Marketing Articles

Before we begin a thorough discussion of business pain, let’s take a look at what it really means. The words Business Pain are batted around by almost everyone I talk to in the marketing and sales fields. It is probably one of the more misused words when describing the help a company needs to become more efficient and effective. When you try to find out what a business worries about, you will find that you get a different answer from each person you talk to in the organization. That is because the “business pain” will be different for each department or section. The sales force will likely tell you that the pain is not getting orders out on time. The order department will say that the sales force over promises, the administration will say that expenses are too high, and the executive will say that there are not enough profits. All of them will be correct. So how do you determine what the real pain is?

If you begin with the top decision makers, they will have an overall picture of where they think there company should be in the way of market share and profitability. This big picture will show you where they currently are and where they want to go. It is here that the decisions are made to make improvements. It is also here that the risk is identified and the plans to alleviate the pain are put together. If you want the true definition of business pain, start with the CEO and then piece together the other parts that cause the pain as described.

Nothing is more thrilling than working with a company that can define what it is that they are not doing right. Unfortunately, most companies are not able to pinpoint their problems with accuracy. They can see the symptoms but usually not the probable cause. So when you learn about the business pain, you should be prepared to offer solutions that fit the problem.

Bette Daoust, Ph.D. is a speaker, author (over 170 books, articles, and publications), and consultant. She has provided marketing, sales, business development and training expertise for companies such as Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Varian Medical Systems, Accenture, Avaya, Cisco Systems to name a few. Dr. Daoust has also done extensive work with small businesses in developing their marketing, training, and operational plans. You may contact Dr. Daoust at http://BizMechanix.com You may also view her latest publications at http://BlueprintBooks.com Dr. Daoust also writes for the National Networker http://theNationalNetworker.com

Along with the freedom of ‘being your own boss’ comes great responsibility. If you’re a good decision maker, organizer, can work independently, have a good supply of common sense, are knowledgeable about your product or service, can stay motivated, have lots of energy, are resilient and imaginative and no stranger to discipline; then, you may be qualified for the task.

It takes more than a desire to work at home. The home business industry is booming, but not everyone will be victorious. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. It can be brutal.

And it can be one of the most rewarding things you will ever do for yourself. Just think of it.
You decide when and where you work. You can give yourself a raise anytime you want.

Set your sites high, but be realistic. It may take some time to earn what you’re worth. In other words…keep your eyes on the prize, but don’t quit your day job just yet. For the first six months to a year put all of your profit back into your business. Later you will be able to give yourself a small allowance.

The first thing you’ll need to do is decide what area of business you want to go into. Let’s say you’ve chosen sales. Sales is one of the most lucrative careers there is. You literally have limitless earning possibilities.

You’ll need to find a product, or service that is in great demand. Choose a product you can be passionate about. If you’re not passionate about your product your potential customer will see right through it.

Now that you’ve found your product it’s time to put together a solid business plan. Plan your business; then work the plan.

Who comprises your market? What are your long term and short-term goals? How will you measure the success of your business? What licenses will you need if any? Will you need a sales and use tax number? What equipment will you need? Is there a place where you can conduct business undistrubed? What about financing? What marketing strategies will you use?

No matter what type of enterprise you go into, some aspect of it will require the art of promotion. It just goes along with the territory. There is no getting away from it.

Okay let’s say you have your business thought out and written down and you have a product you’re very enthusiastic about. Now you have to learn as much about your product as possible, so you can present, or demonstrate it to your potential prospects in an informative, intelligent, efficient manner. You must become the expert.

You will also benefit from learning how your customers have made use of the goods, or service purchased from you. Different customers may have different uses for the same item. It could be something you never thought of. To do this you could ask for testimonials, or run polls to find out what your customers really think. Take that knowledge and weave it into your marketing strategy because now you know exactly what your customers want and you should do everything in your power to give them what they want.

Let’s say you’re the wholesaler of a high demand product and you make an appointment to meet with the manager, or owner of a large retail store. Your goal should be to show the merchant the uses his, or her customers will make of the goods, or service. For some pointers on presenting your product to your market read my article Getting People to Buy Without Selling.

