Marketing Strategy through Promotional Materials

Looking through your drawers and the whole room you will notice that you have a number of promotional materials of various companies, collected over a period of time. Promotional material from a company will have its logo, emblem and a brief message.

Such promotional materials include things like pens, magnets, caps, key rings, T-shirts, letter openers, golf balls and many other similar objects, which held your attention for a certain period of time.

These promotional materials are very cost effective, but companies are still not using them very often as a marketing tool to send their advertising message to the prospects. These promotional materials are called ad specialties. You can use a variety of items as ad specialties by printing your logo, emblem or message on them. These ad specialties have a long life because they remain in possession of the prospects for quite some time- a week, a month or even longer depending on the life of the product and how interesting and useful did the prospect find it in the first place. More the utility that the ad specialty item has, longer will be its life with the prospect and more number of times the prospect will look at the company emblem and the message.

Ad specialty items can leave a lasting impression on the prospect. Marketers on their part need to put in mind and effort to design new and creative ad specialty items, so that the customers hold on to these items for a longer time, thereby increasing the life of the item and the message of the company. These items can become representative of a special event organized by the company like a charity show or a fare or even an anniversary party. People cherish the mementos from these kind of events and hold on to them for years.

To get the most out of ad specialties, be sure to order well in advance. Turnaround time is often quick when imprinting products; a week or two is all it usually takes. But allow extra time in case you need to make changes, if the artwork is not received properly, if the specialty supplier makes a mistake, or if shipping is held up. Even with a reliable supplier, sometimes things go wrong. Also, distribute the products once you get them! They do you no good in their boxes. You need to get them in the hands of prospects, customers, and employees so they can start using them and remembering your name.


Scott F. Geld is the Manager of Marketing Blaster, Inc, a pay-per-click traffic source that continually out performs the other major search engines in conversion ratio and ROI.

Let Your Customers Select You

Almost a complete opposite to direct marketing, welcome marketing (or opt-in as it is often called) is where people have actually asked to be part of your marketing campaign. This is a relatively new, but highly effective marketing method.

People actually come to you; they tell you that they want to receive information by newsletter, email or possibly through phone calls. Think about it, how much time and money do you waste by sending information to people who are simply not interested?

By narrowing down your target audience in this way, you can reduce the amount of wasted time and effort that goes into unsolicited marketing.

Another great benefit is that your customers can actually ask you for the information that they want to receive. A lot of marketing material is unnecessary or unwanted. By being directly linked to your customers you can make sure that you tell them exactly what they want to hear.

This direct link is a great way to make your customer feel wanted and important. There is nothing worse than receiving information that is totally irrelevant; this does nothing to build the reputation of your company. Target people and build the relationships you have if you want to see marketing success.

Opt-in marketing is particularly useful online. This way customers can receive information directly to their home.

Customers are becoming very standoffish when it comes to marketing. This is most likely due to the overwhelming amounts of marketing that bombard us from everywhere. Not only are their advertisements and commercial everywhere, we also have telemarketers calling us, spam emails, pop up ads on the internet and even advertisements via FAX. This is annoying and sometimes marketers seem outright predatory.

By allowing customers to choose whether or not they receive information you are much more likely to get a warmer reception. Be sure that you stay around to help your customer after they have bought your product. This way they will remain interested in your marketing and will become repeat customers.

By allowing people the choice, you are automatically gaining their trust as a non-pushy and pleasant company. It is also extremely important that you have people available to deal with after-sales issues. There is nothing more frustrating than getting an email advertising a product when you have been 'on hold' about the very same product for the best part of an hour! Remember your customers are your future.

Scott F. Geld is the Head Manager of Marketing Blaster Inc, a pay-per-click traffic source that continually beats the other major search engines in conversion ratio and ROI.

Article Duplication Solution

Most content site developers are busy avoiding the infamous "duplicate content" filters on all of the major search engines. Those who (like me) submit articles for promotion, are especially affected. I think I may have found a solution.

It's going to save you a bunch of time, effort and money if you publish articles.

It's called ArtemisPro and it's the best solution I know of for avoiding duplicate content penalties.

I often recommend buying PLR articles and them modifying them to get around the duplicate content penalties.

It is important to keep your articles unique and different from others who might be submitting those exact same PLR articles. However, it doesn't solve the problem of your own modified version of that article being detected as duplicate content across all of the article directories and other sites it ends up being published. The search engines don't give nearly the credit to those duplicate articles as they do for the original.

This is a huge problem for people who've previously been using articles to help with their website rankings (like me) as your trusty old links can start to reduce over time until hardly any are left.

The only answer is to submit a different article to every site, so that every single copy of your article is different - but how much work would that involve? TOO MUCH!

However, there's now a great little tool which resolves this problem.

I have friends who all have their own little applications for taking their content and making lots of versions of it for their websites - well this does exactly that, but for articles.

