10 Tips to Use Giveaways EffectivelyWritten by Susan Friedmann
Walk around any trade or consumer show and you will be able to collect a bag full of advertising specialties, or giveaway items all designed to promote. But look a little more closely. How many really do an effective job? How clearly do they get a message across? Is message sufficiently visible? Is giveaway useful or unique enough that you would want to keep and use it? All these questions, and more, need to be considered before jumping into giveaway game. Everyone enjoys receiving a gift, even if it is "just a little something." Gift giving creates a favorable impression. It can build goodwill, be an incentive, communicate a message and create awareness. When thinking about advertising specialties for your next show, consider following ten questions: 1. What do you want to achieve by giving away a premium item? Your giveaway items should be designed to increase your memorability, communicate, motivate, promote or increase recognition. It is important not only that message have an impact, but also premium itself. 2. How will you select your premium item? There is a multitude of different items you could consider as a premium. However, which one will best suit your purpose? To select right item, you need to decide your objective. Do you want it to enhance a theme; convey a specific message or educate your target audience? A clear purpose should help make your selection process easier. A promotional specialist can also help you make an effective selection. Remember that your company image is reflected in whatever you choose to give away. 3. Whom do you want to receive your premium? Having a clear objective for your premium item will also help you decide who should receive it. You may consider having different gifts for different types of visitors. You might have different quality gifts for your key customers, prospects and general passers by. 4. How does your giveaway tie into your marketing theme? Is there an item that naturally complements your marketing message? Have message imprinted on item and make sure that your company name, logo and phone number appear clearly. An important aspect of any gift is to remember who it was from long after fact. 5. What is your budget? The price range for premium items is enormous. Quality, quantity and special orders, all impact price. Establish a budget as part of your exhibit marketing plan. Consider ordering same item for several different shows. The greater quantity of your order, lower individual unit price.
| | Why should you write a newsletterWritten by Andre Plessis
Why Should You Write a Newsletter? If you have an online business or a web presence then you should have a newsletter (weekly, biweekly or monthly). There are two major advantages to having a newsletter. First you stay in touch with your clients, prospects, individuals and businesses who contacted you in past and you constantly remind them of your products and/or services. Second your newsletter should help you build your credibility with all those individuals and businesses. Your newsletter will allow you to contact your prospects as often as you want. It will establish you as an expert in whatever field you publish. Your main goal should be to build a binding relationship between you and your prospects, as well as you and your customers. You will be able to turn prospects into customers, and customers into advocates. Your newsletter should be very valuable and offer tips and advices. The best way to build a subscription base is to build a readership base. If your newsletter does not offer good information, they won’t read your newsletter, they will unsubscribe and there will be no future chance for you to do business with them. Everyday I have about 20 to 30 online inquiries. I capture all emails of those prospects to stay in touch with them. It’s not because someone inquires about your products and services that they will buy right away from you. Probably 90% don’t and for most part, people are not ready to make a decision. So it is extremely important for you to stay in touch with those prospects, until they are ready to make their decision. Your newsletter will help you build that credibility that will help prospects make their decision to hopefully buy from you. Each time I send my newsletter I always have businesses that ask me for new count on lists or inquire about new services I have just added. My newsletter allows me to reconnect with all my customers and prospects that may be too busy to inquire. By contacting them with my newsletter, I just remind them of my presence as a marketer. The second way to make money with your newsletter is when you have many subscribers you may want to have ads placed on your newsletter. Your goal should be to build a solid readership, and once you have enough readers you can charge for advertisements. Think about this. On advertising alone, how much is one subscriber worth to you? Here's what I mean by, “for every 1,000 subscribers you have, you can charge about $25 for an ad in your newsletter.” If you have 1,000 subscribers and charge $25 for each ad, and you sell five ads, you make $125 per issue. If you send newsletter out weekly, that is $600 a month of advertising revenue. Therefore, each subscriber is worth $0.60 per month to you $7.20 per year on advertising alone. So, if you figure this out and come to same conclusion why not arrange a deal with a website owner or newsletter publisher wherein you pay him $0.60 for each subscriber he adds to your list. You may use some sort of email co registration. See sample http://www.listopt.com If you can acquire 1,000 new subscribers per month that is 12,000 new subscribers per year. Thus you can charge $300 (12 X $25 per ad x 5 ads = $1500 per issue. NOT BAD for advertising revenue!!! Start your an online publication and concentrate on getting some valuable information that will build reader loyalty. Once this is accomplished, your subscriber base will grow. Then, you can start to market ads in your publication. Once you have a decent subscriber base, other businesses will approach you to place their ad. You'll also want to list your newsletter in a few web directories and indexes. Follow specific submission guidelines for each directory: Here are some places where you can find many newsletters related to your field:
|