Stress customer benefits. Convince the merchant your product will meet a need of the buying public and that need, or want is worth far more than the price the retail store pays for the item.

Since their customers have this great need and desire for the product they will come back and purchase the same item from that retail outlet again and again giving the merchant a huge profit margin.

Show the customer how they benefit and you’ll soon have a booming enterprise. Then you can increase your allowance and quit your day job.

Copyright © 2005 Gloria Whitehorn and Dovemang.com All rights reserved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Gloria Whitehorn is a freelance writer specializing in the field of sales training for online and offline business. She can be contacted via her web-site http://www.dovemang.com

**You have permission to reprint this article on family friendly websites, blogs and ezines as long as you print the complete article and leave all the links and resource box in place. You cannot modify the content in any way.

If you need to reach with your advertising an audience which is highly targeted and cost effective then ezines are the way to go. Ezine ads are highly recommended by all the internet gurus for some advantages you hardly can find in other mediums.

1. Ezines have a highly targeted audience.

Every ezine covers one topic or many related items. Going further, the subscribers are interested by this topic, this is their motivation to join. If you take care to match the ezine to the product you are selling, you have reached the desired target audience.

2. You can reach thousands people.

There are ezines with 500 readers and ezines with over 3-400,000 members. It’s up to you to run your ad in a large ezine or in medium (small) ones. Just make some calculations to reach the amount of people you want or you afford to pay

3. Ezines offer free exposure.

Almost all ezines are archived, thousands of people read these archives, by consequence, your ad will be seen by these people at no extra cost. This exposure will bring you sales on a long term basis for free.

4. You may test your ad immediately.

By immediately I mean a short period of time. With offline publications you usually have to wait 60-90 days before you can receive any feed back.

5. Ezines mean flexible advertising.

Advertising with ezines allows you to test and update your ads very easy. Due the short period of response you may easily tally your ad and find the one that produces the best results. You may also choose to advertise in many ezines in order to determine the most responsive group of recipients.

Valerian Dinca is a freelance writer specialized in items like affordable ezine advertising.

Gone are the days when glossy printed handouts would suffice in attracting customers to your restaurant. Today, in their quest to catch eyeballs, advertising agencies have created a nonstop marketplace that knows no limits.

Restaurant Advertising Gets Customers

Will Rogers, the late entertainer, once said, “All I know is just what I read in the papers”. Restaurant advertising generates interest in the papers along with the news coverage. Although, people know them to be mere ads, they start believing in them when they encounter them again and again not only in the print media, but also on the radio and television.

So, if you want to promote your restaurant through advertising, keep these tips in mind:

* Before you embark upon advertising, strategize how you want to promote your restaurant. Is it a traditional place or a fast food joint? What kind of fare does it offer? Questions like these will help you ascertain your target audience and help you in evolving the kind of advertising or brand promotion most suitable for it.

* Generally, you’d need to hire an advertising agency to help in formulating the brand strategy, as also to suggest the media for advertising. The cost factor for print, TV, radio and the Web can vary greatly, so be careful in budgeting.

* The process of selecting the advertising campaign is the next important step. Although, your advertising agency will generally try to sell you their creations, you need to consider them from the potential customers’ point of view. The ads should not only be attractive to catch eyeballs, but simple to understand too.

* How and where are they placed in the print media or which slots are they aired on radio or TV, has a bearing on the exposure of the ads. The rates, too, vary accordingly.

* The best course is to weigh your budget with the kind of exposure desired for the ads and their frequency. And here your negotiating skills will help, as there’s a great scope for bargaining.

* Credibility of advertising is important, which only you can ensure. Your ad shouldn’t claim what you don’t or can’t offer. Also don’t attract people with disguised prices, as it may disappoint them. Be upfront in whatever is or isn’t on your menu or in your restaurant.

It’ll be difficult to catch the attention of the masses with minimal advertising. You’ll have to bombard their senses with ads until they get tempted to pay you a visit!

