To ensure that you launch profitable campaigns using content marketing,  you must directly advertise to people who will mostly likely buy from your business. You must also track individual messages in the campaign and see if your target audience follows through with your call to action.

This set of calculated and deliberate tactics is found in inbound marketing. By building a promotional campaign that lets you scale its results and determine its efficacy, you are able to figure out which strategies are the most efficient and profitable.

To get a better understanding what inbound marketing is all about, I’ve had the privilege to interview Grey Mackenzie, co-founder of Guava Box. He discusses the current state of inbound marketing and the best practices involved in running this type of campaign.

What’s the story behind GuavaBox?

GuavaBox began as we recognized business owners and leaders struggling to make sense of the Internet and the changing landscape of marketing. Traditional marketing was becoming less effective, and the rise of content marketing was just beginning. The four co-founders, Andrew, Brandon, Ryan, and myself, put our heads together and came up with a way to help organizations solve their pain through inbound marketing.

Explain inbound marketing in one sentence.

Inbound marketing is all about getting found by the right audience, converting those prospects into customers, and analyzing the process to continually improve.

What is the state of inbound marketing for small businesses today? How would you gauge the knowledge of business owners about inbound marketing?

Inbound marketing is growing rapidly, but the term is still far from ubiquity. Business owners are realizing that traditional marketing – TV or radio ads, billboards, yellow pages – aren’t producing the kind of ROI they’ve seen in the past. There’s a lot of searching for a new and better way, which typically leads small businesses to the Internet, but the lack of an integrated and holistic strategy often makes the whole experience frustrating. We’ll see exponential growth in the next decade, however, and I’m excited about where we’re heading!

When creating content, which between the two do you prioritize: evergreen content or content about the latest news and trends?

I prioritize evergreen content because the underlying principles for success are pretty steady. But the trending tactics and industry news can draw a lot of quick hits, so you need both.

In your experience, how you usually compose and design an effective call to action that brings users down your conversion funnel?

It all starts with an understanding of your user. Approach your call to action design with their needs in mind. I try to understand what they know, what they need, and what they think they need, and then, using language they’re familiar with, touch that nerve and offer a compelling solution.

What are professional-looking WordPress themes that you would suggest small businesses to use?

I’m a big fan of most of the WooThemes and Genesis WordPress themes, but you can find a lot of good stuff on ThemeForest as well. I love building from the Canvas (WooThemes) platform, but tweak the framework and optimize it for client needs.

What is your preferred lead generation strategy?

Inbound just makes so much sense – it’s scalable, in-depth, and cost effective. But it takes a while to get to the point where you can just quit networking, cold-calling, and approaching people with your solution. Honestly, the best lead generation strategy is just being helpful. Anywhere and everywhere you can, help folks out.

As an online marketer, what do you think of print marketing? Given a chance, how would you use tools like business cards and brochures as part of your marketing strategy?

Print marketing really became an over-saturated space, and to some degree still is. The medium started boring people. Now we’re almost to the point where print media becomes more effective because of the digital rage. When you print something out and hang it up, people understand the effort and appreciate something tangible. I still love business cards because there’s just something that’s more human about handing someone a physical card rather than bumping smartphones. Brochures can be effective, but you need to target well. It all comes down to understanding your target market and serving their needs.

For more information about GuavaBox’s inbound marketing services, click here.

For more marketing solutions for growing your business, check out our free e-book titled 100 Practical Solutions for Business Growth. Click here to get your copy now!

Content marketing has become an indispensable tactic in promoting your company online. It allows you to build links to your website through your content, which also encourages readers to buy into your business.

The difficult part about content marketing is its execution – making an engaging piece of content that pulls readers to a desired call to action is the biggest challenge writers will have to face. It will take a writer with lots of experience to understand the intricacies of doing content marketing the right way.

Freelance writer Michael Chibuzor is one such person. He gave up his 9-5 job since 2007 to write for a living and has never looked back ever since. His personal website Content Marketing Up is an engaging read that chronicles the wisdom he’s acquired throughout the years of writing about SEO and online marketing.

I caught up with Michael for my questions about starting a career as an online writer and the qualities needed to become an effective content marketer.

1. What led you to a career in content marketing and SEO?

Search engine optimization (SEO) has also been my best topic. When you consider the fact that organic traffic is more targeted than any other source of traffic, you’d immerse yourself into it. If your site successfully ranks in Google first page, you’d definitely build a profitable business – that’s why I’m an SEO guy.I decided to pursue content marketing because it’s the best way to reach target audience, understand their problems and proffer solutions. It’s not the only way, but it’s the most subtle.

2. Who were the people that inspired you to pursue a career in online marketing?

Well, I had a lot of savvy online entrepreneurs who have imparted my life greatly. In affiliate marketing, Ewen Chia is my mentor.

At content marketing and SEO, which happens to be my specialty now, Brian Clark (copyblogger.com) is my inspiration. He’s inspired me to focus on quality content, above all things. And I’ve no regrets whatsoever.

3. What were your worst experiences as a freelancer and how were you able to overcome them?

In 2011, when I started my freelance writing blog at contentmarketingup.com, I struggled for 3 months to attract potential clients who can hire me.

It was my greatest nightmare as a writer. There is no shortcut to overcoming lack of clients, than to continue marketing.

But one thing I did that changed my writing career was this: I started writing guest posts and getting them featured at A-list blogs. Suddenly, serious entrepreneurs started contacting me to write for them. And the pay was decent. Lol!

For freelancers out there, don’t be tempted to quit if that’s your passion – keep marketing yourself and you’d smile sooner than you expected.

4. What do you think are the traits that every content marketer should have in order to be successful?

I’ve two traits that have kept me going, despite the odds against freelancing. And I believe every content marketer MUST develop these traits.

The first thing is to challenge yourself to always write compelling content; valuable, simple and well optimized for both readers and search engines. And second, confidence.

Whatever you want in life is obtainable – but you must take risks, move a step further knowing that the only difference between ordinary freelancers and extraordinary freelancers is that “extra.”

5. What do you think about the future of SEO? Given the multiple changes that SEO has undergone throughout the years, do you think that content is still “king?”

The future of SEO is engagement. Google is gradually tweaking their algorithm, in order to build a better web experience for both users and advertisers. The only sites that would survive subsequent updates are those that create engagement and social influence.

Make sure that your articles are helpful. But more importantly, ask your target audience to give feedback. A profitable site isn’t built by “YOU.” Get other people involved and your success would be spontaneous.

6. If you met a person interested to learn about content marketing, what resources or sites will you point the person to?

Content marketing comprises of several topics. For example, email marketing, SEO, copywriting and so on. I’ve written some good resource posts that anyone can use. Here you go:

Content Marketing 101 – The Ultimate Guide To Attract Blog Readers
Six Steps To Solve Reader’s Problems With Content Marketing
The Eminem Guide To Becoming A Writing And Marketing Machine
Email Marketing 101 – How to Grow a Mailing List and Make More Money
The A-Z of Guest Posting To Enhance Your Business

7. If you were to condense all of your knowledge and experience in content marketing into one advice for our readers, what would it be?

My advice is simple – it’s better to be a great marketer than a good content writer. If you can market yourself effectively, you’d record tremendous success in your business. Yes, quality content is king but when the King is without a queen, how effective is that Kingdom?

Marketing is the Queen – give it your entire focus and don’t neglect to write. And you can learn more about effective marketing here.

For more information about content marketing and other solutions for your business, check out our e-book titled 100 Practical Solutions for Business Growth. Download your FREE copy here!

Image source here.

Business cards are essential tools used for networking. People carry a bunch of these  every day in case they stumble upon potential customers and partners. By handing out cards containing their contact details, they strike a connection with a person that could possibly lead to a sale for their businesses.

Now that people have gained access to ways of promoting their businesses online, business cards seem to have lost its place atop the food chain of marketing tools and tactics.

The business card problem

Todd Essig, a clinical psychologist practicing in New York, poses a very interesting scenario with regard to  handing out and receiving business cards in his post on Forbes .

Let’s say you want to exchange contact information in person with a potentially valuable client. The problem is that you forgot to bring out cards with you at that time.

In the case of Mr. Essig, he apologized for the oversight and informed the possible customer that he has the contact details with him. This is advantageous because Mr. Essig has the the information of a person he covets for networking reasons - he has the ball in his court.

Imagine flipping the situation against Mr. Essig’s favor. Would the person be as interested as Mr. Essig in making that connection with him? There may be a chance that the person may not contact Essig and that the act of exchanging business cards is done for formality’s sake.

Thus, we are presented with an interesting question, “Are people handing out business cards for the sake of tradition?” Instead of ending a conversation with a simple “goodbye, they exchange cards “for future reference.” You begin to wonder, is the exchange sincere or manufactured by habit?

The online solution

I believe the lukewarm reception that has begotten networking using business cards has something to do with the insurgence of the internet. In times when you were not able to get their business cards, just  run their name using a search engine. If that prospective client is worth a lick, you’ll get to see his professional site and contact him from there.

What drives online branding?

Businesses have put emphasis on their online strategies to build better online reputation and increase their visibility. They do this by creating business pages from different sites liked LinkedIn and Facebook. People are keeping up with the changes brought by the online revolution as they maintain blogs where they share ideas and elevate themselves as thought leaders in their respective industries.

There are so much opportunities created by online marketing for people to become heard and known. To learn some of these tactics, read this post from the Brazen Life titled “3 Ways to Strengthen Your Online Presence and Say Goodbye to Unemployment.”

So, should we get rid of business cards then?

Image source here

My answer is a big fat NO.

The reason why people still hack out business cards at every opportunity possible is to touch on their offline marketing channel.

Business cards offer a more tangible and personal approach to your marketing strategy. You do not hide behind a glossy portfolio site with a list of your accomplishments and awards over the years. The fact that the exchange is performed in person is testament to the kind of marketing offline tools offer – it showcases you. Business cards, then, are extensions of that organic experience of the moment upon meeting each other to network.

You will run through misguided marketers who will use business cards the wrong way, just as much as you will encounter social media managers who will squander their relationships with customers. You have to take the good with the bad – there will be networking battles wasted and won in all marketing channels but they do not make the channels unusable.

Conclusion

No matter how widespread the use of online tools are to help businesses achieve their goals, there will always be a place for business cards in your marketing strategy. At best, you should combine both to ensure that you develop a sound marketing plan composed of effective tactics to build better branding and increase networking opportunities within your market.

The same thing goes for brochures and flyers. Known as marketing tools of choice for promoting businesses and events, respectively, they help strengthen branding once they reach the right audience. Ultimately, both can drive more visitors to your events or stores for added revenue.

While there are necessary marketing collateral, there are those that are best used only on select seasons.  One of those tools is the calendar, which is a great print material to sell or give away for your business before the end of every year.

Here are effective ways that you can maximize the worth of calendars as part of your year-end marketing strategy.

Help people organize for next year

December is spent on parties and celebrations for the year that soon will be. This is also done in part of the preparation for the coming year, where everybody starts on a blank slate. By giving out or selling calendars, you help them prepare for their upcoming activities to start the year right. They can hang or display your calendars and mark down notes of specific dates as reminders or for tasks that need to be accomplished.

Mark your company events

Arguably one of the biggest advantages of business calendar is the ability to inform people of special events or promotions that you will be holding for the year. Assuming that you have prepared your yearly marketing plan and identified the dates of each event, you can mark them down on your calendars before printing them out for distribution. Once your customers or target audiences get hold and hang your calendars, they are informed of the schedule of events you have lined up for the year. This gives them time to clear their own schedules to attend your upcoming events.

Boost branding

Calendars can be designed as a large print format like a poster or come in multiple pages, with every page featuring the different months in a year. Regarding the latter, you can maximize the space for each page by featuring your products and services of your business on each page. Reinforce your mission and objectives to introduce your business brand to your target audience, if not reiterate it to your existing customer.

