvantages of advertising with online business directories?

Advantages

· Immediate global impact

· Creative options for design

· Measurable responses

· Flexible

Disadvantages

· Users do not always read the advertisement

· Can be expensive to set up and maintain

· Limited to the information you can put across (dependent on the format of the directory)

What types of online directory are available?

There are three main types of online directory.

1. The online business listings i.e. Yell.com, Thomson Local. Essentially, Name, Number and Web.

2. Nationally produced, community based, interactive directories such as GoMy. Where you can add more information about your business such as opening times, web links, email, specialities, and free text about your business. Add your business events. Link with popular social networking sites to get your message across.

3. Privately produced local directories like The Best Of.

Once you have chosen which directories you feel will help you achieve your objectives, what types of entries are available?

Most if not all directories will offer you some form of FREE listing or entry – usually very basic information like Business Name, Address and Telephone Numbers only.

The disadvantages of this style of entry are that you don’t stand out from the crowd, with many similar entries to compete with it is hard to get your businesses personality to shine through.

A featured entry, this will usually allow for you to add more information about your business, perhaps a colour logo, different type faces, borders and illustrations. This type of advert will enable you to stand out from the crowd; will enhance your brand recognition by using your own logo’s and style.

A special advertisement. Always positioned in a high visibility area such as a landing page or home page of a directory, creates a bold statement, keeps your advertisement separate from your competition, but quite often comes with a higher cost than standard featured listings.

How do I measure my return on investment (ROI)?

The best way to measure your investment return is to implement a clarification procedure in your business, so that for every customer that buys your product or service, you ask them

Where did you find out about us?

Keep a record of the consumer responses and at the end of each week total them up. You can then do a simple calculation to work out your ROI which I call the CPC that’s Cost per Customer.

Cost of advertising let’s say £100 per month.

Number of customers that you have seen that have come via this advertising campaign = 50

100/50 = £2.00 CPC.

So long as the profit, from your average customer spend is more than £2.00 you are in a positive ROI.

I hope this has been informative,

Carl Bradshaw

Business Development Consultant

T: 08444 123 174
E: carl@carlbradshaw.co.uk
W: carlbradshaw.co.uk
S: carl-bradshaw

Positive Business Development – Delivering the value of professional independent advice.

Professional Business Advice in plain English. Freelance Sales and Business Development for Small to Medium Sized business based across the UK.

Please feel free to comment on this or any of my articles.

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It is important that promotional gifts are used correctly and not just brought and left in the cupboard. You really need a plan with these gifts just like any other form of marketing activity you undertake. Your promotional gifts advisors should be willing to spend some time with you discussing your plan and then helping you select the right product or products for the activity.

For example if you have a new product or service that you want to promote to existing customers you could send out a memory stick with a presentation on it to each of your customers and follow it up with a telephone call to ask what they thought and then say ‘Please keep the memory stick as a gift from us’ and they are sure to appreciate it.

Or if you want to do a mail shot to prospective customers to promote your company why not get some promotional coasters or promotional mouse mats done with your company logo and contact details and pop a few in with each mail out. They will not add too much to the postal costs but will add real impact to the mail out as if the letter and flyers you send out might end up in the bin a promotional gift is sure to be kept. Follow up with a phone call to enquire if they received your information and the promotional gifts.

Promotional Gifts also work wonders at exhibitions. If you have a stand and wish to give out promotional gifts why not do it with some thought and get 3 different items??

1. Plastic Pens – Put these on the front of your stand so anyone walking past can pick them up (budget 20-40p)

2. Ceramic Mugs – Put these in your stand so when you speak with real prospects you can present them with the mugs (budget £1-£2)

3. Memory Sticks – Have these hidden away and present these to people that you really want to impress and work with (budget £4-£10 depending on memory size)

Also why not get plastic carrier bags, cotton shoppers or Tote bags printed with your logo and contact details? This way each person that leaves your stand with your company’s catalogues will work around the rest of the exhibition hall advertising your company.

If you need any help please feel FREE to call us on 0800 630 0087.

Don’t forget to visit our website.

