Your Business Card is Your Image

Cognitive Miserliness... Getting Scrooge to Buy

Clip Art Is No Substitute for Original Design When Branding

6 Tips for Successful Email Marketing

Search Engine Marketing: Spidered and Paid Listings

Your Website: If You Build It, Will They Come? ...Only If You Tell Them

Online Newsletters: Your Content Counts

10 Great Reasons to Utilize Email Marketing

Using Promotional Products - An Effective, Targeted Way to Promote

Interactive Email Marketing Statistics

When to Use a Newsletter Instead of a Brochure

Marketing Articles

“Your guide to better marketing and advertising.”


Your Business Card is Your Image
By Jean Dilley

Each one of us has a unique style - it’s defined by the clothes we wear, the car we drive, the way our homes are decorated. That’s true for our businesses also - the location of our office, the furnishings, the way the phone is answered. But the first impression and the one that sets the tone is our Business Card. Here are some points to consider when you create or update that all important business tool.

First - it’s not about you - it’s about your audience. Who is your audience? Is it John Q. Corporate, Edith Entrepreneur or the Frank Family? Your card needs to appeal to your audience. It needs to make them feel that you’re the right person to solve their problem. And the uncanny part of it is that they make that decision subconsciously. They get a "feel" for you based on the color, type style, logo, layout and lastly, the words.

Second - If I don’t know anything about your business, will I know what you do after reading your business card? With a limited number of words, your company name, your tag line, your logo and your title should tell me what you can do for me, your potential customer. Pick up a few cards in your files - can you guess what the cardholder can do for you?

Third - Make it easy to read - the most important lines are the company name, your name and your phone number or e-mail address. In all good advertising, it’s essential to make it easy for the prospective client to reach you. But, be careful that you card doesn’t become the microscopic brochure.

Lastly, work with a graphic design professional. Find someone that asks the tough questions about your image and gives you several totally different concepts to consider. Then, expect to see your layout with wording in at least 10 different variations. You’ll be amazed at how the layout contributes to the image. The final stage is color - whether it’s one color ink on colored paper or multiple shades on white. This is where the printing prices play an important part, so make sure that you’ve already had that discussion with your designer. And one last hint, since your design will become part of your letterhead, make sure that it will fax well in black and white.

Jean Dilley is the Owner of Marketing Magician, a marketing strategy consulting firm in Willow Grove, PA
Contact Jean at marketingmagic@mindspring.com

Cognitive Miserliness... Getting Scrooge to Buy
By John Libonati

Cognitive miserliness is the process of sifting through the mass of information that bombards us everyday, ignoring anything unimportant to us, and retaining the information that is important.

Today's world is full of too many ads, advertising too many products. Instead of melting our brains by trying to see and remember everything, we ignore anything that doesn't interest us. Consumers have become like so many Ebeneezer Scrooges...holding very tightly to our mental purse-strings.

While this is great for our sanity, it means that getting your message through to your target audience is harder than ever. So, how do you catch Ebeneezer's attention and make him remember you?

When composing your message, correctly target and personalize it to those who you are trying to reach. Discover their needs. Be creative when designing your marketing pieces and copy. Explain benefits and how your product or service will meet their needs. Test, test, test your ads before running them. Then, show your ads where and when your audience will look for them. Show them over and over.

Recap: Know your target market. Speak to their needs. Be creative. Test your piece. Run it when your target market will be interested.

John is Partner at Ascension Design, a full service graphic design firm in Ambler, PA.
Contact John at 215-591-1010 or john@ascensiondesign.net

Clip Art Is No Substitute for Original Design When Branding
By John Libonati

It is no secret that effective graphic design can be expensive. Developing a visual image that accurately communicates a marketing concept takes time and a particular expertise. The more complex the concept, the more complex the design, the higher the cost will be.

On the surface, an alternative to original art might seem to be clip art. Clip art is royalty-free illustration that you can use in your designs without getting permission or paying a fee for usage. Clip art comes in both printed and digital form. But effective marketers beware, clip art should never be used when your objective is differentiation.

