To Swag or Not to Swag: Tip to Brand Your Tchotchkes on a ShoestringWritten by Betty Liang
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I wanted to create my own branded tchotchkes, someone had introduced me a vendor that could set up a store front for my branded products, manage inventory, fulfillment, returns/exchanges, payment and customer support all with no upfront costs. The best part was that there was no minimum when I had been used to buying into minimum quantity requirements of 500 units. The vendor is Cafepress (www.cafepress.com) – a 6 year old start-up in Foster City that is backed by Sequoia Ventures. You can brand various items with your artwork to use as tchotchkes or set up an online store and sell your branded products. I didn't see any mini-mice or USB drives, but you can get started with your basic apparel, mugs and office accessories, to name a few. If you decide to sell your products, Cafepress mails you a monthly check with your earnings.As I come across these types of resources and tools, I will continue to publish them to my small and medium business (SMB) community, SMBxchange, Inc. To share best practices, get your business featured on site, and learn about new technologies, products and resources, join www.smbxchange.com
Betty Liang, spent most of her professional career in various marketing management positions with companies such as Ricoh, Cisco, and Oracle. She is now focused on her own small business helping other small and medium businesses advance their technology capabilities through exchange opportunities.
| | How To Use PR To Build Your BusinessWritten by Lisa Packer
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It’s a rare media outlet that will care about your new product, or sale, or internal promotion – unless you give them a good reason to. You need some kind of emotional hook that will make your story interesting to readers/listeners/viewers. Can you tie your product or sale to a news event? Or better yet, can you create an event of your own? Staging an unusual event or charity benefit can get you lots of positive coverage. Don't just stop at news releases. Write articles on some new development in your industry and submit them to publications your prospects read. Distribute ezine articles far and wide over internet. This establishes you as an expert and gives you exposure. When you do have an article published or a story done on you, milk it for all it is worth. Make copies and use them in your marketing. Frame them and put them up in your store if you have one. At very least, tell people you were featured in such-and-such publication. Publicity can be a great marketing tool. But bottom line is, you have to make it happen. And use it to your advantage when it does!
Does your marketing forge an emotional connection with your prospects? It can. Lisa Packer delivers persuasive, targeted copywriting that dramatically increases your business. Unleash the power of words on behalf of your business by visiting http://www.dramatic-copy.com today.
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