Written by Ian Storer of Aarons Promotions Ltd – The Promotional Gifts Kingdom

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They are great for sales people to carry round with them as they are lightweight and not bulky and the makes them great for posting too, as they can increase the impact of your mail outs massively! Simply pop a few in with each letter or catalogue and when you call them up to check they received the catalogue they are sure to say ‘yes and thanks for the mouse mat’.

There are many different types of promotional mouse mats available including ‘The Brite Mat’ which is designed for use with optical mice for 100% bounce back, foamed backed, hard top and aqua which are a bit different as you can have little logos inside the mouse mat floating around.

Why not use them as a yearly gift to your customers and prospects by having them printed with a calendar? You can highlight important dates, so if you are an accountant you can highlight when the accounts need to be in for example. This way each year the client knows that they will receive the promotional mouse mat and it will be replaced each year with new updated information.

Please take a look at our website and feel free to pick up the phone if you would like some advice contact us FREE on 0800 630 0087.

Written by Ian Storer of Aarons Promotions Ltd – The Promotional Gifts Kingdom

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Managers have got subordinates and instruct while keeping room for open communication. They have got a sense of power and are allowed to choose the way the team works. If you’ve been bumped up the line and have been given the manager title, then take charge and steer your employers into the path of success. It’s best that you work with a method that is transactional- which is when you make wise decisions based on facts and evidence and your subordinates comply not because of force but because they would be rewarded by a monthly income.

On the other hand, leaders do not have subordinates but they have got followers who may or may not agree to decisions made. Here, you can instruct as well but there must be group discussions and group decisions. You may make final decisions but with the help of your group as well. A good leader should be independent, wise and full of charisma to attract unanimous decisions and a personality that can attract teamwork as well.

Managers are paid to make ends meet and ensure the group works together while leaders simply guide the group towards making right decisions. While a leader leads people, the manager manages work and the leader should have more passion whereas the manager more control. Also, leaders facilitate decision making while managers make them. So whichever role you may hold, know it and always play fair.

About the Author: Dr. LM Foong, PhD
He is a Management Consultant who writes and publishes TQM articles, ebooks, case studies, trainer manual and other TQM Related information. Read different Management Style from his blog

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Nevertheless, it is a good idea to get air freight quotes from 3 or 4 service providers to get a good idea about their rates and services offered. All that you need to do is to analyze the quotes and choose the most suitable among them.

You can choose FTL, LTL, PTL or Oversized truckloads based on your shipment. LTL or Less Than Truckload shipping can be chosen to transport cargo comprising small items. But, you need to take enough precautionary measures regarding packaging your cargo if you choose LTL shipping. LTL might be handled several times and there is a high possibility of damages caused to it. Hence, it is better to entrust the job of packaging your LTL shipping to an experienced company. You can check if the carrier offers intermodal transportation for hassle-free shipping.

Parcel delivery services are similar to LTL in that they can be used to transport lightweight freight and other small items that can be divided into smaller units further through sorting and classification. Check with your freight service provider about the various types of international parcel delivery services provided by them.

This article was written by Rose, who writes various articles on Logistics and Air Freight Shipping. This article is about Ground Freight Shipping, International Freight Shipping, and International Parcel Delivery.

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Some are good and some are not so good, and occasionally you read a great one. Nevertheless, you will always learn something in each and every one – a different insight from a different perspective from a different author. Many of these authors have decades of experience behind them in various industries, and it is wise to borrow their knowledge and apply it to other industries, even your own. One book I’d like to recommend to you about branding is;

“Married to the Brand – Why Consumers Bond With Some Brands for Life,” William J. McEwen, Gallup Press, Princeton, NJ, 2005. (135 pp) ISBN: 1-59562-005-2.

This book has hundreds of examples of great companies, great branding, and success stories – for instance, the greatest wine company in the world by Earnest and Julio Gallo. Speaking of which, I am not sure who is doing their current branding and marketing, but they are on fire and accelerating the value of that brand, perhaps they read this book as I have. I am especially impressed with their work in the Spanish Gallo Wine division and the other Spanish wines. Amazing how well branding works when it is practiced by the best in the business.