With ArtemisPro, you write three different versions of your article and it then knows how to mix them up properly (while still having them make perfect sense to your human readers) while it submits articles to sites and newsletters... each one being 100% unique and different from all of the other submissions in that batch.

This is the first program I have seen that can do this during an article submission. It's extremely powerful if you are concerned about duplicate content penalties. I actually had this idea myself awhile back and was going have a programmer create a tool like ArtemisPro. Why reinvent the wheel? This tool is inexpensive and simply crushes the duplicate content problem.

If you don't already have Artemis Pro, I would grab a copy today. It's extremely cheap for what it does and I don't know of any alternatives yet. I love being able to submit thousands of unique articles in less time than it takes to write three articles.

"The Biggest Asset and Essential Ingredient to Creating Happiness and Success is a Positive Self Image and an 'I-CAN' Mindset". For more personal success information, check out Andy Henry's "Money And Motivation" site here: http://www.MoneyAndMotivation.com

Imaginative Marketing

The market moves so quickly that it can be hard to keep up with the latest trends and ideas. Competitors seem to bring out bigger and better advertising every day and keeping up can be a real drain, both financially and in time. With ideas moving so quickly, what you really need to stay ahead of the game is a sharp imagination.

These days marketing is everywhere. Every company, no matter how small, is out there grabbing attention. To stand out you really have to be different. Most techniques have been tried, from the incredible to the hilarious. There are all sorts of adverts to be seen in today's market.

Watching the ways that others market is a great way to get your ideas together. Somehow, you need to create feeling. Whether the audience bursts into tears or laughter is largely irrelevant, what matters is that your marketing touches them in someway or another. Your advert should leave an impression that lasts for hours if not days.

The problem with using creativity in marketing is that most people can't do it well. It comes out as cheesy or just plain out dumb. Sometimes it is over the top and other times its message just doesn't make sense. The biggest reason for using your imagination in marketing is to form a relationship between your product and your customers.

If your message is too confusing, your audience may not even realize that it is talking about your product. Instead of focusing on wacky messages, try telling your customer why they need your product instead of anyone else's.

The more people you talk to the better. Everyone will have a different idea. Talk to colleagues, friends and family to get inspiration and fresh ideas. You can also talk to professionals in the field of marketing, from web designers to copywriters there are all sorts of people available to help you get creative effectively.

Scott F. Geld is the Lead Controller of Marketing Blaster Inc, a pay-per-click traffic source that continually
beats the major search engines in ROI and Conversion Ratios.

Marketing Ideas

It is the marketing ideas and strategies that get converted into the promotional strategies for your company and that is what will ultimately bring in the sales and profits. You can come across or develop new marketing ideas by being observant and creative. The basic idea or philosophy behind any marketing strategy is to build and then maintain a customer list that will be loyal to your company and buy repeatedly from you.

To get better marketing ideas you need to jot down all the ideas that come to your mind. All the ideas about your product, all the ideas about your customers, then narrow down these ideas to a few good ones. If brainstorming is not working and you have not been able to come up with any good original ideas, then you can search the web for some other ideas which can help you to add on to it and then come up with a marketing idea that will be apt for your company and product.

A marketing plan should have been designed to include best marketing ideas. If you feel that being creative and designing your marketing plan is not your cup of tea then do look at the option of hiring a marketing agency that will help you design a complete marketing strategy for your company. These agencies have staff whose competency is in knowing which ideas work for which businesses because they are experienced in the field and have seen hundreds of campaigns.

The marketing ideas you come up with will need to be implemented, or they are of no use. If you cannot or do not launch your campaigns, they will never bring you the desired results! So when planning, keep in mind the obstacles you may face, and think of ways to eliminate them. Some things that may hold you back include budget constraints, lack of skill, or being understaffed. Think of ways around this as you plan your strategy.

Finally, think about the specific tactics you will use in these campaigns. Your marketing ideas might include advertising, viral marketing, sponsorship, branding, product sampling and public relations. Or, you may want to stick simply with direct mail or an email opt in program. Product packaging and promotional materials are two other ideas you might want to include. See, it just pays to be open minded.

Scott F. Geld is the President of Marketing Blaster, a Pay-Per-Click traffic source that continually beats the competition in ROI and Conversion Rations.

Advertising by Recommendation

Word of mouth marketing is probably the earliest form of marketing to exist. Long before even the days of money, people knew who to go to get the supplies or items that they needed. There were no television or radio or mail systems for marketing. People found what they needed through word of mouth. People advertised what they had through word of mouth. It was a very primitive but very successful method of
marketing and it still exists today.

Word of Mouth Made Easy

Influencing word of mouth can seem like a daunting task, particularly in today's technologically advanced world. Having said this, the benefits from word of mouth are considerable and with a little bit of time and effort your company could generate considerable sales with this method.