Charles Lawrence writes for R & I Solutions, makers of Cost Genie restaurant costing software. http://www.costgenie.com

A decade ago most of us sat in awe when viewing a huge full color full motion video screen at a professional sports stadium, or at a concert by one of many famous international musical groups. That cutting edge technology is available today at a fraction of the cost of products manufactured ten years ago, and the visual experience is far superior! If your company has an annual advertising budget of $50,000 or more, the question is no longer “can we afford an electronic message center”, it has become “can we afford NOT to invest in an EMC?”.

Consider the following facts from the Small Business Administration:

1) According to the Small Business Administration, sales increase between 15 and 150% when and electronic message center is installed.

2) Electronic message centers allow an unlimited number of message changes and variable controls, all easily completed with a computer. The result is lower labor cost and elimination of the physical liabilities often associated with copy changes on traditional reader boards.

3) Electronic Message centers communicate variable messages as people pass by, allowing greater flexibility in communicating to the public.

4) With their automated dimming and focusing systems, electronic message centers can respond to the visibility needs of the public, increasing safety and conspicuity day and night.

5) The flexibility offered by electronic message centers means your business can advertise specials while also displaying public service information or other items of public interest.

6) Electronic message centers can quickly “brand” your business site in the local community.

7) Electronic message centers are an investment in your business and provide the best and most cost-effective forms of paid advertising. The only form of advertising that may be more powerful is word of mouth (although it can be neither purchased nor controlled).

8) The effectiveness of an electronic message center is not limited by space or surface area constraints as with a reader-board.

9) Electronic message centers act as your “salesman on the street,” attracting new customers to your business location.

10) Electronic message centers allow you to market your products and services to your immediate trade area and prevent wasteful advertising expenses.

11) The business owner can change the message as needed to provide information to specific
retail customers, and can be used for political, social or community events.

12) Software is available that enables a business owner to display sophisticated logos or
images on the EMC precisely as planned.

An Answer to the Challenge of Changing Demographics

The public - your existing and potential customers - is on the move, both literally and figuratively, and sometimes catching their attention is like hitting a moving target. Consider that approximately 18.6% of Americans move every year. Whether they move a short or long distance, they usually change their basic trade area. Add to that the fact that 15-35% of the traffic on a given street is “just passing through” (vacation travelers and such), and you can see the great potential for single stops by those unfamiliar with the area. An electronic or variable message center offers a unique way to capture the attention of these passers-by. An EMC allows you to communicate more effectively with the typical person passing by at a particular time day by changing the message and graphic of your sign to
match the profile on the street. The local airport in Monmouth, NJ offers a clever example of this flexibility. The airport used its display to advertise price specials at peak hours to those traveling by on the freeway on the way to and from work. During shopping hours or after-school traffic, the airport changed its display to offer community service messages. This kind of flexibility increases the readership of a message unit, as it can correspond to the traffic profile by the day of the week, the time of day, or the season. With the right software, virtually any message can be created and displayed. The demand by businesses for these electronic or variable message centers is increasing because these signs improve the economic viability of difficult commercial sites with limited space. Municipalities that wish to prevent urban sprawl or deterioration of urban land are passing enabling acts that require optimization of urban space, and thus are more willing to look at EMCs as a signage option for businesses.

Frequently Asked Questions about EMCs

We have a sign; why does my business need a message center?
Consider for a moment the speed at which traffic passes by the average business. A motorist has only a few seconds to see and comprehend any given sign. For example, on a street with traffic passing at 45 miles per hour, a car that is 500 feet in front of a given sign will have only 7.6 seconds to read the sign before it passes, under normal driving conditions. A business’ sign must be conspicuous if it is to catch the attention of passing motorists within the limited amount of time available. Motorists often spot electronic message centers quickly because the copy changes, the letters are illuminated, and the signs have traditionally been used as public service devices. Additionally, electronic message centers may have greater visibility from further distances, especially in poor lighting conditions , giving the motorist additional time to read the message displayed while safely maneuvering his or her vehicle. Message Centers act as a consolidating type of advertising. In other words, they offer businesses a way of posting a variety of information in one place rather than relying on numerous signs and banners displayed in windows, for example. This can be a real advantage for a business located in a district with strict rules about temporary signs. Most importantly, the electronic message center almost always increases a business’ share of revenue . This is a result of the “branding” of the site through the use of specific logos, reinforcement of other advertising messages, allowing for public service notices, generating exact impulse stops, and helping to change customers’ buying habits once they have stopped.