Because it is free, clip art is used everywhere, especially in newspaper and magazine ads. While reading through a recent issue of Sail magazine, I noticed a yacht dealership's logo was the same clip art used in a number of competitor advertisements. The dealership, or its designer, had applied a watercolor wash to a popular photograph to make it look somewhat different from the original clip art. It didn't work. Instead of differentiating themselves from their competition with an accurate visual image of their company, they cheapened their image and possibly helped their competition sell its ads.

By using clip art, the dealership undoubtedly 'saved' money to create the logo. But, even if they created no other marketing materials, they still had to pay for company stationery printing, design of their magazine ad and ad space in a national magazine. If the final result was confusion and a cheapened image, then how much did they really save?

Choose original art to differentiate you from the competition. The increased sales from your well-branded image will improve your bottom line much more than the small amount saved by using clip art.

John is Partner at Ascension Design, a full service graphic design firm in Ambler, PA. Contact John at 215-591-1010 or john@ascensiondesign.net

6 Tips for Successful Email Marketing
By Brian Donohue

Solicited email is one of the most powerful methods of online marketing. However, as with any other advertising medium, there are right ways and wrong ways to do things. Here are a few suggestions of ways to increase both your readership and the value of the publication itself:

Publish Hints and Insights
Just like I'm doing with this article, you can tell your readers about better ways to get the job done. Share your experiences; both the successes and failures. Then, ask them to share theirs...

Install a Web Bulletin Board
At the end of each article in your email newsletter, include a link to a topic about your article. Readers can discuss the article and interact with others, including you. This is your chance to interact with your customers (or potential customers). Every reader who participates in the discussion is a sales lead for you!

Link to Your E-commerce Shopping Cart
Publish email circulars (sales flyers). Feature a few key product promotions and link directly to the products' information pages on your website. You can even include "Buy" buttons right in the email flyer.

Use Web Statistics Reporting Software
You'll want to track where your readers go after they read your publication. If an article or advertisement links to a page on your website, you can track the number of people who clicked to that page, how long they stay, what they purchased, etc.

Listen to Your Readers
It is important to give your readers a way to get in touch with you. Always list an email address for the publication's editor, an email comments box, and an unsubscribe link (now required by law).

Ask For Referrals
Ask your readers to forward your newsletter on to a friend or co-worker. If they find your publication useful, you have a new reader! Word of mouth can potentially bring you many subscribers and it costs you nothing, but you have to remember to ask.

In addition to the tips and techniques above, here are a few popular software packages that will help you get the most out of your email marketing efforts. These software packages are affordable, powerful, and work well together:

Mass Emailing Software - HelixMailer(tm) www.helixpoint.com
HelixMailer(tm) is perfect for small businesses, non-profits, and companies who may have a tight web budget due to the current economy. It is feature-rich, completely expandable, and can be integrated into your existing database-driven or e-commerce website.

Web Bulletin Board - Ikonboard(tm) www.ikonboard.com
Free for most uses, expandable, and packed with features.

Web Statistics Reporting Software - WebTrends(tm) www.webtrends.com
The best web stats reporting software on the market.

Copyright (c)2002 Brian P. Donohue. All Rights Reserved.

Brian is a Partner at Thumbprint Interactive(tm), a web development firm. Contact him at brian@thumbprintweb.com and visit www.thumbprintweb.com

Search Engine Marketing: Spidered and Paid Listings
By Aimee Munton

So, you've heard the great new statistics about Internet commerce. People are shopping online in record numbers-Jupiter Research has forecasted this year's holiday sales to be up 17% from last year. What can you do to make sure your site takes part in the growth of the Internet? Although there are many answers to this question, one of the most cost-effective online marketing strategies is Search Engine Marketing.

Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is the art of ensuring that when a search is made online for a keyword that is relevant to a website, that website shows up in the results. Unlike passive forms of communication such as emails or banner ads, SEM places the message in front of a potential customer who is actively pursuing information that is relevant to the website. For example, let's say your company sells all types of paperclips. With properly employed SEM, your website will be listed on search engines under results for all the variations of paperclip searches, including 'metal paperclips', 'heavy duty paperclips', and so forth.

In the world of SEM, there are two main categories of search listings: paid and spidered results.

Almost every major search engine now offers some kind of paid listings. Some of these are on a bidding model or flat rates, while others have more complicated algorithms based on price, impressions, and click-throughs.

While paid listings provide great exposure they are marked as advertising. Search engines are now required to notify their users if they are providing paid results. If you do a search on any major engine, you can see that there are various different listings, some are obviously paid while others are not. For example, by doing a search for "paperclips" on Lycos.com, you will see an office supply related banner on top, a few listings under the header "Sponsored Search Listings," and "Sponsored Links" down the right side of the browser. Similar formats are repeated on many different engines, such as Google and AltaVista.

Spidered results, on the other hand, are based on the Search Engine's relevancy algorithms. "Spidering" is when a Search Engine electronically looks through a site and, based on its algorithms, provides the site's pages with rankings based on its relevancy.

These spidered results usually appear below the paid listings. These results lack both the stigma of advertising, as well as the cost of the top listings. Many times, a visitor will bypass clicking-through on the top listings and go to the search results. Since these results are ranked based on the Search Engine's ranking technology instead of what the advertiser is willing to pay, these listings are viewed as more organic and relevant.

While each type of listing has its benefits and drawbacks, when the two types of listings are used together, the advertiser can reap the benefits of both. By having paid results, the advertiser will have both branding and exposure. Paid results allow for more flexibility with titles and descriptions, so the advertiser is given more of an opportunity to ensure that this listing is branded and eye-catching. And if the searcher decides to ignore these listings in favor of the spidered results, they will already have been exposed to the branding of the paid listings. Now, the website will be viewed as both familiar and relevant.

Aimee Munton is an Account Manager at UNreal Marketing Solutions, an interactive advertising and marketing agency with offices in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, and Fort Lauderdale. Aimee can be reached at Aimee@UNrealMarketing.com.

Your Website: If You Build It, Will They Come? ...Only If You Tell Them
By John Libonati

Web sites are wonderful. You can put your entire company on the web, talk directly to your clients and sell your products directly. Construction costs are a fraction of building a brick-and-mortar business.

Contacting clients and potential clients through e-mail is relatively cheap as well. Unlike direct mail, newspaper and TV, there are no printing costs and you don't have to pay for postage or air-time.

But, (and there is always a but), submitting your website to a bunch of search engines in order to bring visitors to your website is not enough to generate traffic. Like a brick and mortar company, consumers have to be told to come to your website. They must be told over and over and over.

Generating significant traffic to your website requires a concentrated, clear and consistent marketing promotion strategy utilizing Internet search engines and a combination of traditional media.

The best method is to work your website into all your current and future marketing promotions. Brochures, newsletters, radio ads, e-mails, magazine ads, business cards, your media kit - everything that leaves your door must tell your target audience to go to your web address. Your website will tell them what to do once they get there. If you tell them, they will come.

John is a Partner at Ascension Design, a full service graphic design firm in Philadelphia. Contact John at 215-591-1010 or john@ascensiondesign.net

Online Newsletters: Your Content Counts
By John Libonati

An online newsletter is one of the most important developments in marketing communication. It is a great way to build credibility, keep your company top of mind with clients and potential clients, familiarize clients with your services and products, gain leads from new sources and brand your company. Costs are minimal - basically time and effort once the initial design and listserve software are purchased. Print and postage costs are zero.

Your content is the most important part of your online newsletter. Today we will review some content issues. Future articles will cover building and managing your subscription list, the various newsletter formats and your subject line.

Only include information pertaining to your business products and services that is relevant to your target audience. Skip weddings, birthdays, doggie pictures, puzzles and games. If your readers don't care about your content, they won't read your newsletter - not now and not in the future. Readers have a limited amount of time. Help them use it well through relevant practical information.