More importantly, unlike flyers in which the marketing message is only as good until the end of the event or promo, calendars have a long-lasting appeal to people. Calendars as a marketing tool work because the brand is not at the forefront of the print material - it takes a backseat to the dates and months. While people are writing and looking at the dates, their attention is also subjected to the design and words of your marketing message.

Therefore, make them notice your branding by applying the best copywriting and design practices. You can start by reading a post on our blog titled “10 Building Blocks of Great Copywriting.”

Do you think calendars are great year-end marketing tools? Or do you prefer other tools in place of calendars for your promotional strategies? Let me hear your thoughts by commenting below!

photo credit: bobbigmac via photopin cc

More and more people have been using WordPress to run their sites. Aside from the ease of using this blogging system, the free plugins available for download help turn your site into something more than just a place to publish your content. The features offered by these plugins help increase traffic, connect with your social media channels, and strengthen online reputation, among many others.

As a business owner, one of your priorities must be to hunt down leads using your WordPress-powered site. The prospects you have gathered can be later converted into customers or brand advocates to increase sales. To set up your lead generation strategy, below are some of the most useful plugins you can download and use for free.

Contact Form 7
WordPress Download Monitor
Email Before Download

All three are required when running your list building campaign.  Create an e-book or white paper about a specific topic in your niche. Share a specific strategy that your audience will find useful and valuable to encourage them to download. An e-book about using social media for small businesses sound too generic. Instead, write how to gain thousands of followers on social media in five days. Be as compelling as possible with your e-book topics as long as you can back them up with the content of your e-book. Once you’re done, upload the file using the Download Monitor.

Set up a landing or splash page on your site where the file can be downloaded. With the Email Before Download plugin, let users fill up a form (using Contact Form 7) asking their contact details, in particular their name and e-mail address. Once they have submitted the accomplished form, the plugin will then e-mail users the link to download the file.

If you have captured enough e-mails, send out offers to your products and services. For users who downloaded your social media e-book or white paper, hold an e-mail campaign offering them your social media services.

TIP: To avoid possible complaints and confusion, include a disclaimer on the page stating that the information they enter on the form will be used to send them marketing messages.

Scroll Triggered Box
Viperbar

For blogs looking to increase their RSS subscribers, newsletter sign ups, or traffic to a particular page on your site, you will need a notification bar or box that stands out on your home page. Both plugins are created to draw the attention of blog readers. The Scroll Triggered Box appears with an elegant slider animation once users have scrolled to the bottom of the page.  This is perfect for blogs that require a call to action after every post. The Viperbar shows on top of your site, calling the attention of users the second they visit your site.

TIP: Customize both plugins according to your site design to maximize conversion rates.

Subscribe to Comments Reloaded
Thank Me Later

User engagement can determine the success of your business. You interactions with them through your site can provide valuable feedback about your products and services and let you know what needs to be improved in your brand. Therefore, show users that you care about what they have to say. This will encourage them to return to your blog and become more engaged.

The Subscribe to Comments plugin lets them keep track of the comments they made and posts they haven’t commented on. The Thank Me Later plugin automatically sends users who have commented on your blog a custom e-mail.

TIP: Include a call to action at the end of your e-mail using the Thank Me Later plugin to make a more fulfilling connection with them.

Are there any other WordPress plugins not mentioned above that have helped you in your lead generation strategy? Share them by commenting below!

WordPress plugins are a dime a dozen. Just like a misguided kid in a toy store, blog owners may get carried away with downloading almost every plugin they come across for their WordPress-powered blogs. While plugins can help boost traffic, engagement, and conversions of your site (if used correctly), the blog performance will suffer due to the congestion of plugins operating in your blog. Some even run in conflict with each other, causing your blog to either crash or get its coding messed up.

The solution? Keep it simple! Let’s face it – you will only need at least five WordPress Plugins to run a high-traffic, efficient, and profitable blog! Below are WordPress plugins that you should highly consider and use for your blog to get rid of the rest.

Google Analytics

If you really want to get serious with your blog, then you need to use a comprehensive and reliable tracking tool. The Google Analytics plugin lets you incorporate your tracking code on every single page on your blog. This provides you access to a wealth of information from arguably the best online tracking tool available, Google Analytics. You can view statistics on page visits, referral sites, demographics, conversions, and campaign, among countless others, to help you gauge and interpret the effectiveness of your current online marketing strategies.

Jetpack by WordPress.com

This plugin is similar to downloading 10 more plugins, each with different functions. JetPack’s abundant features and services must be discussed individually to give you a better feel of what this plugin is capable of.

• E-mail subscription – You can encourage visitors subscribe to your site and send them blog updates to their e-mail. As a nice exchange, you get their e-mail address, which is valuable for lead generation and other advanced marketing campaign you plan on holding.
• After the Deadline – If you are not confident with your writing skills, you can refer to this feature for grammatical and word suggestions to improve on the quality of your content.
• Twitter widget – You can display your Twitter stream on your blog.
• WP.me URL shortener – This compresses character count of your blog post’s URL, which is important when posting on social media sites allowing limited characters, i.e. Twitter.
• Carousel – This feature aims to increase user experience by display a full-screen photo gallery area using your uploaded images on the blog.

Digg Digg

As online marketing is slowly gravitating away from SEO and more into user experience, it has become much more important to display your social proof. This pertains to the number of tweets, like, shares, and votes people have made on your post. The logic here is that people will like your post if it contains relevant and compelling information about your topic. Therefore, the higher your social proof, the more trustworthy your blog posts becomes.

Digg Digg is a WordPress plugin that lets visitors easily vote for your post and display social proof. Once activated, you can choose from different social media sites that will appear as buttons on your posts. The buttons will then be shown on the header, bottom, or left side of your page, depending on your preference.  TIP: the buttons are best displayed on the left side of the post since it scrolls down with you as you read along the post, similar to Mashable. It makes sharing and voting for the post much more convenient.

WordPress SEO

Search engine continues to drive traffic and sales to most blogs. By ranking as high as possible for a particular keyword, you increase the chances of your post to be visited. This plugin created by Joost de Vaulk helps you maximize your blog by making it friendlier to search engines. Every time you post an entry, you will choose a focus keyword to work with and builds a page analysis based on chosen keyword. Outside your post, WordPress SEO allows you to customize your meta tags, XML sitemaps, RSS, and other SEO-related features you can think of.

W3 Total Cache

Page speed is an important factor in determining the site’s usability and even search ranking. The faster your blog loads, the more attentive the user is to your blog. A slow-loading blog gets abandoned easily, regardless of how good the site content is. To ensure that your blog is in tip-top shape, activate this plugin. The W3 Total Cache increases the loading speed of your blog tenfold compared to your blog without this plugin. This lets you retain viewership and increase the chances of funneling your users to your call to action. For a better explanation on how this plugin works, refer to this post at OSTraining.

I’m pretty sure there are plugins that you readers would recommend over the ones I’ve featured on this post. I encourage everything to share their opinions and talk about other WordPress plugins that you find most useful.

Image taken from Flickr.

Stumbleupon is a tool that finds new and interesting sites online for you. The sites come as recommendations from the tool based on your interests. As a user, you can “thumb up” a site if you like it or “thumb down” if you don’t. This helps the tool determine sites that are worth recommending – the more thumbs up a site receives, the more times it will be recommended to other users.

Outside of its practical uses, Stumbleupon is a very helpful tool in building your brand and getting more visitors to view your site. However, this is only possible if you become a power stumbler or a user with thousands of followers. Having a sizeable amount of follower allows you greater reach in spreading your message about your brand or business.

The objective here, therefore, is for you to become a power stumbler to gain leverage with your online marketing activities and strengthen your social media profile.

NOTE: Before we start, you must download a Stumbleupon toolbar (Chrome and Firefox) on your browser of choice to make liking and sharing sites much more convenient.

Like pages

The idea here is to build a collection of sites you like. Think of it as a link portfolio – what are the sites that define you as a brand? If you are into sports, then users will expect that you thumbed up on sports-related sites.

How to do it: Go to page you want to thumb up and click on the thumbs up icon on the Stumbleupon toolbar. Once the thumb goes light blue, it means that you have liked the page. Recommend as many sites as possible. Use the “Stumble!” button on your toolbar to bring you to new pages related to your interests.

Leave comments

Engage with other users and leave your online footprint on different sites using Stumbleupon. Instead of dropping one-word comments, be as insightful as possible.

How to do it: Go to page you want to comment on and click on the text balloon icon on the Stumbleupon toolbar. You will view previous comments from other users about the page. You can either reply to their comments or start over with a new comment.

Share liked pages and comments

One of the least regarded aspects of Stumbleupon is the ability to build a following and share your own content. Since a thumb up is viewed as an endorsement, you can promote your websites on Stumbleupon by thumbing it up for other users to see.

Currently, Stumbleupon has over 25 million users. This means that, for every thumb up or comment you made, there are 25 million who can do the same with your recommendations.

Now, imagine if you shared your activity on Stumbleupon to social media sites like Facebook (1 billion active users), Twitter (500 million active users), or LinkedIn (175 million registered users). Doing so allows you to cross-promote to different platforms and increase your reach to a staggering figure.

How to do it: Go to page you want to share and click on the “Share” tab on the Stumbleupon toolbar. This will open a drop down box of people in your contact list. Tick on users whom you wish to receive the shared page. Tick on the social media buttons at the bottom left of the box to publicize your activity on these channels.

Follow other power stumblers

Search for users with over 500 followers and follow them. View the pages they have thumbed up and do the same, as well as leave comments. What you want to achieve here is to market your profile to power stumblers in the hopes that they may one day follow you as well. Once they do, expect for your job to become much easier. A great thing about power stumblers is that they voluntarily share other user’s content they find interesting.

How to do it: Click on the home icon on the toolbar and click on the Follow page. Go to the Stumblers tab and search for power stumblers to follow.

Schedule your activity

Following the tips above, you must create a plan on how to carry these out in your day’s work. Be aware that becoming a power stumbler is a long-term project – we’re talking here of a year-long effort, if not more! Therefore, implement the tips in a consistent and effective manner.

How to do it: Devote an hour or two of your time stumbling and liking pages – even commenting on them. There is a limit in the number of power stumblers you can follow, so choose wisely. Select stumblers related to your niche to increase your chances of being followed back.

Do you have any other tips on how to become a power stumbler? Share them by commenting below!

Image from Flickr.

Bias towards direct mail marketing as obsolete or out of touch must be cast aside. There is no doubt that social media, SEO, and e-mail marketing are efficient ways of getting closer to your audience. However, online marketing does not necessarily guarantee results.

Although direct mail marketing has its downsides, it does drive leads and sales much more than most online marketing strategy.

Want proof? Below are links to infographics about direct mail marketing and the top three statistics from each, proving why direct mail marketing is here to stay.

• 149 million – Number of businesses, P.O. boxes, and residences that receive direct mail in the US. (Source)
• £205 Billion – Amount of money in sales direct mail generates annually in the UK. (Source)
• 86% – Number of direct mail recipients in percentage that open mail packs. (Source)
• 98% – Percentage of consumers who bring their mail immediately after being delivered.  (Source)
• 77% - Percentage of consumer who sort their mail out after bringing them in. (Source)
• 1.5 million – the increase in the number of people ages 15 and up who responded to direct mail in 2010 from 2009. (Source)
• 29% - Average number of consumers who have used a social networking site before to continuously respond to direct mail. (Source)
• 54% – Percentage of social network users who are more attentive to paper statements than e-mail. (Source)
• 54% - Percentage of social network users who want to be informed of special offers and promotions through mail. (Source)
• 65% - Percentage of consumers who still value the mail they receive in their inbox. (Source)
• 76% – Percentage of young people who made a purchase based on a direct mail they received. (Source)
• 89% – Percentage of people with families who opens all the mail they receive. (Source)
• <1% – Percentage of the amount direct mail contributed to UK’s landfill waste. (Source)
• 34% - Percentage of B2C marketers who believe that direct mail provides the best return to investment. (Source)
• 62% – Percentage of consumers who find direct mail over Facebook and Twitter as a useful channel for promotions. (Source)

An effective direct mail campaign will deliver results. However, you don’t have to limit yourself to this marketing channel. The more campaigns using different channels you run, the greater opportunities you will get for leads and sales.

