What are "measurable results?"

One of the biggest challenges we face each sale is trying to convince customers that promotional products are "worth it." Like every expense, businesses want to make sure that the dollars they are spending on promotional items get them some type of result. The result needs to "measurable"...or to use another marketing buzzphrase, customers want to be sure they get a Return on Investment (ROI).

So, how do we help our customers get that measurable result, especially when you're dealing with something like a promotional product? First of all, let's change the phrase and instead refer to those image-building items as "advertising specialties," because thats whatt they are. When you pay for something with your name on it, and you expect people to see it and be moved to action, it's an advertising vehicle.

Now let's examine a few differnet ways that we can measure the results of this type of advertising.
-- Set up a special e-mail account tied in with your advertising. For example, “To receive our special report on the 100 Best Restaurants to Wear a Tie-Dye Shirt," send an e-mail to “tiedye@xxxx.com”.
-- Have an item imprinted so customers need to redeem it in to receive a discount or free item. For example, a karate studio we worked with gave away pens at a local parade with the offer: “Bring in this pen for a free introductory lesson and uniform.” To gauge the response rate, all they needed to do was count the pens that were redeemed. Or you can print “mention this item when you order to receive a 5% discount.” Again, a simple collection of items -- or a tic chart" will help you see if the advertising is working.
-- If you include a phone number on your advertising materials, think about using a new or special number just with this item. For example, if you order desk accessories with a phone number on it, you can track how many people see this item just by counting the number of phone calls you receive. If a new phone number is too expensive, there are less-expensive options. You can set up a special e-mail account. You can even set up a ficticious person in your office and track how many calls "Betty" or "Lou" gets. Or, the simplest yet -- you can simply have your staff ask “how did you hear about us” when a potential customer calls.

Of course, there are a number of other options to make sure your advertising is working for you, as well. You may want to order a less expensive item than you had originally planned so you can order more (for example, a short-sleeve t-shirt instead of a long-sleeve), or consider having your logo imprinted in one color instead of two or three, or silk-screened instead of embroidered.

Another idea is to order items that can serve two purposes. For example, you can order a magnet with a punch-out piece, with the magnet becoming a picture frame and the punch-out piece is a coupon or advertisement for you. You can also order postcards with magnets glued to it so you get the benefit of a postcard mailing, along with the long-lasting placement of a magnet.

The key phrase to remember in this new economy is “measured results.” You want to be able to know where your customers are coming from based on where you spend your advertising dollars.

In today’s world, you can’t afford to simply advertise for the sake of advertising; you want to be able to know that your dollars are well-spent. Be sure that when (not if!) you advertise, you know which forms of advertising are generating the best response. It's simply a measure of your success.

Place a $2500 order -- get an Ipod shuffle

The fine folks at Proforma World Headquarters have just announced a sales contest. The cool thing about this contest is that everybody wins!

To win, all you have to do is place an order for $2500 or more between now and Dec. 1. If you do, you'll receive an ultra-chic Ipod Shuffle.

The best part of the contest (especially if you're cheap like some of my relatives) is that the Shuffle won't be branded -- that is, it won't say the Proforma name on it anywhere. Why's that good? Two words -- re-gifting.

Yup, you can actually get something just for doing business with us, and if you don't want it you can wrap it up and give it to someone as a holiday or birthday gift. How cool is that?

For more info, send us an e-mail at Creative.Services@proforma.com or call us at 856-753-0200.

Breast cancer & bowling -- a touchy subject

So we're cruising the aisles at the recent South Jersey Chamber of Commerce show, and we run into one of our new favorite people. Mary Hunter, who I know from a networking group, is at company's booth, smiling, chatting, pleasant as usual.

I know that Mary is running an event to raise money for Breast Cancer awareness. She dubbed the event "Bowling For Boobs." Now you have an idea of why she's one our New Favorite People List.

So I'm talking to Mary about the event, asking her when it is and how the fundraising is doing. I then casually drop the idea to sell a t-shirt at the event saying "I spared the pair"... a risque double-entendre about a bowling and boobs. She laughed and sort-of laughed off the idea.

Until the next morning.

"I talked to my husband about your idea," she said. "He loved it. Can we do it? The event's next week."

We quickly huddled with our designers and combined some of Mary's ideas with some of our own. We modified the awareness "ribbon" to incorporate two bowling pins. We put he name of the event on the shirt, two well-positioned bowling balls and the "I spared the pair" tagline. We had 50 white shirts printed with the design printed in pink and dropped them off a couple of hours before the event. And the shirts sold out...success all around!

We told this story to a few people, and were surprised at the reaction. While most enjoyed it, one person thought we were making light of breast cancer. Another thought the placement of the "bowling balls" was in poor taste.