Be concise. Your online newsletter is not the place for flowery SAT style words. Avoid run-on sentences. They are boring and confusing and people don't like them and they will not get the response you want. Make your sentences and paragraphs short and to the point.

Include entire articles in your newsletter. The articles can be short, but make them complete. One-sentence teasers that link to a website are incredibly annoying. First, not everyone can surf the web at work. Second, readers recognize them as a hard sell. This immediately negatively impacts your credibility. Your online newsletter should build your brand and act as a soft sell to warm contacts.

Never, never, never steal content from another source. In the worst case scenario, you could be caught, possibly prosecuted and branded as a thief. In a more minor case, a reader may call with questions that you cannot answer, making you look foolish. There really is no need to steal content. Most sources will allow you to reprint articles with permission. You can ask others to contribute articles. Lastly, if you are truly an expert in your field, you should not have a problem creating your own content.

John is a partner at Ascension Design, a full service graphic design firm outside Philadelphia. He can be reached at John@ascensiondesign.net or 215-591-1010.

10 Great Reasons to Utilize Email Marketing
By Lisa Pfleger

Permission based, or Opt-in email marketing is rapidly become a preferred direct medium among business-to-business and business-to-consumer marketers, as well as corporate communications executives. There are many reasons why this medium is quickly growing in popularity. In this article we will review ten benefits to digital direct marketing.

Interactivity - A visually stimulating HTML or Rich Media message can quickly get a recipient's attention and entice them to take action. When the prospect clicks over to a web site or micro site, the marketer has the ability to captivate them with additional details about new products or services and offer or encourage them to reply through a form or email link on the site.

Dramatically higher response rates - Opening and responding to an email is just a click away. Because of email's interactivity and ease of response, recipients are often more likely to take action. A properly designed and crafted email campaign typically delivers five to ten times the response rate of traditional direct marketing.

Cost-effectiveness - Email marketing eliminates costly printing and postage costs, which greatly reduces the impact to marketing budgets.

Immediate lead generation - You'll start receiving inquiries the same day you email. In fact with business-to-business email, you'll typically get the majority of your inquiries within the first 2-3 days.

Trackable - Learn how well your message is getting through to your audience. You have the ability to see who opened your message, who read it and on which links they took action.

Fast to implement - In a rush to announce something big? With email it's easy. There's no waiting for mail pieces to come back from the printer and delivery is almost instantaneous.

Precision timing - Need to make sure that your message is timed to hit on a specific date? Messages can be sent and received the same day.

Easy customization - To increase response rates even further, advanced customizable services offer you the ability to personalize your message with the recipient's name in the subject line and/or the body of the message. Content can also be dynamically altered based on predetermined recipient preferences.

Testing - Email provides quick reactions to different subject lines, content selections and creative designs. An organization can easily choose the most effective combination after conducting inexpensive email testing.

Privacy and Control Issues - Subscribers choose to receive email communications through an opt-in process. In addition, each email communication provides the recipient the opportunity to stop receiving further messages. These stringent steps are taken to respect the email recipient's right to opt-out, increase response rates and boost your organization's integrity.

Email marketing is not the end all, be all of marketing solutions but it is fast becoming an integral part of the essential marketing mix. When implemented correctly, email marketing assists in maximizing an organization's existing marketing initiatives.

Lisa Pfleger is Business Development Manager at ANNODYNE iNTERACTIVE, an Email Marketing and Communications Agency in Montgomeryville, PA. Contact her at lpfleger@annodyne.com or 215.412.9449 www.annodyneinteractive.com

Using Promotional Products - An Effective, Targeted Way to Promote
By Curt Di Furio

You've seen the myriad promotional products and imprinted sportswear with company logos out there. It's everywhere you look. The battle for "sight-share" or having your company, group or product name in front of your market has been joined in earnest.