If you have yet to run an effective direct mail marketing campaign for your business, then it’s about time you do so! PrintRunner’s FREE e-book entitled “Direct Mail Marketing Basics” details how to build a mailing list down to analyzing the results of your campaign. Get your FREE copy now by clicking here. 

Image taken from Flickr.

Running a thorough and effective direct mail marketing campaign can be resource-intensive and time-consuming. The last thing you’ll need are long-winding advice about direct mail to make an already difficult task much more difficult.Therefore, below are some of the best quips that you should apply in all your upcoming mail campaigns.

Mailing list

• Capture their name and home address.
• Grab their e-mail address and telephone number to give you more ways of contacting them.
• Display your form at points of purchase or your store’s entrance.
• Show your form on their website’s sidebar or footer to make it appear sitewide.
• Include previous customer records on your list.
• If you have the cash to shell out, buy a list from a trusted vendor.
• Indicate the demographic of your market to make the list as highly targeted as possible.
• Run your list using the NCOALink® to weed out unwanted/invalid addresses in your database.

Branding

• Ensure that the branding on your direct mail is consistent with your corporate identity.
• Maintain your unique selling point (USP) prevalent on your mail.
• Emphasize your strengths.
• Hide your weaknesses.
• Take advantage of opportunities against competitors.
• Eliminate threats.
• Think of your logo as a visual identity that best represents your company.
• If you feel your logo doesn’t help in your branding, change it.

Mail copy

• Make promises that can you deliver in the end.
• Be clear and concise as possible.
• Use active voice.
• Use conversational tone.
• Be as personal as possible.
• Believe in what you’re writing.
• Take time to think of the best words.
• Keep editing your direct mail copy until it is perfect.
• Include a compelling call to action.
• Use big fonts and contrasting colors on important information.
• Include coupon code or freebies to enforce call to action.
• Provide incentives to early purchasers from your campaign.
• Do A/B testing to see which copy converts more people into customers.

Printing and sending mail

• Do comparative analysis to different printing and mailing companies.
• Choose a company that can do both for you.
• While you’re at it, look for a company that sells mailing lists.
• Ask for free print samples.
• Use postcards if you are requesting reply mail from your recipients.
• Use print brochure to send out detailed information about your business.
• Use booklets or catalog to show complete inventory of products you’re selling.
• Design over a print template from the company to eliminate technical errors.
• Look for service providers that can do the design for you.
• Be updated on the latest USPS pricing.
• Presort your list according to zip code to save money.

Tracking mail

• Track each recipient with a unique code to isolate the activities of each.
• Use 1-800 numbers to lead the recipients down the marketing funnel
• Use free URL shorteners to count the number of times they passed by your website.
• Print out QR codes on your mail for cross-interaction with mobile devices.
• Record your campaign’s progress manually using a spreadsheet.

To help you succeed with your direct mail campaign, read “Direct Mail Marketing Basics” from PrintRunner. The 34-page e-book will run through the basics of forming an idea for your direct mail down to interpreting the results of your campaign. Click here to get your FREE copy now.

Image taken from Wikimedia Commons.

There are different ways on how to market your business using print products. Display ads such as posters and banners are shown at locations with high foot traffic to maximize the number of people who will see them. The problem with these kind of marketing strategy is that the media used limit the print’s message from truly getting across people. Marketers will have to do much more than just dazzle passersby with the poster’s design.This is where direct mail marketing comes in. Unlike display ads, direct mail marketing brings the marketing tool right at your audiences’ doorstep. More importantly, these come in creative and unique forms that appeal not only to the eyes, but also the mind. Don’t believe me? Below are some awesome examples of direct mail marketing to inspire you to come up with your own campaign.

IKEA Flat Pack

Pop-ups create more compelling content, allowing for more engagement and interaction with your market. IKEAtook this concept and used it on their direct mail campaign to promote their Flat Pack furniture designs. The bi-fold mail opens up to reveal a pop-up version of a bed, side table, bookshelf, and a drawer. This symbolizes the ease and comfort of designing your home to your liking using IKEA products.

Resume/Job Application Mailer

Only the crafty and creative could have come up with something so simple! Due to the global financial crisis, companies have downsized, leaving people unemployed and broke. Instead of waiting for a miracle to happen, Jesper Winthenfrom Denmark made the most out of a terrible situation by creating a direct mail version of his resume complete with sample works. The mail is made from regular photo paper, so it’s not as appealing as it could have been. But as a campaign, it’s one of the more imaginative ones, which goes to show that you only need to be creative with your direct mail to make it work.

Graphical Surgeon Mailer

This is a self-promotional piece for a school assignment, so it’s unclear whether the mail has been run as a campaign. In concept, however, the materials involved and the ideas suggested in the direct mail made by Christer Dahlsett is astounding. Recipient of this mail will receive a metal box containing the tools used by Dahlsett, along with a small resume card.

Vedior “Test Box”

Vedior, an international staffing services company, strikes the rare balance between an ingenious concept and a clear marketing message. The company sent HR Managers a box with 5 lab tubes inside, each with different bacteria. The copy makes clear of the direct mail’s intention: “Just test us. Infect your employees. And see how fast Vedior sends the perfect replacement.” 43% of the managers who received the mail loved the idea. Not to mention, Vedior’s campaign won bronze in Eurobest 2007 and became finalist in the 2008 Cannes Lion.

Given the examples above, which of the following do you loved the most and why? Any other creative campaigns you’d like to share with the group? Feel free to share your thoughts by commenting below!

If you’re interested in running an effective direct mail campaign, download your free copy of the “Direct Mail Marketing Basics” e-book by clicking here!

Image from Flickr.

Marketing is a numbers game. Much of the marketing strategy’s effectiveness is ultimately based on how many from your target audience you have turned into customers or leads. There are other factors to consider, but sales is pretty much the be-all-end-all metric of marketing. Simply put, the higher the sales figures, the better the strategy.Among the different marketing channels used for hiking up profit, direct mail marketing is as effective as they come. While people generally dismiss paid marketing by going for cost-efficient strategies (online marketing and social media spring to mind), they prohibit themselves the opportunity of making the most out of their time and effort to pull off a marketing campaign that guarantees results. This is why people should consider investing money on running a direct mail marketing campaign for their business.

If you need proof as to how profitable direct mail marketing can make you, below are glaring statistics you can’t overlook about direct mail.

• More than half buys from direct mail. The 2012 Channel Preference Survey from ExactTarget has yielded impressive results for this tried and true marketing approach. According to the e-book, 65% of people who receive direct mail have made a purchase or engages in a different marketing channel as instigated by the sender, placing in at second behind e-mail (66%).
• Greater emotional processing is involved with physical than virtual media. Although there are no conclusive figures to quantify the claim, the case study conducted by Millward Brown just shows the intangibles that physical media such as direct mail present compared to its online counterparts. According to the study, physical media “leaves a deeper footprint in the brain” and produces “more brain responses connected with internal feelings, suggesting greater “internalization” of the ads.”
• Catalogs are one of the most cost-effective marketing tools. This came from the Direct Marketing Association Statistical Fact Book 2011 as reported by Deliver Magazine. When measuring different promotional materials based on their cost per order, you need to purchase $47.61US worth of catalogs to land an order. This is more affordable compared to paid search ($99.47US) and e-mail ($53.85US).
• More people need to be educated about direct mail. Pitney Bowes have released an e-book entitled 2012 Small Business Marketing Survey. Regarding direct mail, only 20% of businesses running mail campaigns track metrics to gauge the performance of their mailers. Suffice to say, 80% of businesses need to learn cost per lead, response rates, and conversion rates, among others to have a better understanding on how they can benefit from direct mail.

For help regarding the latter, you can download PrintRunner’s FREE e-book entitled “Direct Mail Marketing Basics.” Aside from explaining the different tracking tools and metrics to make sense out of the data you collected from your campaign, the e-book also discusses how to properly plan for your direct mail. Click here to download the e-book.

However, if your intention is to fail with your direct mail marketing, then you might as well fail miserably by following some of the terrible advice below.

Sending mail to an unclean list

A mailing list can be built organically through sign-ups or by taking information from existing customer data. You can also purchase from vendors to instantly send out your mail. Regarding the latter, there are cases that the list you bought provides inaccurate data about your target audience. By not “cleaning” your list with the NCOA (National Change of Address) to ensure that people still live in their respective addresses as indicated, you run the risk of wasting your mail.

Writing dull copy

The words in your mail push readers down to the conversion funnel. They need to buy into the idea you’re promoting in your marketing message to effectively turn them into consumers or brand advocate. By not being sensitive to the tone, choice of words, and format of your copy, you will only veer them away from your business.

Featuring an unclear or inappropriate call to action

Direct mail is inherently aggressive, which is why you need to come at your most persuasive and compelling to force your readers into taking your action of choice. While most companies essentially indicate their contact details as their call to action, haphazardly putting the wrong contact details – telephone, website, fax, e-mail/physical address – can be counterproductive in certain cases. For instance, an online-based company indicating their physical address and telephone number on their direct mail would fare worse than using their website URL and e-mail instead.

Sending out mail made from poor materials

The quality of the paper stock and color contributes to the impression they make of your mail. On one hand, the sturdier and lush your mail is, the more impact it would make on the recipients. On the other, direct mail made with flimsy stock and stale color is sure to be thrown into the trash.

Forgetting to include tracking tools

One of the advantages that direct mail marketing holds over its counterparts is the ability to check the performance of your campaign. This can be done by using coupon codes, URL trackers, 1-800 numbers, and others embedded on the mail. People should touch these points to see whether the mail is compelling them to its call to action or not. Therefore, not being able to include these on your mail will ultimately leave you without the necessary data to properly consider direct mail.

If you’re really serious with succeeding in your direct mail marketing campaign, then download PrintRunner’s FREE e-book entitled “Direct Mail Marketing Basics!” The e-book details how to run a mail campaign starting from purchasing a list down to reassessing the results of your mail marketing. Click here to get your free copy now!

Image taken from Flickr.

Direct mail marketing has been defamiliarized over the past couple of years. This is due to the popularity of social media and online marketing as means to reach out to your target audience. It is relatively easier to reach out to your market through tweets, wall posts, SEO, and e-mails.

However, what people fail to see is the personal approach of direct mail marketing, something that online marketing can never duplicate. Mail in the form of postcards, brochures, and flyers is sent straight to the address of the recipients. This physical form of marketing is effective in getting its message across readers, which can be correlated to higher conversion rates over its online counterparts.

If you’re a marketer planning to dive into the world of direct mail marketing, below are links to helpful pages that covers the basics of direct mail.

Direct Marketing 101 from Delivermagazine.com

Delivermagazine.com contains a wealth of information about direct marketing. This page filled with curated posts is arguably one of the best online resources about direct mail marketing for beginners. It covers the essentials of planning for your direct mail campaign, creating your list, and creating the actual mail for sending.

Target Marketing

Aside from providing readers with unique and helpful content about the different types of direct marketing, the site is known to feature the best resources published daily about direct mail online on their homepage. Target Marketing also lists down upcoming webinars and events that people may wish to attend to hone their direct mailing craft.