The author of “Married to the Brand” made examples of Southwest Airlines, Nike, DW, FedEx, Disney, Nordstrom, Singapore Airlines, Guinness beer, Ritz-Carlton MasterCard, Intel, British Petroleum, Apple Computers, Starbucks, Wal-Mart Morton Salt, Gallo, and even their own branded Gallup Polls. In fact, this book is filled with statistics as well as discussing the reality of “loyalty programs” and how well they actually work, or don’t. William makes light of the fact that there is a need for personal connection and that will determine how the consumers marry brands and make it part of their personal identity.

There were some very interesting statistics that most entrepreneurs would be interested in for instance 58% of the population believes that all banks are the same, 45% of the population believes that all airlines are the same, and 54% believe that all website marketers online are the same. There is a need for these companies to trigger an emotional attachment. Once they do that it behooves them to concentrate on a justification for the purchaser – in other words, first, they must concentrate on what the customer wants, and then what the customer needs allowing them justification for themselves, family, and friends.

One of the main rationales behind this book was customers need to be treated as if they are on first dates, and then work on building a relationship, and then prepare for the marriage – in that regard I would say the title of the book says it all. Branding is something that is pervasive in our everyday lives and the average grocery store has between 40,000 to 50,000 branded items on its shelves. Even the unknown name brands actually have a brand, such as; plain wrap, special store brand, no-frills brand.

Companies must make good on their brand promise and then provide a connection with the customer opening up the door for the brand experience and in engaging the customer in a brand relationship. It doesn’t matter if it is a normal brand such as a Ford Trucks, or a prestige brand like Rolls Royce Luxury Automobiles. There are many different categories for brands such as membership brands, personal identity brands, memory triggering brands, and self completion brands, as in “I have arrived,” by displaying the product, or using a service.

Trust in a brand and the promise of the brand is the key, which leads to respect of the brand. All these things are as important in branding as they are in a marriage. It is not just the car but also the dealership in service too. It takes people power, positive employee attitudes to build a brand. Positive experiences even when customers return items, employees must show gratitude and enthusiasm.

The author also cites another very good branding book; “Loyalty Rules,” by Fred Reicheld, who states that 5% of your brand loyalists will create between 25 and 95% of your profits if you do it right. I’d say this is not only true in the coffee business but also even in a service business like a car wash.

The authors also bring up the Brand pyramid, where the foundation is based on confidence and integrity, and then it is followed up by employee pride, and finally consumer passion. Williams suggests that without the foundation passion by the consumer it is not possible, and you can’t live without it in your company. Passion can be found in the most interesting places, for instance in India 31% of the buyers have a passion for a particular brand of food. Indeed, it can be as simple as that.

This book also explains how to go about engaging customers and how to survive on trust, and lastly he explains the problem with diluting of brands, and sub brands like General Motors. Indicating that it is possible to pull it off, but it’s not easy as it confuses the belief system and passion of the consumer. I think I’d recommend buying this book to anyone, and it also comes with a free password for Gallup Management Journal for six months online, which is probably worth as much as the book itself. I hope you will please consider all this.

Lance Winslow is a retired Founder of a Nationwide Franchise Chain, and now runs the Online Think Tank. Lance Winslow believes that experts are needed when building a brand or a building; http://www.yakimabuilders.com.

Note: All of Lance Winslow’s articles are written by him, not by Automated Software, any Computer Program, or Artificially Intelligent Software. None of his articles are outsourced, PLR Content or written by ghost writers.

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The perception of your business will not only go on the images and design you use but will be determined by customers beliefs, thoughts, opinions, what they hear and what they actually see as well as the experience they have dealing with you as a company and the customer service. It is also technically your identity in the market place and you should really be making exclusive to your business image and not something that has been seen or done before.

Images are important for advertising as well; you think Calvin Klien would have got anywhere having fat middle aged hairy men modelling boxer shorts. People like to look at something that is pleasing on the eye. Even if you are a hairy overweight man, there is something in your brain without realising it that makes you think you are going to look like the model in the picture if you buy the boxer shorts. It makes you want to buy them when there is a good looking muscled man wearing them, they look flattering.