The benefit of promotional products is that they are useful items that will be retained and used by the recipient. Companies and organizations reinforce their name by displaying their message on promotional products and apparel. We have all received promotional items with a company logo at trade shows, store grand openings, company functions and many other events.

Some of the items that you received weren't very impressive, were they? Did you get that cheap pen that ran out of ink (or worse yet, leaked in your pocket)? Or did you get a cheesecloth tote bag that fell apart before you were off of the convention floor. This is some folk's perception of promotional products.

Placing your name on a product that is of questionable quality is counterproductive to what you should want to do. You want to draw customers to your booth or to your new store to tell them about your great products and service. Going the way of a cheap pen or the cheesecloth tote bag would tell them your quality is suspect and your image does not matter to you.

So, how do you take a limited budget and buy the good stuff?

A qualified promotional products professional can get the most for your budget. Buy less and accomplish more. If you feel a salesperson just wants to "sell you stuff", run, don't walk to a qualified reputable counselor that has already waded through the "cheap plastic stuff" to find the idea that will effectively put your company name in the hands of your prospects and customers.

Purchasing on-line from a photo on a website can be perilous. If there is a question of quality, see a sample before you put your name on it. Work with someone who cares about your business, not just the sale.

One of the things that promotional products can effectively do for you is to allow you to target your recipients. Many times, in a trade show or similar event, companies think that more is better. This is a "purchasing" mentality rather than a "marketing" mentality. You don't want non-qualified, tire-kicking, goodie-grabbing people causing congestion in your booth or store to get that item that you have spread out all over the table. You do want a steady stream of qualified prospects that your staff can give a presentation that is not abbreviated by the person that just wants a free gift. Our basic advice to our clients is to make your presentation to the prospect or customer and then present them with a quality gift that will impress and give the quality image that you desire.

Curt Di Furio is an Account Manager with The Dubbs Company in Ivyland, PA
Contact him at Phone: 800-454-1032 e-mail: cdifurio@dubbs.com - www.dubbs.com

Interactive Email Marketing Statistics
By John Libonati

Email marketing increases sales: two thirds of US companies report increased sales in 2001 as a result of using email marketing. (April 2002, DM News quoted in Nua)

61% of e-Mail companies increased their e-Mail budgets in 2002 due to the cost effectiveness of e-Mail marketing. (Clickz.com)

Around 65 percent of marketers say they plan to increase their use of email newsletters. Almost two-thirds of B2B marketers and more than one-half of B2C marketers also claim that they plan to increase their use of email newsletter sponsorship. (Aug 2002, Intermarket Group)

63% of respondents say that e-Mail marketing is the most effective customer retention tool. (Direct Marketing Association)

Spending on email marketing: Forrester forecasts that spending on email marketing will grow from $1.3 billion in 2001 to $6.8 billion in 2006. Jupiter Media Metrix is more optimistic, forecasting growth from $1 billion in 2001 to $9.4 billion in 2006. (May 2002, ZDNet)

John Libonati is a partner at Ascension Design, a full service graphic design firm near Philadelphia. He can be reached at John@ascensiondesign.net or 215-591-1010.

When to Use a Newsletter Instead of a Brochure
By John Libonati

One goal of good marketing is to build a method of regular communication with clients and potential clients.

Why not a brochure? Everyone uses one, right? After all, the brochure offers a compilation of information about your business. But, as great as a brochure is for describing and presenting capabilities, it is usually only distributed once and its content is inflexible once printed.

The newsletter is the best communication vehicle for any company that relies on repeat business...and that means pretty much everyone.

Whether print or online, a regularly distributed newsletter gives your client valuable information about new products and services, changes in your business and improvements in service. Your newsletter helps clients and potential clients become more comfortable with you and your company. As your clients become more familiar with your company, your industry and the processes involved, they become easier to work with and sell to.

Well-informed clients who understand their own needs, and the company who has been educating them through an effective newsletter make better clients.

John Libonati is a partner at Ascension Design, a full service graphic design firm near Philadelphia. He can be reached at John@ascensiondesign.net or 215-591-1010.