Cody Sperber’s Real Estate Investing 101 Direct Mail Funnel from Youtube

The video contains real estate-intensive information and advanced marketing techniques, so people still getting their feet wet in direct mail marketing may feel lost with most of the terms mentioned. However, this is the perfect example of how to implement the basic concepts of running a direct mail campaign and applying it in your particular industry. Not only does he detail the step-by-step process involved in the planning and sending of the mail, but Mr. Sperber also gives away valuable resources that may be of use to all marketers alike.

Direct Mail Marketing Basics from PrintRunner

This 34-page e-book details how to run direct mail campaigns that produce results. Instead of merely covering the planning and sending stages in a direct mail campaign, the e-book goes the extra mile by explaining the different ways of tracking and interpreting result of your direct mail. From here, readers would be able to determine whether to hone their mailing campaign or try out another marketing strategy. Click here to download your copy of the e-book.

How about you? Do you know additional resources that present excellent and useful information about direct mail marketing? Please share your suggestions by commenting below!

Image from Flickr

Marketing strategies nowadays revole around the most convenient tools of reaching out to your audience. Social media and e-mail marketing serves the purpose of reaching out to their concerns without spending a lot unlike on print media or TV ads. Shooting an e-mail to recipients in a mailing list or answering questions about your business using Facebook or Twitter can be accomplished with a couple clicks of a button using a computer from your own home.

However, does convenience bring in results?

A Consumer Survey Results conducted by Epsilon reveals that people prefer receiving direct mail over any type of marketing strategy when it comes to brand communications. Furthermore, 66% of the participants in the survey believe that they have been receiving too much e-mails from companies.

There is no question about the advantages brought by online marketing in communicating with possible clients. But it bears to mention that they also will never be able to replace traditional marketing, one that involves the touch and feel experience of print marketing, in particular direct mail.

There is still allure to old school marketing that still makes it popular even today. You’d expect a company like Google that lords over the search engine industry to stick to online techniques in their advertising efforts. However, Google also sends out direct mail campaigns that provides recipients with coupons and discounts printed on a thick cardstock with sleek design and appearance. Such is proof that direct mail is alive and well.

If that’s the case, then what are the qualities that allow direct mail to maintain its relevance as a marketing strategy?

Simple – direct mail marketing works because of the human touch.

A “sensible” way of marketing

One of the main reasons why e-mails have become a preferred marketing channel by businesses are its affordability and convenience. Figuring out your way using e-mail marketing tools like MailChimp or Aweber can help you produce attractive newsletters and autoresponders for your direct mail campaign at little or no extra costs. These also provide insight to your campaign performance, allowing you to determine what and what doesn’t work in your campaign.

However, the biggest and perhaps fatal flaw of e-mails is that it can only satisfy our sense of sight. Although an e-mail campaign should help you leverage the advantages that big whig companies have over small businesses like yours (you’ll only need design skills to pull off this job, and even then you can ask for design services at a nominal price), an e-mail is only good when your computer or smartphone is turned on.

With direct mail, you can tap into the recipient’s sense of sight, touch, and even smell! The design of your postcard, the fresh smell of the card stock in which the design is printed on, and the texture of the stock can all contribute to the heightened experience that direct mail can provide to potential clients. With the right copy and design, this can convert the recipients of your direct mail into leads or future sales.

The power of the personal approach

Image at Flickr

The costs involved in conducting a direct mail campaign also works to its advantage. It’s no secret that direct mail is a relatively costly endeavor. It takes a lot more time, money, and effort to produce and deliver mail to your target audience. However, the costs should be worth it considering that you make a tangible approach to your potential customers, something that is refreshing in today’s distant and digital world

More importantly, direct mail allows you to make a concerted effort to get your message across, which customers greatly consider from a brand. Due to its format, an e-mail is a very impersonal way of reaching out to your core audience. You need to present yourself in a warm and fuzzy manner to help them get better acquainted with your business and increase your chances of making a sale to them. This comes in the form of professional postcards of brochures appealing to their attention.

Direct mail marketing is still alive and breathing after all these years. It comes with much effort on your part, but if done correctly, the personal and tangible approach of a direct mail campaign will deliver results.

If you’re interested in running your own direct mail campaign, learn the basics by downloading the FREE e-book entitled “Direct Mail Marketing Basics.” Click here to get your copy.

Business video marketing has the most potential to not only rake you the most profit, but also increase your corporate identity and branding. Although most small businesses have yet to market on this particular channel, below are some reasons why you must at least consider in doing video marketing for your business:

• Tap a different audience - In June of 2011, comScore released a research about online video rankings in the U.S. during the month of May. The data yielded rather interesting results – 176 million Internet users in the U.S. had an average of 15.9 hours worth of watching videos off websites for a whopping total of 5.6 billion viewed video in May (Source).
• Diversify marketing channels – Instead of going the usual route of print and online marketing (link building, PPC, content marketing), traveling the road less traveled in video marketing exposes you to a different audience and challenge. You can also integrate different channels into your video marketing in the hopes of increasing leads and sale.
• Beats the heck out of reading something – Reading is generally believed to stimulate the mind much more than watching because it is an active task. Thus, readers will have to exert more effort into understanding the text. On the other hand, watching is a passive task because viewers let the content do the thinking for them. Therefore, it is much more efficient to market your business when your audience is passive.

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get into some of the more helpful advice when doing video marketing:

Business video marketing tips

1. Publish regularly

Although content is king, it should work hand in hand with an editorial calendar. Your ability of engaging a bigger customer base or audience to your business depends on whether or not you can upload your video on time.

Setting up a timetable for your video marketing content not only lets you establish your goals for the duration of this campaign, but also lets your viewers tune in on that day when you normally upload your videos. Spread out the content throughout the month and schedule an editorial calendar that challenges your abilities to the limit.

2. Develop and refine your “voice”

Find a way to effectively communicate your message along the lines of your corporate identity to establish branding and consistency in your video marketing. Do not force yourself from being someone you’re not in your videos – let your authentic personality shine through instead. Amplify if necessary to send the message across much more convincingly.

3. Find your “thing”

Blendtec founder Tom Dickson started publishing a series of videos on Youtube in 2007 promoting the toughness and strength of their Tabletop Total Blender product. The “Will It Blend?” series shows Mr. Dickson blending different objects using the Total Blender to rubble. One of their most popular videos where Mr. Dickson blended an iPhone has garnered over 10 million views since it was published. At the end of all his videos is a snapshot of Mr. Dickson holding the blended object into dust with a caption “YES, IT BLENDS!” on the screen.

Blendtec’s “thing” has allowed them to achieve success online, which helped strengthen their brand name. When developing your own video marketing concept, here are some suggestions:

• Engaging – The video must be presented in a faultless manner. Technical details such as lighting, editing, and production must be observed, while flaws must be kept to a minimum, if not eliminated entirely. Also, you do not have to use expensive equipment to create an engaging video about your business.
• Compelling - Your videos must ooze with undeniable quality, plain and simple. The content must present fresh ideas and refine old ones to offer something new to readers. Use recent statistics and articles as resources for your videos.
• Incites reaction – Tackle controversial topics related to your industry on your videos. Always try to challenge popular belief and find ways on how you can debunk them. Be as convincing as possible by presenting hard data and facts to support your argument and encourage people to jump your side of the argument.

Be aware that these suggestions will not guarantee you success immediately. However, what you get to achieve in developing your concept for your video marketing is useful and sticky content that draws the attention of people.

4. Focus on content

Integrating the latest SEO strategies and embedding ads on your video marketing should be secondary in your video marketing efforts. Instead, provide viewers with well-researched and well-produced videos that will stand the test of time.

Orabrush marketed its tongue-cleaning product through humorous online videos, which turned an almost-bankrupt small business into a million dollar company. Aside from offering infomercials about their other products, their Youtube channel features hilarious non-business content with slick production. Just goes to show how pleasure can be mixed with business as well. Learn more about how Orabrush utilized business video marketing to their advantage by clicking here.

5. Burn it on DVDs

As part of your offline marketing strategy, expand your marketing reach by including a DVD in your portfolios handed out to your audience. This should supplement the print materials such as brochures and catalogs that you already give out to people.

To amp up your marketing using your DVD videos, encase them inside DVD case covers, which you can purchase at PrintRunner. Choose between standard or slim DVD case where the cover printed on 100 lb. glossy stock will be placed. You can also purchase our BluRay covers and CD sleeves that will be used to contain your DVD.

6. Your suggestions

The tips listed above are just some of the most common practices to a successful business video marketing campaign. That said, we would like you know what are some of the more effective video marketing suggestions you have experience in running this particular campaign. Share your thoughts by commenting below!

However, envelopes can add another dimension to your marketing efforts. Similar to the cover fold of a brochure, you can apply different marketing appeals through your envelope to encourage recipients to open it to read its content. It all depends with the materials used and design of the envelopes.

Below are advice on how you can beef up the appearance of your envelopes to grab the full attention of your target audience.

Materials for effective envelope marketing

Some envelopes are just better than others – regardless of design – due to the quality of the paper stock used. Since they hold the letters inside and are delivered and transported through mail, it is ideal that your envelopes must printed on a thick stock. This is to not only keep the invitation or card inside the envelope intact, but also display the envelope design with more clarity due to its sturdiness.

The size should also be factored in with your envelope marketing. Make sure that the content should fit just right inside the envelope. Below are some of the popular sizes available for envelopes at PrintRunner and their corresponding preset paper or card sizes to be inserted.

• 4.75″ x 6.5″ (A-6) – 4.25″ x 6″
• 5.25″ x 7.25″ (A-7) – 5″ x 7″
• 9″ x 12″ – 8.5″ x 11″
• 6″ x 9″ – 5.5″ x 8.5

Design

As a marketing tool, appearance counts for envelopes to maintain consistency with your brand identity.

For those that are not mailed out and are instead delivered to recipients by hand, you can design your envelopes without following postal rules. That said, here are tips you can do to make the best impression to the recipient with your envelope marketing.

• Putting in less is more – Minimalism has taught us to leave space in between design elements and pick out solid yet striking colors to achieve great effect with our print media. The concept enforced behind this artistic movement is the focus on essentials. Thus, too much clutter or disorder on your envelope design will not make for an effective marketing tool.
• Design the flap and the inside - Purely for design purposes, make use of the empty space at the back of the envelope with your design to create a marketing tool that separates you from the pack.

For those sending out envelopes by mail as part of their direct mailing campaign, refer to this post from the United States Postal Service to learn the correct ways on how to design the back of your envelope.

Since your creativity will be restricted by the postal rules or if you are aiming for a more corporate look for your envelopes, you can redirect your focus on these tips to help you maximize your envelope design for marketing.

• Include a compelling copy - Use the different marketing appeals (emotion, security, desire for beauty, etc) and turn them into persuasive words to grab the attention of the recipient. Read our post entitled “10 Building Blocks to Great Copywriting” to understand how your words can help funnel down your readers to your call to action.
• Indicate benefits – Lay down to your recipients the incentives why they must read your letter. Because it’s not what you can get from sending them a letter, but what they can get from your letter and business.
• Show clear call to action – Whereas indicating benefits should entice recipients to close at the envelope more closely, the call to action should impel them to open the envelopes and read the letter. Also inject a sense of urgency so they read it immediately. You will be surprised with how “Read more inside…NOW!” can make a huge difference with your envelope marketing.

Before designing, however, you need to follow a guideline to avoid messing up with your envelope design. You can download a free blank envelope template with the size and file format of your choice (.JPEG, .EPS, .AI, .PDS, and .PDF). Keep the important design elements of your envelopes within the trim line or bleeds to ensure that they do not get cut off after printing. Using the template also minimizes, if not completely eliminates, possible non-technical errors that may spring up when printing your envelopes.

