Advertising and Marketing

This list has been compiled as a result of years of working with business owners who didn’t quite lay the right groundwork when they started up, and ended up paying for it later. Sometimes, what seems like a means of saving money actually ends up costing more in the long run. Some of these tips work for all different kinds of businesses, while others are more relevant to consultancies.

1. Always get your logo in multiple file formats.

It will probably cost you extra, but it will save you a whole lot of trauma and expense later. Make sure you receive:

- a high-resolution TIFF file

- a web-ready JPEG

- vector version - preferably Illustrator

- a layered version (PSD)

2. Have a copy-less brochure designed - one that can be run through your laser printer.

You can have a letter or legal-sized brochure created in colour with only your company name and logo, address, and USP (or tag line) plus a nice watermark done in full colour (uncoated, no folds) that allows you to print the copy as you need it. This way you can create custom brochures as you need them, instead of having a thousand copies (or more) of a single brochure that might get changed.

3. Get business cards for all staff - even part-timers.

People love to hand out business cards. Can you find a cheaper advertising method?

4. Invest in blank business card stock.

The same way you can have your brochures printed without any copy on them, you can have your printer set 8.5 x 11 sheets set up for business cards, which you can use for people who are representing your company on a contract basis.

If you are placing anyone at a client site, they should have a business card with your company information.

5. Have an MSWord document template designed, at the same time as your letterhead and other marketing collateral.

Make sure it has a cover page as well. It will be good for proposals, quotes, white papers, specifications, faxes, notices, and so on. You can also use this to generate polished and professional PDFs for your website.

6. If you give presentations, have your own PowerPoint template designed as well.

7. Have your own domain name.

Even when you start with only a one-page placeholder describing your company, make sure it is on your own domain name, unless you are part of an industry association website that clearly states what you do. When I receive email addressed from businessname@LargeInternetServiceProvider.com it really appears as though this person does not understand the Internet, or is too cheap to get his own domain name. A domain name can cost you as little as $7 US for a year, and you may be surprised how inexpensive hosting will cost. Look into it - it will make your business seem more solid.

8. Make sure every employee has an email address at your business domain.

This is one of those peculiar areas, as with business cards, where companies tend to skimp out as though saving a few pennies in server traffic, is worth the cost in professionalism and name placement. There have been many times when I have received an email from someone I don’t know, or a message that has been forwarded to me by someone I know, and I have typed in the domain name (the part after the @ sign) out of pure curiosity. It’s a perfect opportunity to showcase your company for surprisingly little - and you never know who it is going to reach.

9. Create a standard company email signature.

Everyone working for your company should have a standard email signature attached to every email message that goes out the door - that is those four or five lines that follow all email correspondence. Most email clients have a function that will automatically insert the specified text. Everyone who receives mail from you or your employees and representatives should be given an easy way to find out more information and to contact your company.
A standard email signature file might consist of:

[or some way to signify this is the end of the message body]
[Full name of the person sending the mail][, Title optional]
[Company name]
[Phone number]
[Web address]
[Company USP (Unique Selling Proposition or "tag line"]

10. Get training.

Learn how to use your office tools efficiently. If it’s not you managing the administrative side of operations, pay to have that person trained. For the investment of a day or two, knowing how to use the software will save many many hours of frustration and lost document.

How is this marketing-related? How do you think it looks or sounds to your client to have to say, “I can’t do that,” or, “just a minute - I just lost the record.”

© 2005 Gisela McKay. Gisela McKay is Chief Technology Officer of pixcode Inc., an Internet Property Management company, with such properties as NaturalHealthcare.ca, CanadaEventsCalendar.ca, and BusinessPartnerships.ca.
Gisela works with businesses of all sizes - helping them devise the right online marketing strategy and then matching the technology to the strategy.

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Tags: entrepreneur, marketing materials, new businesses, start up

Networking: Name Recognition

When you meet someone new, do they remember your name? Do you remember theirs?

Sometimes you do, but more often you don’t.

Networking means you remember, you recognize, and you refer others to their businesses. This process of promoting your Business Network incorporates professionalism into your ‘friend making process’ and negates counting on memory to help you retrieve information. Learn to network properly and become a promoter within your Business Networking Circle.

Exposure

The first big step in Business Networking: Get out there. Put a smile on your face, introduce yourself, and expose yourself to people. In business networking, half the power of arriving is just in being “out there”. Marketing your product, marketing your services, or marketing yourself all include the initialization of exposure. It’s called Business Networking because you interact with others.

Name Recognition

In order to get name recognition, your name has to be out there, publicized, and remembered. The more your name is seen “out there”, the more recognizable it will be. Once your name is recognized, your options broaden, and the possibilities become endless. Networking works best with name recognition.