The media also uses images of attractive woman and men a lot, and attractive woman and men can really help sell more products. Again it is all about what is pleasing on the eye.

Business image counts for nine tenths of your success so it has to be done properly; your personal appearance plays a huge part in how people see your business also. You need to take care of as people can make an impression of your business from how you look. If you are wearing dirty clothing or have messy hair then people could immediately assume that because you cannot be bothered to take care of yourself then you cannot be bothered to take care of your business and put in 100% especially if you are offering a service. For example if you are a hairdresser and you come to work with messy hair and dirty clothing the customer might immediately think that you cannot be bothered to take care of your tools either and decide against you cutting their hair in case you mess it up.

You need to make sure that you are professional, relatable, understanding, current, know what you are doing as well as being pleasing to look at. If you get all these key things right first time you could be on to a winner.

Tried and Tested Marketing, specialising in business marketing advice to help your business through the recession. Mancala Technology are specialist in SEO Newcastle.

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1. Use standard poster dimensions. First, you should try and set the dimensions of your color posters to the standard values. Trust me when I say this. Your color poster printing will be faster, easier and cheaper if you do this. Most professional poster printing companies appreciate people using standard dimensions because most of the machines and even paper materials are now standardized. So whenever possible, set your poster drafts with standard poster printing dimensions. Try to download free poster templates to know what the standard poster printing dimensions are.

2. Do not forget to include bleeds. It is also important to add printing bleeds to your draft in preparation for poster printing. Most professionals add printing bleeds to make sure that the printing and cutting of the poster looks right. Just try to add one quarter of an inch of dimension to all sides of your color posters to get a good printing bleed. Your posters should look better when you do this since there will be no obvious discrepancies in the edges of your color posters.

3. Mind the color mode of your draft file. You should also prepare your draft file for printing by setting the correct color mode. For web designs, the RGB color mode is preferred. However, for poster printing CMYK is the appropriate mode since it is also the typical printing process used for production. So always set your poster design to CMYK color mode before sending it up for printing. This should give you a more accurate picture of what the true colors of your posters will look like and the printing company should have no troubles in converting your file.

4. Check your resolution. Another important thing you must mind is the image resolution. Many professional poster printers send back designs to printing clients because of bad image resolutions. This is because low resolution designs will appear fuzzy and will show the image pixels when printed in a full color poster. So it is imperative that you check your poster designs if they are set to 300dpi resolution or higher. If it is lower, you should try to resize and convert your file so that it is appropriate for poster printing.

5. Create drafts in multiple file formats. Finally, you should create drafts in multiple file formats before sending them off to your poster printer. A document format should be okay as your main draft. A Photoshop document file (.psd) or something similar should be alright. Also, image formats such as.jpg files and.png files are also good for backups and emergencies. If you have a fast internet connection, you might want to also include a full.bmp image that is larger usually but has the best quality. Send all these to your professional poster printing company to cover all your bases in printing and minimize conversion or compatibility errors.

Now you know how to prepare your color posters for professional printing. You should have little problems now in creating your full color posters.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit: Poster Printing.

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.

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Barker outlines how organizations need to innovate and change in order to prosper and in some cases survive. He explains how people and organizations can overcome their fear of change and, in turn, embrace it. The rules we live by can hold back our ability to be innovative and creative. The idea that successful strategies from the past will lead to future success is increasingly becoming false. If we don’t create new paradigms our organizations will stagnate and eventually fail. In example after example, Joel demonstrates how thinking differently is necessary for us to grow personally and as organizations.

The Swiss watch industry and the Japanese electronics industry are just a few of the companies and industries detailed in the video. In 1968, the Swiss dominated the watch industry producing 65% of the watches in the world and 80% of the profits, however just ten years later they had only a 10% market share. What happened? Their own researchers invented the electronic (Quartz) watch and the Swiss executives rejected it. The Japanese on the other hand saw a new paradigm with this technology and took over the market that the Swiss dominated with the technology that the Swiss themselves invented. The Swiss were so sure that electronics were not the future of watch making that they didn’t even protect their own invention with a copyright.