If you have little faith in your design skills, you can hire one of our in-house professional designers to design for you. Inform the details of your proposed design and let our experts do the job for you. Click here for more information about our Design Services.

Apply these tips once you purchase full-color envelopes at PrintRunner! Available in seven different sizes, our envelopes are printed on 70 lb. Offset and 24 lb. Classic Crest to give off that elegant and professional appearance. Receive these print materials six business days upon printing. Click here for more information.

Although the business game hasn’t changed one bit, the playing fields (more on this later) have become slightly different. No longer are companies relying solely on direct mail and telemarketing to reach their desired audience. Nowadays, marketers have become savvier in their approach with the different and effective ways of utilizing social media and online sites to get their message across to people.

With the sheer mention of “effective” with regard to social media use, there are businesses that have extended their efforts beyond tried and tested marketing methods, only to fall flat on their faces with their online approach. As mentioned, marketers will have to adopt to different ball fields; success with social media depends in distinguishing how each platform works since not all social sites are different in their own way.

Before we discuss marketing your business online, below is our comprehensive social media guide containing the popular sites used in business, what separates each from the rest, and how they can be used to hike up your sales, reputation, and influence.

Facebook

Fun fact: Among the popular social media sites, Facebook remains the most effective in influencing purchasing behavior at 47% (compared to 24% in 2011).

The Facebook Fan Page offers features to customize how you want your business on the site to appear to viewers. Once you have created a page for your business, you can proceed creating your own Timeline cover that would show on top of the fan page. This functions like a book cover – it attracts visitors and encourages them to scroll down and find out more about your products and services. To maximize the appeal of your cover image, design your Timeline cover in such a way that it best reflects your company values and identity.

The small boxes of images below the Timeline cover are the apps used on the page. Aside from the wall posts you will be publishing before, you can utilize apps to influence purchases from people and increase your sales.

By default, you will find apps that display the images you have uploaded and the number of likes on your page. However, you can add apps that you want to be displayed on the page by clicking here.

Keep in mind that, although you can choose as many apps to be used on your page, only up to four apps will be displayed on the page. Also, it is impossible to remove the Photos app from being shown, so you can only customize the remaining three boxes. The rest can only be accessed by clicking the small drop-down button on the right. Therefore, select the apps that can increase your sales of landing a sale or transaction for your business.

Additional resources

• To give you an idea on how to create your cover photo, refer to this post from Mashable entitled “20 Facebook Page Cover Photos to Inspire Your Brand.”
• Freelance Switch has published a post entitled “30 Top Facebook Apps for Business” that you can use for beefing up your welcome page, making an e-mail sign-up sheet, creating a store for your e-commerce site, and others.

Twitter

Fun fact: Not only is the social media site grabbing more new customers (53% of current users have been members for less than a six months), but 76% of all users are actively sending out tweets (Source).

Twitter is arguably the easiest way to connect with your customers – its simple interface and highly-populated news feed is conducive for conversation. The goal here is to build and strengthen rapport and develop brand authority for the purpose of increasing your followers that you could later turn into prospective clients and business partners.

Since you won’t have any followers to begin with, the first step is to follow thought leaders, influential thinkers, and related businesses within your industry, as well as regular customers. Take time to read their messages and reply to those that allow you to give valuable information. Answer people’s questions or offer useful comments about their tweet. By doing these, you get to build an organic relationship with people who may follow your account down the line.

Support your efforts at building rapport with users by tweeting relevant and valuable content related to your business. Provide updates about your products and services to keep your followers posted. Share pages that you’ve read online or retweet those that were mentioned by people you follow. If you have a blog, you can publish a post and share the link to the page. Doing these allow you to not only reward your followers with high-quality content that people can use as resource for their own businesses, but also become an authority in your industry.

Additional resources

• Twitter has released Twitter for Business to introduce people to the social media site. The page includes the basics of using Twitter (using hashtags and mentions) and how marketers and small business owners can optimize their activity. A must-read for newbies.
• To further build your branding, the site allows you to design and upload your own background. To give you ideas on you can design your account background, refer to “17 Examples of Twitter Brand Page Backgrounds to Inspire You“ by Hubspot.

Posting messages for small business success

Since Facebook and Twitter has the most users among social media sites, you will have to focus most of your efforts on creating a marketing plan that allows you to build your company brand and identity on both. This is done through constant updates and effective copy on your Facebook wall and Twitter feed.

However, logging in and out of your accounts everyday can become cumbersome, especially if you have other things to do. To keep you from repeatedly doing this, you can simply dedicate a couple hours of your day to set an automatic schedule posting to create wall posts or tweets that are automatically published at times when most people are online, which is measured by the activity of the people in your profiles.

This is a screen of PrintRunner using Timely to schedule their tweets and posts at times set by the program.

Sites that offer scheduled social media posting in their services include:

• TweetDeck – This downloadable app effectively monitors multiple lists and is easy on computer resources.
• Hootsuite – One of the most robust scheduled posting program available, Hootsuite can view streams and send messages to contacts from different profiles.
• Timely – The most lightweight among the three, Timely offers does one thing and does it well – efficient message posting at times when most of your users are online.

Google+

Fun Fact: By the end of 2011, the social media site was expected to receive 625,000 new users every day while it was predicted to reach 400 million users by the end of 2012 (Source).

Hyped as the “Facebook Killer” immediately upon its released, Google+ has carved its own niche as a viable social media site in its own right and an option for marketers to promote their business. Although some people have written off Google+ due to the low number of their friends using it, this can be viewed as a positive thing. Since the site isn’t as populated as Facebook or Twitter, there’s a greater chance for you to establish your brand as an authority. Instead of thinking about the site as a ghost town, think of it as a place where you can trail the blaze and be the leader of the pack.

Like Facebook, you can upload an image to be used as your cover photo. However, aside from using a 940 x 180 pixel image as your cover photo, you can choose to display five images from your photo gallery instead.

The Circles feature is the bread and butter of Google+. Before following people, you will have to decide which circle you will include them in. This lets you segregate people you follow into distinct categories and allows you to send messages and updates to corresponding circles.

The Hangouts feature is a video chat in real-time with your followers. This is something that businesses should utilize in the future to strengthen their brand identity and reputation in the market. They can hold live Q&A sessions with customers or potential clients regarding their products and services. For more information, click here.

Another notable feature of Google+ is its dynamic status updates. Unlike Facebook, you can enter hashtags of popular terms every time you post an update, thus increasing their chances of getting searched by other users. Also, you can upload .GIF files on your status updates. The image loads on the same page along with the other elements in it, so you won’t have to open it on a separate window.

Additional resources

• Since you cannot change the URL of your Google+ Business Page (yet), you can create a vanity URL that links to your G+ page using gplus.to. Instead of copying and pasting the URL of your page, you can simply type in gplus.to/nameofbusiness on the address bar.
• Be inspired to create and come up with your customized cover photos by referring Jeff Bullas‘s post entitled “10 Cool Google+ Covers for Brand Pages.”

LinkedIn

Fun fact: Since March of 2012, there are approximately two professionals who sign up on LinkedIn every second (Source).

LinkedIn has drawn the bridge for professionals to put up their online portfolio and get in touch with employees searching for talented workers. For business owners who wish to put up their business for branding purposes, you can also take advantage of the number of professionals looking for work on this site by offering them free useful content on your created Company Page.

Develop a content strategy that would maximize your chances of luring professionals to your products or services. For example, you can publish a set of articles on your blog or share online posts that deal with basic information about your business. Then you can market these articles to users who are fresh graduates and want to learn how your business works and operates.

Take your relationship to the next level by holding a seminar going into full detail about your business. Schedule the seminar details on your LinkedIn account so your followers will be duly informed about the event so they attend. Set up sign-up sheets or booths for your products so attendees can fill out the forms with their contact details or purchase your products once the seminar is finished.

Additional resources

• LinkedIn has a page dedicated to questions about creating a Company Page from their site. Click here for more information.
• Social Media Examiner features a helpful post entitled “Top 5 Ways to Market Your Business With LinkedIn” that discusses marketing using other features available at LinkedIn such as creating a Group, integrating best practices of search engine marketing, and others.

Blogging

Fun fact: 81% of marketers acknowledge the value of blogging as it enhances their chances of becoming thought leaders within their industry (Source).

When all is said and done, what matters about blogging is the production of “killer” content. This refers to useful posts targeted to a specified audience with the intention of increasing the reputation of your brand and encouraging them to agree with your way of thinking. To learn how to produce blog content that goes for the kill, read our valuable post entitled “11 Killer Content Marketing Tips for Your Blog.”

Other social media sites of interest

Pinterest – Named as 2011′s Best New Startup by TechCrunch, Pinterest is photo bookmarking site that has broken different social media barriers during its relatively short time online. Aside from also being reported in January 2012 as being the fastest site to break the 10-million unique visitor mark every month on average, it has driven more referral traffic to websites than any other social media site on the same month. These credential should at least make you consider using Pinterest for your online marketing efforts.

As for our suggested reading, Copyblogger has published an exhaustive post entitled “6 Elements of a “Sticky” Pinterest Campaign” on how to pull off a “sticky” marketing campaign using Pinterest.

Youtube – Although this video hosting site has been a source for viral videos we’ve come to enjoy, it’s time to take some of the glory by creating viral content for your business. Start off by reading another post from Social Media Examiner entitled “8 Ways to Maximize Your YouTube Marketing Results” to get a full understanding of what you need to do in order to capitalize your marketing efforts on Youtube.

Takeaways

• Give each site their own identities – Given that each social media site caters to a particular market (with the exceptions of Facebook and Twitter since both cover a wide number of audience), you should use each site according to its users. LinkedIn is geared towards professionals, so tap into that market as suggested above. As Pinterest is used by photography lovers, you should develop marketing campaigns for photographers (if suitable for your business) and use the photo hosting site as platform to reach out to your target audience.
• Inter-connectivity – Cross-promote your sites with each other. If you have the most followers on Facebook, ask them to add you on LinkedIn or Google+ to maximize your following. Use sites to maximize your market and provide users with a unique experience with your company. Create a serialized content on your blog and promote them using the different social media sites.

What do you think of the social media sites featured above? Do you employ the same strategy or were you successful with doing something different with them? Are they concepts that were not mentioned on the post that you feel should have been included? Share your thoughts and ideas by commenting below! Subscribe to the PrintRunner Blog feed using your RSS readers hereto receive helpful advice on how you can promote your small businesses using print media and online marketing.

If you have a small business, you might be wondering which advertising method will work for your specific format. There are a number of channels available to choose from. You can use anything from email to your personal website to try to promote traffic to your business, but deciding what to say and how to say it is often challenging. There are limits to language. It’s important to try and find out what you can do to overcome them.

Years ago, before dozens of flavored water products lined the shelves of supermarkets, a popular gotcha show set up a table in a super market and asked shoppers if they would taste two samples of water. One was touted as regular water and the other as “calorie-free” water. The “gotcha” part was that both samples were tap
water. Surprisingly, a fair number of shoppers said they did not like the aftertaste in the calorie-free water. Many said they were surprised at how good the no-calorie option tasted and asked if they could buy some. This was a spoof, but you can learn a great deal about consumers from this clever diversion. For consumers, seeing the product, hearing the sales message and tasting the samples affects their experience of the product, the brand, and their own consumption.

Which Advertising Channel is Best for Your Business?

According to Oren Frank, global chief creative officer at MRM Worldwide and contributing writer for AdAge Digital, Wittgenstein once said, “What can be said at all, can be said with clarity.” Graphics and media both impact our thought process. Using visual aids and strong ad copy transmitted via the best medium for your target audience solidifies your message and resonates with the consumer.

