Welcome to the Blog for Professionally Personalized! Discover how to expand the identity for your business and get it's name out there. " 'Cause getting noticed is only logical".

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Advertising To Get Noticed January 28, 2009

"I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information."- David Ogilvy

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Advertising To Get Noticed January 27, 2009

"The secret of all effective originality in advertising is not the creation of new and tricky words and pictures, but one of putting familiar words and pictures into new relationships."- Leo Burnett

Monday, January 26, 2009

Advertising to Get Noticed January 26, 2009

"The most important word in the vocabulary of advertising is test. If you pretest your product with consumers and pretest your advertising, you will do well in the market place."- David Ogilvy

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Battle of the Budget

We are all dealing with it now, its on every news station, in every news paper, and on every website- the failing economy! So how do we battle that when dealing with selling promotional products and how do you deal with the economy as a business trying to get your name out there to your potential customers.

Anytime our economy goes through a phase, such as the economic "crisis" as its been called, the first thought for business owners is to pull back on their marketing budgets. Which is WRONG, why in times of plenty everyone is spending tons of money on marketing but when you need money and business people pull back from marketing, how do you think you are going to get business? That thinking is all backwards. Now, why I understand where that thought process is coming from, because marketing is looked at as not as important as paying the monthly business bills, such as the phone bill or the rent.

Right now the goal when shopping for promotional products is to try and order in bulk, you will save more money over the course of the year, if you can order 500 pieces instead of 250 you will save money, its the same concept as shopping at Costco or Sams Club. You also want to find a product that is going to give you the most, snap, crackle and pop for you buck.

So remember, in this tight time in our economy you still need to market, its more important now then ever! To get the most out of your promotional products budget look for a product that will pop and set you apart from your competition and order in bulk to save money. One great product is better then five boring products, its not quanity its quality!

Advertising To Get Noticed January 21, 2009

"Advertising is fundamentally persuasion and persuasion happens to be not a science, but an art."- William Bernbach

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Going Green- coffee style!

To keep on our "going green" topic- I am going to tell you about a product that can be good for the environment, functional and also make your customer feel like they are still providing a good quality product for their customers.

Everyone drinks coffee, especially in the business world. It is also so much better for the environment to use a reuse able coffee mug then to use a styaofoan or paper coffee cup.

So the most common option is for people is to think to order plastic or stainless steel coffee mugs for their employees or for their customers, but wouldn't it be great to be able to give them a reusable coffee mug that is also good for the environment?

There is now a coffee mug that is made of 100% recycled plastic. Which kills two birds with one stone, its made of recycled materials and it saves the environment from harmful coffee cups that do not break down in the environment.

Advertising To Get Noticed January 20, 2009

"Plan the sale when you plan the ad."- Leo Burnett

Monday, January 19, 2009

How do you motivate your sales team?

With promotional products of course!

Well, let me explain- you can implement an incentive program to help those employees who need a boost in their sales as well as push top sellers to reach for the stars.

Top sellers should be rewarded for their time and efforts, and attention needs to be paid to times when employees are in the office or traveling for business, so what you and your client gives should reflect those needs.

To motivate employees who have slumping sales a great leather multi piece desk set can be offered, with a different piece given each week for the most sales in a week or the most improvement shown in a given week.

Top sellers will be working round the clock so an extra special timepiece would be the perfect desk accessory. When employees are making sales on the go, a leather briefcase or laptop bag is perfect and very useful.

Extra incentives that are great to always have on hand are higher quality pens (god knows every good sales person needs a great pen to sign contracts) Also safely kits are great for your sales staff that is on the go in the car.

Its important, especially right now, during these rough economic times to reward your employees, its hard enough to find good sales people, so hold on to the ones you have, nurture and train them and reward them when they perform.

This is just an example of some great products that your sales staff will find useful and will help them do their jobs better and strive to make it to the top level!

Advertising To Get Noticed January 19, 2009

"Never write an advertisement, which you wouldn't want your family to read. You don't tell lies to your wife. Don't tell them to mine."- David Ogilvy

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Going green!

With so many companies and people going green to support our envrionment its no different when dealing with promotional products. Green, has become very big! In our latest catalog there is an entire section dedicated to green products.

This is a great time as a business to be trendy and show your customers that you are supporting the envirnment. Green is hot right now, every major company from Target to Walmart and Whole Foods are pushing GREEN, they all are offering reusable grocery bags for customers to cut down on the waste of paper and plastic bags.

The most popular products that are both useful and budget friendly are pens that are made from recycled plastic, paper pads that are made from recycled paper, reuseable tote bags that are made from recycled materials, and organic cotton wearables.

Giving your customer a green products not only shows that you care enough to pass out something that while it promotes your business it is also showing that you care about the future of our environment and our planet. It also is a great conversation starter- when you are talking to a potential new customer give them the product and them follow it up with something like, "did you know that pen is made from 100% recycled materials?" Beleive me people will talk to you, and going green is on everyone's minds.