Is an electronic message center a cost-effective advertising medium?
Yes. Businesses often select their advertising medium, and messages, based upon the cost per thousand exposures of their message to the public. ON this basis, no other form of advertising comes close to matching the efficiency and cost-effectiveness, dollar for dollar, of an electronic message display. Compare the figures below:

· Newspaper advertising - the cost on average is about $7.39 for 1000 exposures within a 10- mile radius of the business location.
· Television advertising - The cost on average is approximately $6.26 per 1000 exposures.
· Radio advertising - The cost is about $5.47 per 1000 exposures.
· New LED electronic message center display - The cost is less than $0.15 per 1000 exposures. How? Assume, for example, that you spend $30,000.00 on this type of system, and that its useful life is about ten years. The amortized daily cost of the message center would equal about $2.74. Add to this the daily cost of electricity for this new LED unit (approximately $0.20), thus giving your business a daily message center expense total of $8.82. With a daily traffic count of 20,000 vehicles passing your business, you would have a cost of less than $0.45 per thousand exposures (counting drivers only)!
Best of all, with an electronic message center, a business does not have to worry about missing its target audience, becoming “yesterday’s news,” or facing expensive production costs for changing its message , as happens frequently with the other forms of advertising mentioned.

With an electronic variable message display:
· The business owns the form of advertising
· The advertising works for the business 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
· The sign acts as the “salesman on the street” attracting customers into the business
· The advertising speaks directly to the potential customers as they drive past the business location, and the EMC makes the business a landmark in its community. Finally, many message center manufacturers provide leasing programs, which include service and maintenance, thereby providing another option for covering the cost of usage.

Please contact the Small Business Administration for more information.

Before you decide that these incredible devices are beyond your scope of understanding or ability to operate, consider the fact that, with a rudimentary understanding of personal computers, within a couple of hours of “hands on” experience you will have a firm grasp of what it takes to run your new electronic message center. If you have the ability to use Microsoft software, electronic message centers will provide little challenge.

A common misunderstanding is that there must be constant communication between your computer and the electronic message center. In reality, this communication is only necessary when the user changes the message schedule, and it takes about 5 seconds for the transmission.

Electronic message centers range from small simple “time and temperature” displays to full color boards with the ability to show movie clips. You may choose between Mono(single color/text only), Gray Scale(single color with varying number of shades that allows basic graphic display), and Full Color, which offers beautiful realistic renderings of just about anything you can visualize!

One of the most exciting parts of owning an electronic message center is the ability to target your advertisements specifically to the potential customer passing in front of your location, by time, date, Holiday, or any other variable you choose… and if you use your imagination, and devise very tempting ads, that customer will come in your door immediately while your ad is still on his mind. Instant gratification!

One of the most frustrating advertising issues is coordinating ad dates with delivery of product. As a business owner, how many times have you spent thousands of dollars to run advertising on a new and exciting product, only to have the supplier “drop the ball”, and not deliver the goods on time? It’s happened to all of us… With your new electronic message center, until you push the “send” button your message doesn’t change.

How about the other side of the coin… A vendor calls and has acquired one of your best selling items at a tremendous savings and wants to get them out of his inventory very quickly. It’s a cash deal, so you want to turn your investment within a short period of time. Your ability to rapidly set up and get ads running on “standard” media is very limited, and could add weeks to the amount of time needed to sell the product. With your new electronic message center, you can target tens of thousands of passersby per day immediately! This provides a real advantage for you, when your competitors don’t own an electronic message center.

Time and temperature and public service messages will draw viewers to your electronic message center. Adding “non-sales” oriented public service messages to your schedule will cause those who use your street as a regular route to become accustomed to turning to look at your sign to get the latest updates, which is exactly what you are trying to accomplish.