Building Your Own Website

Advertising on your own website may be the best channel for you. You can get free websites, but the benefits of choosing a web hosting service normally outweigh the fee. Web hosting provides a professional platform with customer service and technical support to keep your secure site online and available.

Combining a reliable website with expert copy writing, target driven marketing tools, engaging site development, and graphic capabilities allows you to put your visualization strategies in motion.

Email marketing

Email works well for businesses that already have a following. Mass emailing to thousands of recipients without knowing if they need your service is basically shooting in the dark—hoping for positive results. Without some dynamic visual aids, many emails may be overlooked or misunderstood. Trends indicate transactional marketing—sending emails after a purchase—are driving repeat business.

Social Media

Using Facebook and Twitter provides an opportunity to reach thousands of potential customers. Many companies are using social media as a means to open a dialogue with potential clients and keep their customers informed about promotions and new products. Establishing your presence in the market with attention grabbing graphics and word art can lead traffic to your site through links. It is a fairly inexpensive venture—free beyond copy writing—but your target audience is still very broad. There’s one recent development for narrowly targeting audiences on social networking sites. According to an article in AdWeek on June 19, 2012, LinkedIn is offering marketers the ability to target specific groups of followers. There is a fee for this service, though.

It’s important for you to carefully consider your target audience and their specific concerns as you decide between these different options and they way that they’ll look and read. If you sell products that will appeal to a younger demographic, then social media may be the way to market your company. If your ideal customer is older, however, they may not have social media accounts. Or they may even have trouble navigating the internet at all.

There is a marketing solution for every customer, but you have to take the time to identify it. So experiment, be clear, and always, always, always keep the client in mind.

Real estate marketing

Despite the increasing popularity and usage of social media by real estate agents, it is just as important to complement your online marketing efforts with touch and feel marketing tools to make the experience of purchasing land from you much more organic and real.

Before discussing the ways on how you should incorporate print products in your real estate marketing efforts, you must redevelop a brand identity that you will use in all your print media.

To help you determine what your brand identity is, below are a few questions you need to answer:

• What is my unique selling proposition (USP)?
• Who are my target audience?
• What does my SWOT analysis say about myself?
• How do you plan to implement and follow up your branding using media reinforcement?

For more information about brand identity, read how to create, build, and manage your own. This should help you design the most fitting logo that best defines your identity, which would appear on all print products you will use for your real estate marketing.

Disclaimer: We at PrintRunner have posted images on this post mainly for design inspiration purposes. We may not be able to produce the exact options and material used on the featured product. Call 1-888-774-6889 to learn what design choices you can select for your print order.

Real estate marketing tools for promotions

Business cards

Since meeting people face to face for the first time is customary in your industry to build their connections, it is important to have business cards with your to hand out to people. This marketing tool enables you to provide potential buyers their contact details so they can reach you using the information on your card.

To draw the attention of people, the cards must be designed to make you stand out from the rest. You do not necessarily need to have your cards produced with different materials or a complicated design. In fact, designing according to your brand identity should allow you to be unique and make a statement in the industry.

Aside from the design, you can follow these simple yet effective tips for your real estate marketing using business cards:

• Use your photo as part of the design
• Hand out your business cards under the “Rule of Three”
• Print out business cards with a glossy finish

For a more in-depth discussion about the points mentioned above, click here to read a post from PrintRunner.

Brochures and Postcards

Although both can be handed out to prospective buyers at places with high foot traffic, both are much more effective when used as part of your direct mailing campaign. Once you have determined your mailing list and printed out the brochures to be sent to each, you can expect them to receive the brochure on their mailing address.

The best thing about direct mail is that you are sure recipients are interested in your offers. There are mailing services that lets you choose the demographics or target audience to be included in your list to ensure that the right people will receive your brochures. As a result, there’s a greater chance for them to not only read its content, but also heed its call to action, which is to purchase the estate from you.

If you have no experience with regard to direct mail, we at PrintRunner can answer your questions about how to build and purchase the most appropriate mailing list for your business. Click here to visit our Mailing Services page or call 1-888-774-6889 for more info.

Additional resources

• 3 Unbeatable Business Brochure Marketing Tactics – Learn how to funnel your target audience to your call to action using brochures
• Real Estate Brochure Advertising – Three easy and simple steps on what to include on your real estate brochures

Yard signs and Banners

When selling a piece of land or a residence, what better way to inform people that it is for sale than putting up a banner or yard sign in front of the property. These marketing tools let passersby know that a house and lot is for sale and how interested parties can reach you to bid their price.

What to include on your signs and banners

• Status of property - Let people know whether the property where the yard sign or banner is erected is for sale, sold, or is currently open for visitors. Use large text for this part so people will easily see what the marketing tool is all about.
• Your name and contact details - Introduce yourself to passersby by writing down your full name, phone number, and website on the signage. The contact details serve as your call to action in this marketing tool so make it big enough for people to see. As much as possible, focus on one contact detail to compel people to a single call to action.
• Contrasting colors – Highlight the most important elements of your sign or banner design by using strong colors as their background, while the complementary colors must be used on the secondary information featured on the print product.

For more information on how to properly use colors on your print product, read our post entitled “Understanding Color” and find out how you can implement the Color Wheel on the design of your banners and signs.

Takeaways

• Promote – Use the print media mentioned above to get your name out in the market. There may be a chance that the business cards you have given out to people have been given away to their friends who is looking to purchase properties at the areas you cover. By spreading the word of your real estate services to people, you also increase your odds of getting employed in the long run.
• Prospect, prospect, prospect – Always be on the lookout for potential clients lurking in the corner. Bring with you a batch of business cards to hand out when the opportunity arises, especially at real estate conferences or seminars. Send out direct mails on a regular that details your current promos or open houses to clients this coming month. Display your banners with your photo on it to allow people to recognize you as a realtor or sales broker. In short, aim to expand your network by targeting different audiences within your market.

Take comfort in these print products and let them do their real estate marketing for you once you’ve printed them out with us at PrintRunner! Click on any of the print products above or click here to browse for more of our items.

Brochure marketing

The advantage of brochure marketing compared to others is how the information is presented. Unlike booklets or catalogs that divide its content into different pages, brochure lay out the details in a single page once opened in its entirety. You won’t have to flip through the pages to refer to previous content.

The folds allow you to practice your marketing skills in print. Each fold presents information intended to compel you to turn to the next fold until you’ve revealed the entire brochure. Therefore, it is important for each fold of your brochure to be strategically designed and written for the purpose of funneling your readers down to your call to action.

To maximize your brochure marketing campaigns for your business and increase your sales, below are advice you can follow.

Disclaimer: We at PrintRunner have posted images on this post mainly for design inspiration purposes. We may not be able to produce the exact options and material used on the featured product. Call 1-888-774-6889 to learn what design choices you can select for your print order.

Grab their attention with your brochure marketing

This all starts with your cover fold, or the face of the fold that people see first on your brochures. This serves as the wide opening of the funnel because the appealing design of your brochure cover should prompt people not necessarily within your target audience to take notice of your marketing tool.

To do this, your brochure must assume a marketing appeal appropriate for your business. Below are the different types.

Marketing appeals

• Humor - This appeal makes use of comedy to call people to the brochure.
• Emotional - One of the most popular appeals used on marketing tools, this tugs the heartstrings of people and makes them feel sympathy towards the subject displayed on the cover fold.
• Informative – Since you are encouraging people to purchase your product or service, this appeal type uses the front of the brochure to introduce what you are marketing to them.
• Straight sell – Cutting to the chase and going upfront with the value propositions of your product or service is what defines this appeal.
• Artistic – Unlike straight sell, the artistic approach is less upfront with its marketing but is just as riveting with how it creatively delivers its message to people.

Brochure design

Once you have a concept in mind, decide which elements you will include on your brochure. Normally, images, text, and colors are used to maximize the compelling aspect of your design. However, you need to understand how each element greatly effects the appearance of your brochures.

In our previous post entitled “Text and Image Design: Copywriting vs. Visualization,” we mentioned that an image design is used when you want to target a greater number of audience since they are much easier to understand as opposed to a text design. At the same time, if you are aiming for an image design, ensure that it expresses your marketing message clear enough so that people won’t get confused with what the images signify.

We also made mention of colors in our previous post “Understanding Color.” In a nutshell, each color has a corresponding complementary and analogous color in the wheel chart featured on the post. When designing your brochures, use complementary colors for your background and text for contrast and readability. Also, use analogous colors to define your text on your brochures according to level. Following these guidelines should make for a clean brochure design.

Lay out the information

Once your target audience is locked to your brochure upon opening the cover fold of your brochure to see its content, you need to be able to answer the following questions about your business:

• What is your business all about?
• What does your product or service do?
• What makes it different from the popular ones in the market?
• What will the customer get from this?
• What do you want to achieve with it?
• How much does it cost?
• Where and how can I buy it?

When composing the information on your brochure, it is most effective to write from the perspective of your prospective clients. You must be aware of their concerns and fears towards your business to write a copy on your brochure that speaks to them. Once all doubt has been erased, you will have a much clearer path to compelling them to your brochures’ call to action.

For great copywriting that you can apply on your brochures, refer to our post “10 Building Blocks to Great Copywriting.”

Take note that there is no blueprint in creating the best layout for the inside folds of your brochures. However, to give you a better idea as to what makes an attention-grabbing brochure, here is a design inspiration post featured on Graphic Design Junction entitled “20 Attention-Grabbing Brochure Designs for Successful Marketing Campaign.” Take note of the different ways that the brochure examples are unfolded to reveal the information inside, as well as the design of each.

Convert!

Upon relaying information about your business, your brochures must ultimately get people to do something for your business. What you would normally want is for people to purchase your product or service to increase your profit, become a brand advocate who would influence other people to purchase from you, or find out more about your specific product or service. Depending on what you are marketing, there are multiple types of call to actions that you can include on your marketing tools. Here are a few examples:

• Phone number or e-mail address to call or send a message, respectively, to your customer support
• Physical address to visit your shop and make a counter transaction
• Website for more information about your business or to make a purchase from there

These calls to action must be displayed on the back or last fold of the brochure so that you will be able to further explain your business on the previous folds until your audience have become knowledgeable enough to make an educated purchase or form an opinion about your product or service.

For more information regarding this portion, read our post entitled “Improve Your Print Marketing Calls to Action.”

Takeaways

• Your cover fold must attract people to purchase or get a copy of your brochure from your stores and open the folds.
• Your inner folds should present your information in a comprehensible and attractive manner so people will clearly understand what your business is all about.
• The information must impel your target audience to perform a call to action and turn them into customers or brand advocates.

Apply all these tactics to your brochure marketing by purchasing one from PrintRunner! Our brochures are available in different sizes and folds to your liking. Get our brochures in front of your doorsteps three business days after printing. Click here for more information.

Photography marketing is the next step to turn your hobby into a money-making profession. Once you have invested on good camera equipment and have learned advanced techniques using a graphics editing program to enhance your digital images, you should be able to make a living by taking snapshots of life’s beautiful moments.

However, the business side of photography is a different beast altogether. It’s not the same as waiting for that moment when your subject strikes a pose. To make an impression in the market as a professional photographer, you must willingly reach out and make yourself accessible to your target audience.

Below are photography marketing ideas to help you start off your career as a successful photographer and getting yourself known in the industry.

1. Create a portfolio

Photographers are defined by their work, and to gain clients for your photography services, you must present a compelling collection of your best shots. Maximize your chances of landing a client by producing your portfolio into different formats.

Booklets

This type of print media allows you to showcase multiple works due to the many pages contained within. You can hand these out during photography events or conventions that permit you to promote your services.