My response...."oh well."

I admire Mary's gumption for taking a serious health threat that is generally talked about in hushed terms and having a bit of fun with it. Most men are reluctant to talk about "breasts" -- and especially breast cancer -- but have no trouble with the word boobs. And the fact that Mary was able to combine all of this on a t-shirt -- which helped raised money for an admirable cause -- is especially satisfying.

What do you think about the idea and the shirt? Feel free to post your response...

The magic of trade shows

Tried a little something different at a recent trade show. We decided to set up a table at the recent Builders League of South Jersey expo (http://www.blsj.org/). This show is designed to let area builders know what services are available from other members of the organization.

Last year, we kinda went overboard. We invited one of our clothing suppliers to bring a display of outdoor and work clothing. We also had former Philadelphia Flyers player Brian Propp signing autographs at our booth. While we generated a lot of interest at our booth, we weren't able to convert that buzz into many sales.

This year, we invited our neighbor, magician Richie B (http://www.richiebmagic.com/, in case you're interested) to be at our booth to entertain people. Our thought was that he could at least get people to stop for more than a second or two.

Mission accomplished.

Not only did Rich entertain a LOT of people, he also created some tricks specifically concerning our printing and ad specialties capabilities. Additionally, at the conclusion of each trick (most lasted 1-2 minutes, he would place one of our brochures into the spectator's hands and then introduce them to us.

Very classy, very professional, and very successful.

We just started our first round of follow-up phone calls to people who handed us their card and expressed an interest in our services. I'll keep you posted....

A warning about internet shopping & Vista Print

A number of people buy business cards and other printed materials from Vista Printing (also known as Vistaprint.com). While we're going to badmouth our competition or tell you how to do your business, this news article might be enough to give you a reason to want to deal with a human instead of the faceless monolith known as the internet. The following article is printed verbatim from the Advertising Specialty Institute website:

VistaPrint Named in Four Federal Class-Action Lawsuits (8/28/2008)

Four class-action lawsuits have been brought against VistaPrint, a small business marketing company with over 15 million customers worldwide, regarding unauthorized charges of the credit cards and bank accounts of customers who purchased items on the company's U.S. Web site. VistaPrint Limited and its U.S. subsidiary, along with Vertrue Inc. and its subsidiary Adaptive Marketing LLC, were named as defendants in all four cases. VistaPrint revealed on Thursday in a press release that pending cases were filed in New Jersey and Texas, but Counselor has learned that additional class-action suits were filed yesterday in both Massachusetts and Alabama.

"As we allege in the complaint, we believe that VistaPrint and Vertrue are acting in concert to access consumers' credit card information and then begin charging them relatively small amounts," says Jerome Noll, counsel for the plaintiff that filed the Massachusetts suit. "You're talking about $14.95 a month or $12.95 a month, hoping that consumers just won't notice."

Dolores Gordon, the plaintiff in the Massachusetts case, claims that there were six unauthorized charges on her credit card of $14.95 each after she purchased business cards from VistaPrint on Sept. 1, 2007. One unauthorized charge was allegedly from VistaPrint and five were from Shopping Essentials, a trademark of Adaptive Marketing. Gordon says she canceled her card to stop the charges. "She had contacted the defendants many times over the six months asking them for credit and for them to stop charging her," says Noll, whose firm has also filed a lawsuit in Connecticut against Vertrue. "They would tell her, 'Yes, of course, we'll give you the credit, of course we'll stop charging you.' They never did."

The complaints, all filed in federal courts, allege that the defendants were in violation of the Electronic Funds Transfer Act (which protects from unauthorized charges) and the federal Electronic Communications and Privacy Act (which prohibits the unlawful access of financial information). VistaPrint could not comment due to pending litigation. Its press release states, "VistaPrint believes it has meritorious defenses to these lawsuits and intends to defend these matters vigorously."

Interesting trade show stats

I recently attended a seminar on tradeshows, and one statistic during the presentation really stuck out.

According to the speaker, statistics have shown that only 12% of the tradeshow attendees are your customers. Think about that -- for every 100 people in a trade show on any given day, only 12 of them are potential customers for your business.

Crazy numbers, isn't it? If you expand on those numbers, if there are 5000 people in attendance, only 600 are potential customers.

So what are you doing to get those 12% -- the right 12% -- to your booth? And once they're at your booth, what are you doing to convert them from potential customers to actual customers?

We'll be posting lots of trade show ideas over the next few weeks. Feel free to e-mail us if you have questions..

Tradeshows -- not quite the beginning

To continue from our last discussion, you (or your company) has decided to attend a trade show. The booth space has been reserved and (hopefully) airline and hotel rooms have been booked.