If a customer has a good experience with your company and your product, it is likely that they will tell their
friends, family and colleagues. This type of positive feedback is proven to be much more effective than many
other forms of traditional marketing such as flyers or TV adverts.

Encouraging people to talk about your product can be both easy and difficult. Certain products are automatically talked about as they are new and innovative, others will need a little more encouragement.

A great way to kick start conversations is to do something that generates a great deal of publicity such as a
community event or charitable donation. Such events will automatically get people talking.

Getting People to Talk More

One excellent tip for when it comes to word of mouth marketing is that honesty always works to your advantage. When you prove to your customers that you are honest and no one is out to scam them, they will spread that positive message to other people.

You should also remember that often simpler is better. And you should never make claim that you can not back up. Lastly, you should also treat your customers kindly and with respect. They will enjoy the experience and then go on to tell other people and you and your company.

Scott F. Geld is the Head Supervisor of Marketing Blaster, a pay-per-click traffic source that continually beats the major search engines in ROI and Conversion Ratios.

Retaining Customer Loyalty

Retaining customers is one of the most challenging tasks for managers in all industries and this phenomenon has been continuing for long. Retaining customers is one of the most important activities that the company can indulge in. it is easy to understand that it is more expensive and difficulty to get new customers as compared to expenses in retaining old customer. Instead of having a customer for a single purchase, if you can have a customer for a life, it will make your business a success.

In the long run, repeat business is more profitable than you realize with much less effort and struggle that you would need to put in to try to make new customers each time. Maintaining existing customer loyalty is less costly and much simpler than wasting your financial resources on making new ones. An old and satisfied clientele talks to others about your good service and through their loyalty helps to build your reputation.

It is not very difficult to retain customers. The trick to the trade is to stay ahead of the needs of the customer, to anticipate his desires and fulfill them even before he can perceive them. Maintain a regular contact with your customer and understanding their requirements through surveys or loyalty programs is a great start.

Retaining customers does not have to be difficult at all. If you stay in touch with current customers and continue to survey prospects though loyalty programs, opt in email or customer surveys, you will always be one step ahead of their needs. By anticipating their wants and needs, then meeting or exceeding them, customers will be impressed with the value you give them and will continue to want to do business with you. This can only be a good thing!

Loyalty programs are a key way businesses keep customers satisfied. Reward your clients for doing business with you, and they will take notice of what you have to say and what you have to offer. Ignore your customers, and they will go away. So the moral of the story is - appreciate your current customer base; they are the people that keep you in business and without them, your company wouldn't exist.

Scott F. Geld is the Head Supervisor of Marketing Blaster Inc, a pay-per-click traffic source that continually beats the major search engines in ROI and Conversion Ratios.

Online Tools are Essential for Internet Marketing

In order to get the desired results from your website you need online tools to track the visitors to your site, especially, if the clicks are not producing sales. You need to know what is wrong. Possibly, your site is not properly designed or is difficult to navigate, which does not bring enough hits on your site. May be your copy writing is not compelling enough to captivate the attention of the visitors. Perhaps, they see only the homepage without bothering to browse through the rest of your site where the real substance is. The fact is that you will never know what is wrong with your site without the necessary tools that help you track the visitors to your site and find out what they are doing or not doing and why.

By far the most outstanding feature of Internet marketing is its ability to gather valuable information. It surpasses all the other innovative qualities of Internet marketing, such as its ability to provide access to the largest consumer market ever known in history, or its capacity to capture niche markets like never before.

The Internet, after all, is the golden child of the Information Age. If you advertise via print or even television, the most you can gather is how many people actually had the opportunity to see your ad. You cannot really be sure that they saw your ad, you just know that the television was on the right channel when it aired or that people bought the publication that it was displayed. You may be able to find out when people buy your products or services that they learned about you through an ad you placed on television or in a magazine, but you never really know what about that ad worked, or did not.

There are tools on the internet that can give you feedback about every hit on your website. For example, where each visitor went and which pages he/she accessed. You can also get details of the other websites they accessed. Once you have this information regarding the surfing habits and interests of your visitors, you can easily fine tune your advertising strategy at a nominal cost (if any). Conversely, an ad placed in a newspaper or aired on television cannot be changed in this way. You just have to keep your fingers crossed that the ad works and it translates into increased sales.

The force that drives the internet is information and this is what makes advertising through this medium so potent. When you set up a website, take advantage of all the software and tools available and make your website as attractive to potential customers as possible. Tracking software is a must so make sure you have it. With the immense reach of the internet, its tracking capabilities and all the online tools available, your advertising strategy is likely to pay off handsomely.

Desmond Mantor is the Marketing Manager of Have Traffic which offers highly qualified traffic for commercial websites. Have Traffic's unique system of pre-qualifying visitors has proven, in independent tests, more effective than pay per click traffic.