CDs

These allow you to store more photos than booklets can. However, unlike booklets that people can immediately browse upon receiving them, you will have to run CDs using a laptop or computers with a CD player to view the images.

Creating an appropriate design for your CD/DVD sleeve or DVD case cover that you will use to keep your CDs adds an extra layer to your marketing efforts of encouraging them to try out your services.

Photo-hosting sites

Sites like Flickr and Picasa lets your upload and save thousands of your photographs on the web. Best of all, you can make your profile public so prospective clients can check out all of your uploaded images in one place.

It is best practice to maximize the different online photo sharing sites available by creating an account for each. Pinterest is currently one of the latest and best photo-sharing sites that have a dedicated and active user base of over 11 million.

Aside from being able to create specific themes for each account, you can increase your online visibility by having search engines crawl and index your profiles. Once people search for your name, your profiles will appear as the search results and increase the chances of people browsing through your works.

Below are tips to follow on how you should design your booklets to market your photography services:

• Include your contact details – Assuming that you will let your prospective clients keep your booklet portfolio, your telephone number and e-mail address should serve as your call to action. If people are impressed with your work from your portfolio, they will use your contact details to reach you for a job opportunity.
• Focus on your specialty – Be aware that your identity as a photographer is determined by that one thing you are great at, which is why you should choose a particular category or type that you are comfortable in and showcase it through your portfolio. Conversely, avoid targeting all photography services in your booklet portfolio – by focusing on everything, you may end up not being really good at something.
• Design according to your specialty – Your marketing materials are extensions of your identity as a photographer. The images you use as your portfolio design aside from your photos must be synonymous to your specialty for them to easily identify the type of photography services you offer. Using flowers and cakes on your portfolio design and white background for your theme gives away your identity to people as a wedding photographer.

If you plan to create your portfolio using booklets but lack design ideas to make your marketing material stand out, check out our previous posts entitled “5 Brochure Design Ideas to Match Your Brand” and “5 Outstanding Booklet Designs of 2011” before ordering your booklets here.

2. Attend photography events

As a freelancer, you need to form connections with like-minded photographers. This can be done by simply running an online search for photography events available within your area. By attending, you will not only take photos of the event taking place to be added for your portfolio, but also increase your standing within the industry by forming a partnership with other photographers with different specialties.

Notable Events

• Photoshop World Conference and Expo
• Society for Photographic Education National Conference
• Photographic Society of America Annual Conference
• IEEE International Conference on Computational Photography
• Photo District News Photoplus International Conference + Expo

Note: Some of the conferences listed above for this year have passed, but you can sign up for next year’s event to participate in conferences, workshops, and seminars, as well as make connections with photographers and enthusiasts.

To strengthen that connection, you can hand out business cards to prospective partners and clients so they can reach you using the contact information on the card.

Aside from shaking hands and exchanging cards with other people, you can reserve a booth on the conference to showcase and exhibit your works to the public. This allows you to make a statement in the photography scene and gain extra mileage in your marketing efforts, especially if your photos make a lasting impression to people. Catch the attention of people by using your most powerful works on posters and banners to be displayed in front of your booth or at places with high foot traffic.

However, when it comes to marketing tools, postcards are photographer’s best friend. Your photos will be best represented using these since they normally take the shape of photo print size 4R (4″ x 6″). More importantly, you can either hand these out or sell them at your booths for increase your branding and identity.

If you need more information on how to use postcards as a marketing tool, read our post entitled “Best Business Practices for Postcard Marketing.” Then purchase our postcards at PrintRunner by clicking here. Our postcards are available in nine different sizes and can be printed with coating (matte or UV) or using 100% recycled paper.

3. Join contests

Every photographer must put their works to the test by entering their to contests. Aside from the prize you will receive if you win, you will get an idea of the skill level and diversity of photographers from different parts of the world. This should inspire you learn the techniques they used on their entries and push your photography skills to the limit.

Bookmark the links below and visit them regularly for updates on contests that you feel confident in joining.

• ThePhotoContest
• Photography Competitions Network
• World Photography Organisation Competition

From a marketing standpoint, joining contests lets thousands of people view your work, assuming that the entries are published online. If they like your entry, there’s a great chance that they will check out your online portfolio and either contact you for your services or discuss a business partnership with you.

These photography marketing tips are important in getting your services across to people. If you have any more suggestions that you’d like to mention regarding photography marketing, please feel free to comment below and share them with us!

However, it takes more than just publishing a blog post to market your offline business. You need to work within a content publishing schedule, use online tools to aid you in reaching out to your customers, and find new ideas to test and implement in your business.

Below are content marketing tips that allow you to map out a sound and doable plan.

1. List down promos and events for your business

Take note of your company’s special events and establish the content for your blog. Create a yearly calendar using a spreadsheet and input the name of the events and the covered dates to have a concrete schedule to follow.

2. Create an editorial calendar

Creating a blog lets you publish company news, announcements, and helpful articles for your customers and potential clients to see. However, blogs without careful planning tend to get ignored by businesses. Without regular updates on their blogs, they lose their credibility, as well as potential customers or brand advocates online.

The trick here is to stick with your publishing schedule so that readers would only learn more about your business, but also develop a habit of visiting your blog regularly for great content. The premise here, therefore, is for you to craft unique and relevant articles to be published on your blog on a consistent basis.

Using the information seen on your spreadsheet of special events, you will be able to determine the kinds of content to be written on your blog. For sales, you can list down tips on how your customers can use the products on sale in your company. For events, mention the incentives that they will receive once attending your show or function.

If you have no events or sales to promote for that day, publish helpful and usable content that will nonetheless provide readers with practical information that they can use in their everyday lives while still keeping your business in mind.

Ideally, your content must persuade readers to visit your shops and purchase your products, if not convert them into brand advocates. Keep these in mind while composing your content plan on your calendar using a spreadsheet.

3. Publish posts diligently

There is no exact figure as to how many posts you should publish on your blog every week. One thing you won’t have to do, however, is to update your blog every single day of the week just for the sake of putting out new content.

You have to be aware that your blog is an extension of your business – the posts found on your blog can affect the perception people have for your business. Publishing haphazard content on your blog with reckless abandon may damage not only your blog, but also the image of your brand.

Suffice to say, quality trumps quantity every time.

The point of writing for your blog is to put out fresh and useable content in the best possible manner so users can refer to in the future as a valuable resource. Therefore, publishing as low as a post every week is fine as long as it features unique and helpful content about your niche or industry.

4. Do your research

Link or refer to authoritative sources to lay down the groundwork of your post. Read different articles online about the topic to have a better grasp of what people think or say about it. From here, you can formulate your own approach and concept as to how you plan to write your blog post.

5. Write hypnotic headlines

Users click to read your blog post depending on how the title is written. Emphasize on the advantages that readers will get upon reading your article or create an air of mystery to your post through your title. Although these should mesmerize users to check out your post, also ensure that the content delivers the promise of your title.

To get a better idea on how to write your headlines, Copyblogger has published a set of posts for this particular topic entitled “How to Write Magnetic Headlines.”

6. Be exhaustive as possible

Although brevity is the soul of wit, going overboard with your blog posts has its benefits. Making your content as epic as possible lets you cover a lot of ground about the topic, allowing you to target a wider audience.

7. Deviate from the norm

Provide information not featured on other published pages. A quick Google search should show you the most popular information about your topic. You can either rewrite the ideas to put your own twist to them or write an entirely new idea in reaction to the popular ones to get a reaction. This helps your post stand out from the rest.

8. Dare to be different

Content that is “safe,” i.e. offers little or no resistance to popular belief, is barely read. Since you are writing about a position that you share with everybody, there is no point in reading it. Therefore, turn the tables around by attacking the opinion of the many. Make a compelling case using substantial arguments to not only get people to read your post, but also persuade them to take your side and spread the word!

9. Target one keyword per post

SEO-friendly content contains keywords to increase their rankings on search results for specific terms. However, targeting multiple keywords in your content is similar to multitasking: by aiming to rank for all your keywords in a single post, you end up ranking for nothing. Instead, focus on one keyword for every post to maximize your rankings for a particular term.

Online Resources:

• Zemanta –Let this blog publishing assistant help you find commercial-free images and related links to be featured for your blog post. The plugin appears on the sidebar of the editing page.
• WordPress SEO by Yoast – Arguably the most robust SEO plugin for WordPress, this lets you set your focus keyword, view the page analysis of your post following the best SEO practices, and customize on-page SEO factors for your blog.
• “100 Blog Post Ideas (Turn Your Brainstorming to Autopilot)” by Sean Platt – Coming up with new topics for your blog post can get demanding, which is why this post will help you come up with endless ideas to be included in your editorial calendar.

10. Write for others

In line with developing your audience, you must reach out to other bloggers and write guest posts for their blog. Use the search operators when using Google to find relevant blogs within your industry that allows for guest posting. You could also sign up for an account at MyBlogGuest or BlogDash to pitch your content proposal directly to blog owners.

Aside from receiving an inbound link to your blog for SEO purposes, you form a bridge with other bloggers for a long-term guest posting spot on their blog. This also allows you to lengthen your reach to an untapped market segment that you could encourage them to purchase from your stores through your posts.

11. Accommodate your audience

What you set out to achieve with your content marketing for your blog is to gain a solid readership. This consists of brand advocates and potential clients of your business who frequent your blog because they have become fans of your content, if not your products or services, through the posts you have written.

However, instead of them constantly visiting your blog for new posts, you can make it easier for your readers to know if you have made updates. Below are ways to do this:

• Set up an RSS feed – Really Simple Syndication (RSS) lets you syndicate your content automatically online. Your readers then can subscribe to your feed to receive blog updates using their RSS reader of choice.
• Set up a newsletter – Instead of using an RSS reader to receive your latest blog posts, your readers can sign up using their e-mail addresses for updates.
• Create social media accounts – Keeping in touch with your fans and followers using your Twitter and Facebook fan page and build longer lasting and more intimate relationships with your audience.

For the first two, you can sign up on FeedBurner or MailChimp for free to create an RSS feed or newsletter for your blog. Once you have created an account, you can display a link on the sidebar or header area of your blog so users will easily see where to sign up to receive your updates.

How about you? Do you have ”killer” content marketing tips that you’d like to share? Let everyone know how they can boost their offline businesses through their blogs by commenting below!

Subscribe to the PrintRunner Blog feed using your RSS readers hereto receive helpful advice on how you can promote your small businesses using print media and online marketing.

Below are time-tested and essential practices to implement on your postcard marketing, as well as new ideas to provide you with different perspective on how you could market your business using these cards.

What to put on your postcard marketing?

Theme

The images and colors of your postcard should work in unison to achieve the same goal, which is to draw the attention of your market into reading it more closely. Just like what honey is to bees, your postcards must stimulate on-lookers visually and emotionally to capture their interests to your print media of choice. Also, appropriate your theme according to the industry you’re involved in – restaurant owners would create postcard designs that allude to the kitchen by including cooking wares, as well as colors that stimulate the appetite such as red.

Turn your photographs into postcards

If you are a professional photographer, sell your services using postcard marketing. Take the best photo you’ve taken thus far that embodies you entire work and use it as postcard design. If you plan on using your other photos as design for your postcard, track down how many people you have converted with each postcard design you have sent or handed out.

For those who have no eye for photography, either hire a professional to take photos from you or purchase digital photos off the Internet. Regarding the latter, below is a list of sites where you can purchase stock images for your postcard design:

• iStockPhotos
• BigStockPhoto
• ShutterStock
• Fotolia
• 123RF

Given that these are stock photos, you are recommended to also hire a designer to customize the design for your postcard.

Logo

Increase branding and corporate identity on your print media. This also helps your market to remember your business much easier. This predicates that you have a compelling logo for your company. If you have yet to create a logo or plan on revising the one you have right now, refer to our post entitled “The Anatomy of Compelling Logo Designs.”