Now what?

Now is when people gather in a room, look at each other, and say in their best Chris Farley impersonation from "Tommy Boy", "What are we gonna doooooo??"

Good question. And even better, good timing.

Far too often, companies don't plan what they're going to do at their booth. Hard to believe, but you almost believe that companies think that showing up is "good enough." Or, worse yet, there may actually be a conversation that goes "check and see what we have left in the supply closet. We'll give that stuff away."

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Luckily, we're still early enough in the planning stages to actually plan something. For instance, are we going to hand out information? If so, what type? A flyer? A brochure? A sell sheet? A folder? Maybe we should decide now, get the handouts designed and printed and avoid rush charges.

Or, are we going to have some type of theme for our booth? Maybe an island theme? A futuristic theme? A golf or sports theme? If so, let's decide now. Will we need special decorations? special props? special clothing?

What are we going to wear? Will it tie into the theme? Will we be shirt and tie, business casual, Hawaiian shirts, golf shirts, etc?

How about an activity? What we will be doing on at our booth? A hole in one putting contest? A spin-and-win wheel? A trivia contest? Decisions, decisions, decisions...

How about what you'll be distributing at your booth? Sure, you may have literature on-hand (see above), but are you going to also have promotional items as well? There are only about 600,000 different items you have a company logo affixed to -- it may be tough to pick one.


In our next post, we'll come up with some answers to these questions... and then continue toward the show!

Tradeshows -- the beginning

I don't think I'd be understating the importance of tradeshows in today's business environment. There is no more better way to introduce yourself, your company, or your products to a large number of potential customers at one time.

So how come some companies are so bad at it?

The truth is, many companies see trade shows -- whether it's an industry show, a consumer show or even a Chamber of Commerce show -- as a necessary evil, rather than a potentially huge part of their marketing plan.

So, before we really begin, let's state some basic truths about trade shows. First, and more important, they are not a sales opportunity. The percentage of companies that make an actual sale on the show floor is very, very small. The salesperson, marketing person or company owner who complains about the lack of sales at a tradeshow is basically missing the entire point of being there. A trade show is a chance to start or build relationships, introduce or reinforce your brand, or introduce a new product.

The results of setting up at a trade show are almost never seen immediately. Rather, they can be discovered in the post-show followup or possibly weeks, months or even YEARS afterward.

OK, now that we have that piece of info out of the way (not that we won't be referring to it in follow-up posts), let's start with how to effectively utilize trade shows...from the beginning.

First things first. You've decided to set-up at a trade show. Congratulations. You've sent your down payment into the show organizers and you've made your transportation and lodging arrangements (if necessary, of course). Now what?

Now you have to figure out what you're going to do at the show. And that's where the fun begins.

And that's where we'll continue our discussion next time...

Coming soon...tradeshows!

In the very near future, we're going to writing an entire series of articles on tradeshows. This will (hopefully) have all the information you need to ensure that you or your company gets the most bang for its tradeshow buck.

We'll be discussing everything from what to wear, what to distribute at your booth, what activities to have, pre-show mailings, post-show follow-up and lots more. We think it'll be very helpful information for you, whether you're a one-person business thinking about setting up at your local Chamber of Commerce show, or the tradeshow coordinator for a multi-national corporation.

As always, your questions and feedback are welcome.

Help us with a mascot!!!

Hey all:

I spent way too much time this weekend watching all kinds of sports events. In the interim, I was reading some marketing magazines and articles and it hit me -- we need a mascot! No, not a real-life furry thing like the Phillie Phantic, just a two-dimensional character to give us a bit of a personality. Someone (something?) who represents who we are and what we do.

So, here's what we're going to do -- we're going to have a two-part contest.

For the creatively-challenged, we get to come up with a name for this new mascot.

For those who are more creative (read: those who can draw), you get to try to come up with a character or image.

I'll find some cool stuff to give away as prizes to the people who help us out the most.

Submit your ideas via e-mail to: Rich.Bradley@proforma.com. In the subject line, use the word "mascot."

Thanks!!!!

Going green

There's been a big push in the promotional products industry to "go green." It seems like everyday we receive another catalog or mailing or e-mail about a new "green" product.

Now, I'm a big fan of the earth. I haven't really found a much better place to live up to this point. However, I haven't received one call or e-mail from a customer or prospect asking for something "green" -- even from companies that I thought might be heavily in favor of promoting a green effort. In fact, the closest I've heard is "we're just looking for ways to not use as much paper."

OK, I guess you have to start somewhere, but that hardly seems like corporate tree-hugging.