Brand Your Name

Build on Name Recognition by Branding your Name. Once you’ve begun to network and build a reputation, use that recognition factor to become a Name Brand. Be recognized by your name. Factor in a significant design logo that establishes a connection between what you do and your name, and you’ve got a Business Card worth Brandishing.

Network

When you meet people, give them a business card. Be prepared to tell them what you do. Give them a marketing spiel that brings them back to your card thinking, “Great, I’m going to call this guy!” The 10 second Elevator Speech should be committed to memory and packed with powerful action words. You want them to walk away gasping for air from exposure to your Personal Statement.

Ask about them, get their card, ask what they do, and note their information. Make a contact. Next day, give them a call, tell them you were glad you had an opportunity to get to know them, and ask if there’s anything you can do to help them meet their goals.

Market

Your objective, as ever, is to make a sale. After you offer to help them, you get an idea of what they need that you might have. Provide it. Give them what they want. Meet the needs of your clients and they will be back.

Your business will expand. Profits will increase. And you, my friend, will have made a new friend.

This Dynamic Marketing Guru learned early the value of life balance, accountability, and confidence in the work place. Let the Marketing Guru take you where you want to go with Marketing Choices that Rock your Business World with Success Strategies. Visit Jan Verhoeff, The Marketing Guru, at http://janverhoeff.com

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Tags: Brand, Brand Recognition, Business Concepts, Business Networking, Jan Verhoeff, Marketer, networking

Mlm-ers who are working impossible mlm programs are like smokers, though they know the inherent danger in smoking, quitting is difficult. Like pools baiters they keep looking forward to the big money, while investing time and money all the time.

Having said that, the success or otherwise of any MLM or Network Marketing program depends on those promoting it, and the amount of honest work and commitment put in by the multitude of down lines, honestly supported by their sponsors, to attain the promised success .

So take a good look at the man or woman pitching you with fabulous residual income and see how the program has robbed off on him or her. Ask them to tell you, better, show you the prove of how long they been in the program and how much they have made so far. Do not rely on what he hopes to make in six months - Forget the matrix story, it could just be a scam bait.

Since the 1930s when this overly misunderstood and misapplied system of business reared its head, millionaires have been made and countless persons have also had their fingers burnt beyond repair.

KNOWLEDGE IS POWER

The problem of mlm failure revolves around lack of knowledge of the business. Anyone going into any business, be it mlm/network marketing or whatever, should first evaluate and understand the risks and expected benefits, the proclivity of achieving success etc. before setting up shop or joining any program. There are genuine and counterfeit mlm companies known as pyramid schemes.

But what I find is that most people, hungry for money, go into any mlm just for the money without the knowledge and honest commitment necessary for success. The question is how does anyone who does not know how to drive intend to make a successful journey driving a vehicle to his destination safely?

That there are lots of misrepresentation of mlm on what level of success one can achieve in any circumstance is quite obvious when you listen to most mlm recruiters. Mlm scam, therefore, seems not to be basically carried out by the companies, but mostly by the recruiting down lines’ inordinate quest to make the promised exponential income.

The whole mlm saga is like religion and believers, who believe in obvious impossibilities just because they are told that it is true.

Without holding brief for mlm companies, let me state that most mlm programs are set up to do what the companies say they will do. The easiness or otherwise of attaining the promise could be misrepresented to mislead, which amounts to scamming of sorts.

The bane of mlm-ers is down line recruiting and the lies with which they try to make it easier to do. The result, however, is most recruits can’t recruit other recruits, not to talk of large numbers required to make exponential income possible. If you are able to honestly recruit down lines who recruit others, causing duplication and multiplication of your effort, then you are an mlm success. Because you will continuously reap residual income from the network you have thus created.

The general scenario however is that even though those who begin early in most mlm programs make the millions from down the lines before the bubble might burst and thousands of naive people carry the can, it is not that easy to readily absolve mlm from being a scam, nor can you categorically call mlm a scam.

What mlm is, therefore, depends on the knowledge and experience of he or she who is defining it.

For me, if you read enough about mlm, you will be able to stand your ground against fraudulent mlm recruiters. You will also be able to identify with genuine product and services backed mlm companies distributing consumables which prices are affordable for every day use.

Those mlm companies whose products are expensive and not of every day use can work for pioneers in the short term, and ruin the down liners in the long run. Beware. The worst scenario is to join a company promoting just down line matrix without useful affordable consumeable everyday proudcts.

Neshah writes for your success - read more mlm articles at tinyurl.com/y2stxk to prepare you for mlm success.

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Tags: down lin, expoential income, MLM, Multi-level Marketing, Network Marketing, program, residual income