Contact Details

Your physical address, telephone number, website, or email address should serve as the call to action of your postcard. If people like what they see on your postcards, there’s a great chance that they’ll visit your store, shoot you an e-mail, or give you a call. Be aware that you don’t have to be too forward in presenting your contact information on your postcard – as long as they can be used within your postcard design, it should be enough to encourage your readers to follow through with your call to action.

Due to the other factors that requires your consideration when conceptualizing a theme for your postcard marketing, here are additional resources to read regarding this aspect of postcard design:

• Postcard Printing Design – 17 Examples of Promotional Postcards
• Understanding Color
• Color Psychology

What’s on the back of postcards?

The back is what makes postcards unlike any other print media. Whereas brochures or catalogs must be mailed out inside envelopes, postcards can be sent out without one because their backs provide the space for the mailing address , postage, and bar coding. Click here to learn the specifics on the back portion of a postcard.

However, this should not discourage you from designing the back of your postcards. Although you have to leave blank spaces for the indicia and the address to be included for mailing purposes, it is fully recommended that your postcard design should extend to the back. You may write compelling copy to increase follow-through rate of people to your call to action or attractive design to increase the appeal of your cards.

How to market your postcards?

Postcard marketing is all about maximizing the most effective channels allowing you to distribute postcards to your target audience. Doing so will efficiently spread your marketing message to interested parties, who will then act upon the call to action of your postcard. Below are some of the more popular ways of marketing your business using postcards.

Direct mail

A distinct advantage of postcards, or any print media used for mailing purposes, is how they are sent straight to the homes of your target market. Therefore, you won’t have to worry that you’re giving or handing out postcards to the wrong crowd, assuming that you have developed or purchased a mailing list with your correct demographics for a highly-targeted direct mail campaign.

For more information about direct mailing, read our post entitled “Direct Mail Marketing Demystified.”

Make them up for grabs

Once you have your postcards in tow, display them at points of purchase in your store. You can either give them away for free or sell each at a nominal price.

Giving them away is ideal for branding purposes especially if you are managing an upstart business with zero profit. However, since you’re not going to earn from these cards, you have to allot money in your marketing budget for the designing and printing of postcards. If you’re planning on printing out 500 4″x 6″ postcards for a month, you can get yours from PrintRunner at around $44, which will be the amount that you have to include in your budget.

For those planning to sell them in your stores, you have to ensure that the postcards are within the acceptable price range of $0.25 – $0.75 per piece. Anything priced higher than the maximum would be considered expensive. More importantly, make sure that your customers will be interested with the kind of postcards you will be selling. The best-selling postcards in the market are the following:

• artworks by classical painters
• landscapes or tourist spots
• quotes from famous people
• humorous designs

The primary reason why people buy postcards is to send them out to their family or friends with their dedications at the back. However, for people to actually purchase your cards before sending them out, come up with the best possible design with your branding on the postcards.

Create a postcard collection

Postcards can also become collectibles, especially vintage ones made in the early 1900s. Therefore, come up with a unique marketing strategy by rolling out specially designed postcards to be sold as a collector’s item. Boost the value of the postcards if people are able to complete the entire set. You can reward people to a free product from you if they are able to complete the cards and present it to your store.

Lease them to thrift shops

You can also tie in with thrift shops related to your business and ask them to display your postcards. This allows you to reach out a different market segment or an untapped customer based within your industry and increase your brand visibility.

Now that we’ve discussed how to use postcards, it’s time to buy yours! Choose from our 9 popular sizes and decide whether you want your postcards coated or printed using 100% recycled paper. Create your postcards using our easy-to-use Online Design Tool or upload a pre-made image and request for a proofed copy of your file for errors before printing. Click here for more information or call us at 1-888-PRINT-89.

LeBron James

However, his points aren’t the only reason why his team won the championship – his 11 rebounds, 13 assists, and the exceptional way he played the game that sealed the deal. Now, what insight can you, as businessmen, learn from LeBron’s sublime performance?

11 Rebounds

A rebound, in basketball definition, is a way of gaining control of the ball after a missed shot. 11 rebounds mean 11 chances of getting the ball into the basket – that is 22 points if he or his teammates got it all in.

As small business owners, you can look at this from the perspective of business against competition and you against yourself.

In business, you should be aware and be able to identify when a competitor misses a shot. This is an opportunity for you to gain advantage. Make sure to know what mistake they committed and go take flight and grab the ball. Ask yourself, what made their postcard campaign ineffective? Why didn’t they reach as much target audience using posters? What should have they done to better tap into their target market?

Remember that other competitors will try to grab the ball too so when you get your hands on it, hold it tightly. In basketball, sometimes you try to shoot the ball and misses. If you are already in there, making a rebound after your failed shot is a must. Same thing with business, learn from your mistake and act on it!

13 Assists

LeBron didn’t make it to stardom by hogging the ball for himself; he helped his teammates score by passing the ball at the right time resulting to a basket. That was equivalent to at least 26 points for his team made possible by letting go of the ball at the right moment and passing it to the right person.

Now how does this translate to business? Knowing the right timing and the perfect situation to delegate a responsibility, recognize a good idea, or know just exactly who the right person for a specific job in your business requires skills as well – not to mention perceptiveness.

Exceptional Game Play

Prior to this year’s Finals, LeBron has a history of not being able to deliver when it counts, starting with the poor effort he showed in Game 5 of the 2010 NBA Conference Semifinals against the Boston Celtics. His lackadaisical performance in the 2011 NBA Finals against the Dallas Maverick only fueled fire to the argument – despite his physical gifts and high basketball IQ, LeBron does not have the killer instinct that Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Larry Bird possessed during their prime. He was quick to defer to co-captain Dwyane Wade and was content with letting the game come to him instead of clawing his way in to the game.

In this year’s Finals against the Thunder, however, LeBron played like he never played before. With Wade and Chris Bosh hurting, LeBron took it upon himself to carry the team and make sure that every game was within their reach.

A poignant moment happened that is testament to LeBron’s transformation from a talented player to a fiery competitor when he experienced leg cramps in the closing minutes of Game 4. Instead of succumbing to the pain, LeBron continued to play and hit a 3-point shot that was pivotal in their win. Although he was eventually taken out to avoid further damage on his body, his willingness to play through adversity and take charge of the situation is something that LeBron learned from the mistakes he committed in last year’s Finals.

Just like LeBron, aiming to get leverage in the market and seizing every opportunity that arises is definitely an attitude businessmen should develop. Most businesses fail not because of poor marketing, but because of complacency. There is nothing wrong with being satisfied about where you are in the market; what’s wrong is being satisfied too much that you ignored possible threats to your business and opportunities to move forward, innovate, or be creative.

Being the business MVP won’t be easy. It will take a lot of practice and experience. If at first you think you’re not doing well, don’t give up. Just like LeBron James, it might not be your time to shine just yet.

Takeaways:

• Be prepared when one of your competitors “drop the ball” and take advantage of it. Likewise, make sure to keep the ball in your court and take the best shot possible.
• Delegate your tasks properly and maximize your resources to the fullest.
• Learn from your mistakes and make the most out of the opportunities given to you. Plan in advance and make the right decisions.

As a dentist, the real advantage you hold over your competition is knowledge on how you should market yourself, which is why you need to brainstorm for dental marketing ideas to draw more clients to your office for a check-up. It all boils down to highly targeted and cost-efficient dental marketing strategy using print media, which is what you’re going to learn about in this post.

Below are dental marketing ideas that you could use when developing your plan of accumulating more customers for the coming months. Let’s begin!

Send out Direct Mail

This type of marketing has been one of the most preferred strategies by dentists due to how their customers and potential clients receive their print media on their mailboxes. As a result, there’s a greater chance for your target market to get their hands on your postcard or brochure and read what you have to say.

Aside from the aforementioned print media, you can also send out flyers and catalogs to maximize your marketing mix for direct mailing.

First, you need a mailing list, which would contain the names and addresses of your customers or potential clients who will receive your mail.

This can be done by asking people to fill out the necessary information on your sign-up sheets. The sheets can be set up at your booths during healthcare events or conventions you plan on attending. If you have a website, you can set up a form that visitors can fill out so you can still collect their contact details online.

For WordPress users, download the easy-to-use Contact Form 7plugin to create your sign-up sheet. You can customize the different information that visitors can enter on the sheet. Once done, create a dedicated page for the sheet and link it on your homepage or place the sheet on the sidebar so people can easily see it.

Aside from the name and address, you could include information such as age, gender, and income level that you could use to build your demographics to help you segregate your mailing list accordingly.

If building your list from scratch proves cumbersome, then purchase a list from sites offering mailing services. Specify the demographics of your target market who will receive your mail.

Additional Resource: How to Send Direct Mail and Save Money

Choose Your Print Media

An example of a dental brochure from the Creston Children’s Dental Clinic with the intention of raising money to provide low-income students from public Portland schools.

Below are suggestions on how to use the aforementioned print media ideal for direct mail:

• Brochures – Describe the Features, illustrate the Advantages, and boast the ultimate Benefits. (Brochure Basics)
• Postcards – Make the front side design compelling enough so recipients will take a closer look at them. (Postcard Printing Design – 17 Examples of Promotional Postcards)
• Flyers – Address and solve a problem. (Fabulous Flyers)
• Catalogs – Their appearance should appeal to your audience. (Catalog Design Tips)

Also make sure that your print products have a persuasive copy and design so you can convince recipients to heed your call to action.

Take Advantage of Holidays

Since there is no work or school during the holidays, you can hold promotions on that day to drive more patients to your clinics. Here are some specific suggestions for the upcoming holidays:

• Hold discounts for your general cleaning services a week before school starts so student can begin the school year with a clean set of teeth.
• On Grandparent’s Day (first Sunday after Labor Day), repair or fix the dentures of senior citizens for free.
• Hold another promo for general cleaning a day after Halloween when children have consumed lots of candy.

Aside from applying direct mail to promote your promos for the upcoming holidays, you can display posters or banners in front of your clinic or at locations with high foot traffic. Flyers that are distributed at places where your target market can be found should also increase buzz to your promo.

Additional resource: Marketing Posters – Six Effective Tips

Inform people about their teeth

Much of the problem that stems from diseases in the oral cavity is the lack of knowledge on what causes these diseases and how to avoid them. People need to be informed and you, as dentist, must be the catalyst that would open their minds about the damaging effects of poor oral hygiene.

Take cue from this illustrated book about proper oral hygiene in Portuguese geared to children.

You can begin by placing brochures on the waiting area of your clinic so people can get a copy and read it while waiting for their turn or take home for further reading.

Make them remember their appointment date

To avoid the risk of your patients forgetting their dental appointments with you, hand out magnets the size of a business card with the appointment date written in front before they leave your clinic.

Your patients will be compelled to display the magnets on any flat metal surface they have at home – they would stick it on their ref doors or whiteboards along with their other reminders.

Also, design the magnets with your contact details so your patients can refer to them for your services. This ensures that the magnets can still be used even when the appointment date has elapsed.

Give thanks

Patients, just like any other customer, appreciate feeling special to their doctors. Therefore, share your love by sending out thank you cards or postcards to people a week after their first visit to your clinic.

Aside from showing them your appreciation for choosing you over other dentists, this is a way of increasing customer retention – by building a more personal relationship with your clients through cards, they will remember your services much easier once they need dental services.

Additional resources: Customer Retention with Postcards, Five Effective Marketing Ideas to Increase Repeat and Referral Sales

Now that we’ve covered most of the basic dental marketing ideas you should try out for your clinic, let us at PrintRunner help you in marketing your clinic! Click here to view all the print products mentioned on this posts, as well as other marketing mix you can use for your campaigns.