You can also pay it forward by giving your customers a pack of seeds, or a tree root that they can plant, its a great way of saying thank you to clients. Its also something different, how many companies ever gave you seeds to plant flowers, or a tree to plant? It will stick in their minds, because you will becoming the company that cares!

So jumpstart your marketing this year, by going green!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Bend it, twist it- promotional products are flexible!

Flexibility is one of the key features and one of the greatest appeal of promotion products. They can work within all budgets, with all that is going on in our economy promotional products are a great way to still advertise within a small budget. Most companies have an advertising budget- and due to the economic times most budgets have been cut, but promotional products can sill be used even with a small budget. Its just a matter of finding the right product in your price range.

Promotional products can also be given to any audience: customers, prospects, dealers, employees, and vendors. You can also easily tie them to other marketing efforts, either as incentives for desired actions or as branding tools. And the actual product itself can be almost anything, the sky is the limit! If you can think it up, we can imprint your logo on it!

The benefits of promotion products as marketing tools are well established. Studies have proven time and time again that promotional items increase response rates, boost brand recognition, and create more favorable impressions of your company.

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Advertising To Get Noticed January 14, 2009

"Advertising is the greatest art form of the 20th century."- Marshall Mcluhan

Monday, January 12, 2009

Advertising To Get Noticed January 12, 2009

"Our society's values are being corrupted by advertising's insistence on the equation: Youth equals popularity, popularity equals success, success equals happiness."- John Arbuthnot Fisher

Friday, January 9, 2009

Advertising To Get Noticed January 9, 2009

"Advertising is the art of making whole lies out of half truths."- Edgar A. Shoaff

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Advertising To Get Noticed January 8, 2009

"Society drives people crazy with lust and calls it advertising."- John Lahr

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Advertising To Get Noticed January 7, 2009

"Advertising is only evil when when it advertises evil things."- David Ogilvy

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Advertising To Get Noticed January 6, 2009

"Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don't have for something they don't need."- Will Rogers

Monday, January 5, 2009

Are your mailers reaching your customers?

So many business send out direct mailers to their clients and their target audience, it may be a letter or a postcard, but either way look in your daily mail, I guarantee that you have some sort of advertising piece from a business. Now, what is the first thing that you do with that letter or postcard? That's right, you throw it away! Its the easiest thing to do, you sort the mail, bills and junk mail, and in an effort to avoid clutter we throw away things that we do not need laying around our homes.

Now, as a business owner how can you increase your chances to not end up in the trash can? Easy- send lumpy mail! Yes, you read that right- send something inside your mailer- a promotional product that makes your mailer look and feel different from all the other mail.

It's expensive to send out mailers- not only do you have the cost of the actual letter or postcard- but you have the cost of the postage- so you need to make it count!

Unfortunately the response rate for direct mailers is quite low, but it is a part of marketing and we all have to do it. Sending a sales letter or postcard alone gives a 1.9% response rate, but adding a promotional product to your mailer, making it "lumpy" will give you a 3.3% response rate.

So order something small and light weight, because you want to keep your costs down on postage, a letter opener, silicone wristband, or paperclip are all great examples.

So good luck, get our there and get sending some LUMPY mail!

Advertsiing To Get Noticed January 5, 2009

"Advertising-a judicious mixture of flattery and threats."- Northrop Frye

Friday, January 2, 2009

Advertising To Get Noticed January 2, 2009

"Advertising is the life of trade."- Calvin Coolidge

Thursday, January 1, 2009

Headed to a Trade show in 09- don't go alone!

If you are planning on having a booth at any type of trade show or mixer this year, do not go it alone, be sure to bring along some promotional products to hand out to show goers.

This is very simple mathematical formula- 72% of show goers remembered the name of the company that gave them a promotional product, as compared to only 28.4% of people who could remember a company that did not give them a promotional product. Now that is a lot of people that are forgetting your company name. Think about it, you pay the money to rent the booth, you spend your time at the event, talking to lots of people, don't you want them to remember you if you spent a lot of time and money to be there to get your company name out to potential customers.


Now if you have the time prior to a trade show or mixer, and there is a select group that you are going after trying to get business from you can send a pre show mailer, inviting them to the show and to your booth (maybe even send an admission ticket)also remember to include a promotional product this will increase the likelihood that they will stop by your booth at the show.

We have discussed in other blog entries that the great thing about promotional products is that are relatively inexpensive, however in a trade show event giving out promotional products of greater value have been linked to generating more sales leads. So its a good idea to spend a little more on promotional products for trade shows.

Trade shows and mixers are a great tool for getting your name out there and meeting new people I would suggest doing one trade show or mixer a quarter. Check with your local chamber of commerce and your local chapter of Better Busienss Bureau to see what events are going on in your town.