Bottom line? You can own an electronic message center for less than the yearly cost of a full page Yellow Pages ad. The cost of a yearlong full coverage television or radio advertising campaign could dwarf the investment made in an electronic message center that will last for years, requires very little maintenance, and runs on standard 110 volt AC current.

The question is no longer “can we afford an electronic message center”… It’s “can we afford NOT to invest in an EMC!”

Phil Scheen is an electronic message center specialist for Colorado Signworks in Denver Colorado, a sign company that has been designing, manufacturing, installing, and servicing signs for almost 50 years.

http://www.coloradosignworks.com

Advertising is essential to any business. The key to making your enterprise into a success is letting people know that your business does exist. You need to actually exist in the market in order to be competitive and you only exist in the market if people acknowledge it.

In today’s world, the internet dominates all other forms of advertising. This is the reason why people today keep trying to get ezine advertising However, there are companies who cannot really afford the prices that websites are charging for ezine advertising That’s why more and more businesses keep looking for free advertising in newsletters.

What are the advantages of getting this type of advertising? Well, first of all it is free. Since advertising is such an important tool in making money, getting free ezine advertising is actually akin to having someone give you cash. Isn’t that something that every entrepreneur wants? Free ezine advertising though, can have its costs. This can be evident in the various ways you might get it:

1) Membership ~ There are certain web groups and sites which offer you free ezine advertising if you sign up for a membership. Getting free newsletter advertising in this manner will help a business if the business is trying to target a certain demographic.

You need to realize, however, that the people who can access a specific site’s ezine could be a bit limited. You would also be required to pay a membership fee. Some people would actually think that this payment can be worth it considering the fact that the membership fees do give you access to a lot of privileges. The free ezine advertising is actually used as an incentive in order to gain more members.

2) Debut ~ There are various websites which offer free ezine advertising with their maiden issue. This means that when an ezine is just starting out, they may offer you free advertising. This is often done ion order to establish the reputation of an ezine If a website is a virtual unknown, it needs to attract investors. By offering newsletter advertising a website can prove to the market how much of an investment that ezine is.

This means that people can make sure that they will get high payments for advertisements in future issues of the ezine Needless to say, there is a lot of risk in getting this type of free ezine advertising Although it is free, you run the risk of not having anyone actually see your advertising. That could be bad for your business. It is suggested that you cover all bases by getting ezine advertisements in other sites and not depending too much on your freebie.

3) Introductory ~ If you are a new business and a website sees huge potential in you, it may offer you your first ezine advertisement for free. There are some websites which offer this only if you agree to advertise in their future issues. There are also websites, however, which may offer the free ezine advertising with no strings attached. This means that you will be able to actually enjoy the benefits o9f advertising with an established ezine

Finding free ezine advertising is not really hard, provided certain conditions are met. If you. The beauty of the internet lies in the fact that you can actually monitor if an ezine advertisement is working. This means that if the ezine advertising doesn’t click, then it’s free.

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About 10 years ago, a new type of search engine surfaced on the Internet scene. It was a way that you could buy yourself into the top of the search engine rankings in a bidding fashion. This came to be known as pay per click marketing and it wasn’t long before all of the search engines adopted this style of advertising. When many people think about this type of advertising, they think about the Google AdWords system. The fact of the matter is, Google is only one of the ways that you can receive traffic in this fashion. If you use it effectively, however, they can send you more traffic than anyone else.

It was such an easy thing to find some keywords with low competition, throw up a page that pointed to an affiliate program and buy an ad through the pay per click marketing systems. Not all that long ago, however, something happened that dramatically changed the scene of this kind of advertising. It is usually known as the Google slap, a time in which people saw their rankings in pay per click marketing drop dramatically overnight. Not only did they drop quickly, they continued to drop consistently for a long period of time. Why is this?

Google began to institute a new policy that was known as the quality score. Although they had used the quality score before this time, they really began to put it into effect and that is what caused the Google slap to occur. As it turns out, Google didn’t want a lot of affiliate programs cluttering up their advertising space. Their claim is to be interested in quality content and this also included their ads. If the advertisement or the keyword did not fit in well with the webpage to which it was pointing, you either lost your ranking power or your minimum bid was raised to such a high level that you could never afford it. It seemed that this was the death of affiliate marketing using pay per click advertising. Is that really the case?