I'd love to hear from anyone whose company has really embraced the green movement, and what they've done.

Having some fun on Cinco De Mayo

OK, so maybe Cinco De Mayo isn't the biggest holiday here on the East Coast, but don't tell that to any of friends back in San Diego. Not that we're ever at a loss to celebrate something, but we figured we'd take a break from our usual "stuff", and have a little bit of fun with a trivia contest.

Since I'll be giving the answers at the end of the column, there won't be any prizes if you get everything right, but some smug satisfaction of knowing that you know a lot of little-known facts. Test yourself out..some of these are a bit tricky (and depending on your political slant, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John McClain are not correct answers to any of these questions).

1. Name the one sport in which neither the spectators nor the participants know the score or the leader until the contest ends.

2. What famous North American landmark is constantly moving backward.

3. Of all vegetables (yuck!), only two can live to produce on their own for several growing seasons. All other vegetables must be replanted every year. What are the only two perenial vegetables?

4. What fruit has its seeds on the outside?

5. In many liquors stores, you can buy pear brandy, with a real pear inside the bottle. How did the pear get in the bottle?

6. Only three words in standard English begin with the letters 'dw' and they are all common words. Name two of them.

7. There are 14 punctuation marks in English grammar. Can you name at least half of them?

8. Name the only vegetable (more vegetables???) or fruit that is never sold frozen, canned, processed, cooked, or in any other form except fresh.

9. Name 6 or more things that you can wear on your feet, that begin with the letter 's'.



Answers:
1. Boxing
2. Niagara Falls
3. Asparagus and rhubarb
4. Strawberry
5. It grew inside the bottle. The bottles are placed over pear buds when they are small.
6. Dwarf, dwell and dwindle
7. Period, comma, colon, semicolon, dash, hyphen, apostrophe, question mark, exclamation point, quotation marks, brackets, parenthesis, braces and ellipses.
8. Lettuce
9. Shoes, socks, sandals, sneakers, slippers, skis, skates, snowshoes, stockings, stilts.


How'd you do? E-mail me the number of correct answers at Rich.Bradley@proforma.com. For the record, I got four right...but at least I know the names of the two actors who played Darren on "Bewitched." So there!!

Don't look now, but we're worldwide

Back in the hair-crazed '80s, that Little Old Band from Texas, ZZ Top, proclaimed that "they're bad, they're nationwide."

Well, to paraphrase from that rockin' trio, "we're worldwide."

Through the technology of the internet, we've been able to see to clients in 10 states during our brief time in business -- including California and Idaho. But just recently, we've been able to add merry ol' England to our customer base. Not once, but twice.

OK, the first one technically we didn't sell to England. One of our long-standing clients, EP Medsystems, is having their European sales meeting in England, and we provided the awards for their best salespeople and distributors. So even though the plaques were produced right here in beautiful New Joisey, their intended destination was across the pond.

Our second trip to England took us to Oxford University (and they said we'd never get in there -- so there!). Our sister company, Studio One22, designed a brochure for the school to use in its recruiting efforts. Definitely cool.

Of course, that doesn't mean we're abandoning the Delaware Valley. It's still our home and where we do about 90% of our business, and the place where we learned how to correctly pronouce "atty-tood." But it's kind of fun to visit other places -- if only as part of a plaque or a brochure.

The wonderful sticky note

Sometimes, you wonder how we survived without sticky notes....

A new year, a new project

Hard to believe that it's already 2008 (although I'm still waiting for all those Jetson-like appliances to become part of my every day life).

With the new year comes a new project. Like most people, there are little things that seem to bug me. One of my pet peeves is going to a store, buying something, swiping your credit or debit card, and then then having a clerk hand you a pen to sign it. And the pen has the name of a bank, their accountant, or some other business printed on it. Here's my peeve -- don't these businesses realize they're missing a prime opportunity to advertise THEIR business, and not someone else's?

Chances are good the answer is no. Too often, the owners of these small businesses are so concerned with the day-to-day operations to think about marketing themselves. An ad in the yellow pages, some poorly printed flyers, and open the doors is a marketing plan. And that's hardly a plan.

We've developed a very simple way for businesses to combat a small part of their lack of advertising plans. We've developed a website -- http://www.yournameonapen.com/ -- where businesses can download a simple-to-follow form and order imprinted pens. All of the color options are right there to make it as simple as possible. Hopefully the price -- $175 for 300 Bic Clic Stic pens -- shouldn't scare anyone off. At less than 60 cents per pen (which includes tax and shipping), we think it's a highly effective, low-cost way to promote a business.

If you own a small business, we recommend to you give it a try. Sure, it's not the Jetsons, but it's still pretty cool.

Happy 2008!