Marketing Research: Individual Words

We all know that phrases like "Who else wants to know" in a headline can improve our sales. Have you ever thought about the individual words and their impact on your profitability?

I recently performed a statistical analysis on several thousand ads while looking at individual words and
profitability.

The first task was to determine the profitability of each ad being analyzed. This was done using the age-old
mailorder marketing method. Basically, if you see an advertisement month after month and year after year, it is probably profitable. If you see an ad only once or twice and then it changes or disappears completely, the
advertisement was probably not very profitable.

The next task was to simply look for the occurence of a list of words in each ad while noting whether the ad was profitable or not. The results were tallied and lots of words were removed from the list because there simply wasn't sufficient data to come up with a statistically significant result.

I won't bore you with the rest of the details. Here is a list of some of the words found much more often in
profitable ads than in ads that didn't produce a profit:

accessories, an, best, blue, buy, by, causes, cheap, discount, discover, easily, fast, find, guaranteed, has,
improve, increase, lower, more, nationwide, near, need, of, on, one, order, payments, powered, pricing, rates,
reduce, stop, superb, the, view, what, with

Here is a list of the words found much more often in ads that were NOT profitable:

affordable, after, and, as, at, before, better, help, here, how, else, excellent, experience, for, led, listings,
loan, method, money, mortgage, naturally, now, options, photos, search, secret, secrets, sell, step, to, try,
unlimited, us, who, you, your

Now keep in mind that correlation can not prove causality. This research isn't saying that all ads that use the word "excellent" are doomed to being unprofitable. However, it is saying that a statistically significant percentage of ads that use the word "cheap" are profitable and a majority of those that use the word "affordable" are not profitable.

If your ad copy currently uses the word "affordable" (a word from the "bad" list above) and you change that word to "cheap" (a word from the "good" list above), will your profitability increase? There are no guarantees. There are an unlimited number of factors that could impact that result. Not ALL ads that use the word "cheap" were profitable. Not ALL ads that use the word "affordable" were unprofitable. However, the use of the word "cheap" instead of "affordable" is more likely to improve your profitability.

You still need to split test to find out the answer in any particular situation. But, why not start out with the most likely words to be profitable in ad copy generally speaking?

Take a look at your current ad copy and see if you can find any of the words in the "bad" list that have good
replacements in the "good" list. Run a split test and see if your profitability increases. What can it hurt to put
some math on your side?

James D. Brausch is the creator of QuitThatJob.com, a step-by-step coaching membership site to help you build an Internet business with residual income that will help you QUit That Job! QuitThatJob.com is based on James' actual method of building his own business and real research like you found in this article.

Declining Birth Rates of Italy

It has been reported by Global Agenda Magazine that Italy has the second lowest birth rate in Europe and the West. They are second only to Spain. Though Italy has an age old tradition of Catholics and is the center of Catholic Church, it is odd to note that the birth rate is only one single child per female.

It was brought out in an article in April 2004 in the Sunday Telegraph that Swedens Birth rate was close to
Italys though 50% higher. In order to arrest this situation, the Italian Government started offering 1,000
euros to every woman who had a second child.

Culturally this trend may appear strange in a previously Catholic country (its official status as a Roman Catholic state was removed in 1985) where family has been a central unit in society and Catholic culture.

In contrast to the situation in Italy, some other catholic countries in Europe such as France and Ireland
have a high rate of child birth. The reason for this may be attributed to the fact that the government is more
lavish in funding health and child care. They are also offering better incentives to families with more than one
child.

In countries where the birth rate is low and declining, such as Italy, Russia, and Japan, there is concern that the current pension systems will not continue to sustain an aging population with fewer people to pay into it.
Countries in Eastern Europe also witness a similar trend. Those who study social and public policy in Europe have been evaluating possible reasons for this decline in birth rates.

One possible line of thinking is that in the earlier days a large number of children were considered indispensable to help in the farms or run the family business. It was also expected that they would look after the aging parents. It was felt that having more children was a sort of insurance for the old age. But nowadays, people when they grow old, are less and less dependent on their children. The provision of pension has contributed to this kind of thinking.

Another explanation put forward for the declining birth rates is that individuals have lesser amount of money
left with them to take care of more children. This shortage of money has been attributed to contributions to
social programs such as pensions.

These days most women are working full time. Many countries do not offer child care facilities like what is
offered in a country like Norway. Norway takes care of this aspect and also permits flexible working hours along with maternity leave, unlike Italy. This is also considered as a reason for declining birth rates.

In all, the declining birth rate in Italy is certainly a reality that needs to be addressed with regard to how
todays young people will be supported in their old age. However, this problem is arguably less serious than the opposite situation of extreme population growth in developing countries.

Desri Dillinaco is the web designer of Italy which is a premier resource for Italy information.