Actually, it is easier now to make money with pay per click marketing and affiliate advertising than it was before. Not that it takes less work, but there is much less competition to worry about. All that is really necessary is for you to put up a page that is relevant to what you are trying to offer. You can do so in the way of a review article for the product that you are associated with. Simply point your Google ad to this page and you should rank well while only paying out a minimum bid.

The two things that you are going to need whenever you do this kind of advertising are patience and a desire to stick to it. Not every ad campaign that you’re going to run will be a success. Enough of them will work, however, to make it well worth your while.

Guido Nussbaum is a successful internet marketer and specialized on teaching others how to increase website traffic for free. Check out his website at Easy Viral Traffic.

You’ve taken the plunge and set yourself up a site worthy of traffic. PPC is the route you plan to take. How though, if possible, are you going to shine through the mixture of sites offering the same or close to the same product? What methods can you take that will make yours the site the search engines hit?

In plain language it’s all in the ads! You must take steps to put your offer in the forefront, give prospective customers a reason to purchase from you. In other words, you gotta WOW them with your words. Writing effective ads will not secure your future but, getting will be easier if you can tempt your visitors and get them to try you over any other site selling or offering the same.

Let’s start off by taking a look at proving your merit. How do you let visitors know you offer top of the line merchandise and/or service? Well, to begin with, you can let others do the selling for you. Get past customers, people you know will give you an honest opinion and ask them for a testimonial. Be sure you can vouch for each testimonial. You want others to believe them, so you better believe them too. Of course the testimonial of an expert or public personality will help sales as long as they are real without effusive over-praising.

Discounts, samples and free trials will get your product tested. By having honest trials with documented follow-ups can aid in the production of true and believable testimonials but don’t give away the farm. If people feel you are too quick to offer free usage or long trial periods, they may begin to think you, yourself have little belief in the product or service. Be realistic yet generous and get them back as paying customers for real.

Make direct statements concerning ordering or receiving your goods. Be positive as opposed to wishy-washy. Tell your prospective customers that by “clicking here” or “join now” to receive your top attention and best service.

Offering a complimentary item as an added bonus can sway some. For example , if you are selling an ebook devoted to learning the best way to install graphics on a site, offer a selection of these graphics to complement the installation. Give them something they want that will ensure positive results IF they follow your advice, or use your product.

Shaun Baird runs a highly successful advertising website. Meyie.com is a fantastic place for you to advertise your business, blog, website or other, and you will get thousands of targeted, interested people looking at your website every day for as little as just 2 cents per click (cheaper than many search engines!). Be warned, we will send you a lot of targeted traffic quickly so ensure your server can handle the traffic! Choose http://www.meyie.com as an ideal place to test out your marketing ideas extremely quickly! Imagine being able to run a test on a new headline with 1000 real people, and then run a new headline a few hours later on another 1000 people! When you get a winning combination you can roll it out big time. We also give away real physical prizes each month for each ad campaign submitted.

People like to talk, so you will always have your business talked about by somebody to somebody else. The important thing is to make sure that what’s talked about is good and not bad stuff! How do you do that? By making each part of the customers’ contact with you a contact that wows them.

There are multiple points in your business where your customers have contact with your organization. The easiest to see is on the front end, where we meet them, greet them, and hopefully make a sale to them. But what about when they call because they don’t understand something about the service or product they’ve bought? Or when they have a problem with the bill? Or when it’s time to upgrade? Or even - good grief! - when they’re unhappy about part of your service? Believe it or not, these are your very best opportunities for developing good word of mouth advertising.

Now, why would I say that? Obviously, we spend most of our money and do most of our training on doing a good job at the front end - the sales end. It’s easy to see results here, either you make the sale or you don’t. But “buying something from us” does not make people appreciate us as a company, dealing well with a problem does! There will always be problems involved with some part of our relationship with the customer, and our thoroughness in planning for the interactions that occur at these times will make the difference between bad or good word of mouth advertising.