The electronic watch paradigm wasn’t the only paradigm that the Japanese were forward thinking enough to adopt. Mr. Barker describes how at one time the Japanese were widely known for their cheap and unreliable products, but then they actively sought to change this paradigm with the works of Dr. Edwards Deming and Six Sigma. While the rest of the world was widely ignoring this new paradigm of quality, the Japanese were changing their reputation and getting a huge jump-start on the rest of the world. By the time they realized their mistakes, companies around the globe had to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to catch up – an expensive mistake.

Joel Barkers unique style and passion will work well in any organization. His examples in The Business of Paradigms will motivate you to explore change and to look for paradigm shifts in your industry. The program has been used in thousands of organizations around the world and will continue to be a valuable tool for people around the world for years to come.

Robert Sullivan is a writer and producer of motivational training videos for TrainingABC. TrainingABC is a distributor of motivational programs such as The Business of Paradigms and Give em the Pickle.

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Chances are the answer is no. Your business may continue to operate for a period of time but you are causing yourself additional anxiety and worry in the mean time.” How?” you ask. Have you ever stopped to take notice how price driven your customers are? I bet they complain about every minor price rise and get on your back to “chuck that in” or “look after me”. Unfortunately that is the nature of the relationship you develop with your clients when you build your relationship, and custom, on price.

Customers come to expect that they are getting the cheapest price, without any compromise in quality, and as they develop more and more trust in you the chance of losing that customer increases. Why, because your relationship is based on price. As soon as there is a glitch in the system and they are overcharged a number of times, or you charge a delivery fee when you normally wouldn’t, that trust diminishes and your customer (who you felt you had a good relationship with), jumps ship and begins trading with the next supplier who is willing to discount their price to match yours.

So, although this will keep the wheels turning for the immediate future, it puts your business in an uphill battle and the prize for the winner is…your profits.

There is a better way to do business. It is not a harder way to do business but it does require some knowledge and skills.

The ultimate goal, for your business, should be to know with confidence that your product, your service and your business culture is so superior to your competitors that your clients are making the best decision by trading with you.

When your business is providing exceptional service and you have that belief and conviction in what you are doing, selling or providing, there is no need to use excessive discounting to sell your products or services. In fact, by reducing your prices you are not only reducing the value of your products and services, but you are detracting from your industry as a whole. It is the never ending price driven sales process that destroys businesses and industries daily and although some consumers think it’s a good thing, it is actually detrimental to quality, the level of service provided and the economy.

There are 7 things you should do to ensure you sell your products and services for what they are worth.

1. Be sure that your employees are knowledgeable, skillful and confident in their role
2. Enjoy your business and know that your employees enjoy their role in your business
3. Set standards of exceptional service in your business and ensure they are upheld at every point of contact with a potential or existing customer
4. Stay in touch with your competitors products and services to remain one step ahead of their quality and service
5. Know the value of your product or service and be confident in it’s worth
6. Be innovative to stay one step ahead of your competition
7. Over promise and over deliver!

Don’t let price be your primary focus in making a sale and if there are times when you feel it is worth competing on price to make a deal, then be sure the customers knows you feel it is an excessive price reduction, which is very much against your normal policy because you know that you can’t sustain this level of discounting and maintain your exceptional level of service.

Remember, sometimes it’s better to let a doubting customer go to the competition who are heavily discounting. There is a very, very high chance that one day they will come back to you because they have received poor service, low grade quality and disappointment after disappointment.

Decide what reputation you wish to build your business upon and stay true to yourself and your business.

Francine Bishop is the Director of Mayvin Training Institute and delivers highly effective, hands on training programs in soft skills. Mayvin Training Institute partners with clients to design training programs that specifically suit their business, their employees and their training needs. To get your free copy of Mayvin Training’s comprehensive report (valued at $97) revealing signs of people in crisis in a business environment and the skills that will see them become motivated, enthusiastic and loyal, for FREE, visit http://www.expandingbusinesspotential.com and register for immediate access.

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