Federal Express is one company which has taken this to heart, and issues that arise during shipping (and there aren’t many!) are dealt with quickly and thoroughly by the staff member taking the call. One such interaction had the staffer listening to an irate customer with a lost package who was “fed up” with the lack of response she was getting from the local employees. During her call to national headquarters in Memphis, the staff member heard her out, restated the problem back to her to be sure of understanding, get on that customer’s side by committing to find an answer to it, and gave the customer the option of staying on the line or waiting for a call back with resolution of the issue.

The problem was resolved and the package found. Now put yourself in the customers place: if someone had taken the time to obviously listen well, and then worked hard to fix a problem you had, what would be your feelings toward them? Wouldn’t you mention the whole situation to people you knew? Wouldn’t it be in the front of your mind whenever someone else talked about a problem they were having with a service or product? And think about what would be actually said: “Well, listen to this! I had sent a package with Fed Ex, and they lost it, but you should have seen how that woman in Memphis worked with me! She listened to me, took down all my information, followed up with me within 15 minutes - I’ll tell you, I was impressed.

Notice how customers in this situation will go through all the steps that were taken to help them resolve the issue? And that sort of story is very impressive to the third party who’s hearing it. Who do you think they’ll use when they have a package to send? They already have a good story of a problem dealt with well, and it has already put the company in a good light with them.

So time taken to analyze the customer contact points in your business is time well spent. And getting the staff involved in coming up with the steps to be taken to resolve problems is worth the effort. You can start your own positive word of mouth marketing campaign, and lift morale and pride in your company while you’re doing it.

The author of this article, Tim Connor, is president and founder of Rodeo! Performance Group, Inc., an Ocala, Florida-based group of facilitators working with businesses and executives who want to make their businesses competitive on a global scale. Tim can be contacted at timconnor@rodeopg.com or by phone at 1-877-284-0009. Visit Rodeo! on the web at http://www.rodeopg.com

“With the holiday season just a few months away, it’s best to start planning now.” That simple sentence can send even the most competent business owners into a tailspin. The talks begin about what to choose. Is it better to do promotional apparel or a promotional item? How much should your business spend, and more importantly how much can you afford to spend? There’s no reason to break the bank on a holiday promotion. In fact the most powerful promotional product is a not only cheap giveaway, but it’s one of the most well known holiday promotional items: a calendar.

It’s easy to not think about promotional calendars when looking for a holiday gift, when there are so many other promotional products out there. But none of them have the same impact as a promotional calendar. A survey done by the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) found the truth behind calendar advertising and revealed statistics that prove without a doubt that a calendar is the most effective form of advertising out there.

For starters, almost everyone uses a calendar and most people use more than one. The study found that households use an average of 4 calendars per home and the typical employee has 2.5 calendars accessible at all times. Think about it. If the kids have dance lessons or if you have applicants coming in for a job interview, what’s the easiest way to keep track of them? According to PPAI, 65% of all home and business calendar users write their appointments on a calendar. In addition to that, only 28% of calendars that were being used in homes and 15% that were being used in businesses were purchased by the user. Why buy something that you can get for free?

So why are calendars the perfect promotional gift? Since they are useful items, people appreciate them and they appreciate those who sent them. The PPAI study showed that firms who sent out calendars as gifts saw a 5% increase in business with calendar recipients. In addition to that, 85% of individuals who received calendars at their homes do business with the firm advertised on the calendar.

However, the most interesting statistic released by PPAI is the following: 87% of household recipients and 94% of business recipients can recall the advertisement stated in the message on the calendar. So take some of the guesswork out of holiday shopping for your business this year and think about the message you want to send. If you’re looking for a simple way to say thank you, choose anything. If you’re looking to impress, choose a corporate gift. But if you’re looking to give and receive with your holiday promotion, the answer is as simple as a promotional calendar.

Sarah Shepherd is a e-marketing specialist for Motivators, Inc., a Long Island based promotional products distributor. The company’s website, Motivators Promotional Products boasts over 30,000 e-commerce enabled promotional products. For more about the products discussed in this article, please visit: Motivators Promotional Calendars.