After years of being referred to as a Twit it is now official.  I am a Twitterer or perhaps it is more accurate to say I Twitter.  Being north of 50 years old means I can never tell my friends as they will think I’ve gone over to the dark side and might even start sending text messages (with 6 kids I can’t live without texting as it is the easiest way to ask all of them over for dinner on a Sunday with a text message because they screen my calls).

So why Twitter? Because the world is shrinking and my marketing opportunities are not limited to the city I live in.  I have email stationery clients, branding clients and set up web sites for clients throughout North America and I want to be informed and keep people informed on an on-going basis.

I know the next question on your mind is what is my Twitter address -
https://twitter.com/GoodIdeas
If you are reading this blog and already on Twitter please follow me…I need friends.

Let’s got through a quick FAQ on Twitter:

1. What is it? Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?
2. How do I use it? Tell us what you’re doing in 140 characters or less!  Send your thoughts, observations, and goings-on in your day. Whether you’re “eating an apple” or “looking foward to the weekend” or “Heading out of town” it’s twitter-worthy.  Join Twitter here.
3. Do I need anything special to use Twitter? In order to use Twitter you will need one of these things: an internet connection or a mobile phone.
4. How can I send updates to Twitter? Send updates to friends and family about what you’re doing in the way that works best for you; from your phone, your logged in web page or other ways I do not understand.

Still curious what Twitter is and how it might help your business?  So am I. I have tried a number of social networking ideas as detailed in my post “Social Networking or Not Working“, so I am going to give this a fair shot and will keep you posted on any business opportunities it might uncover. I plan to Twitter that I have written this post about Twitter on this blog and people whor are “following” me may just click on the link and visit my blog and them learn I design email stationery and promotional packaging, brand clients and develop web sites among many other things and will contract me…or not.

If you enjoyed this article and don’t want to miss the next one click here to get my marketing posts by email as soon as they are published. You will be prompted for an email address and you are set to go.

It is never too early to plan your holiday marketing as we have Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah coming up to name a few.

I was recently interviewed for a golf driving range holiday marketing article by Golf Range Times which was remarkable

Click on image for larger version

for two reasons; one is I was contacted through this marketing blog based on previous articles I have posted and secondly, that I knew anything about holiday marketing for Golf Driving Ranges.

As it turns out, marketing is marketing and the ideas I proposed for a Golf Driving Range are useful for many other businesses.  The most important thing is whether you have started your planning yet.

The key points for driving ranges were:

1. During holiday times, people are looking for things to do as a family. Families are looking for family activities. Holiday marketing has to be around family activities - and extended family activities, too.
2. Save the big special events for Christmas, when kids have winter break for a week or more. During this holiday season, when families enjoy more time to spend together, go all-out, possibly even with a Santa Claus on the range, and perhaps free presents for the kids.
3. Set up an on-site day care in your pro shop, complete with a TV and cookie to keep the kids occupied while their parents practice their swing. This is a sure way to establish goodwill among your parent customers.
4. Typically, ranges are in higher ¬traffic areas and you don’t drive past one to get to another. So to advertise your hottest holiday promotion use a banner, right on your range.
5. Use postcards. Get a few hundred printed, at 50 cents per card, and pass them out at your range - or bring them to local sporting goods stores - to advertise your facility’s upcoming holiday events.

The sidebar of being contacted through this blog is an interesting one as I am always being asked if blogging works.  Without a blog I never would have been interviewed for this article and my revenues would be lower as I receive inquiries every week, many of which I convert to orders or new business.  Yes, blogging works.

How did it help me.  The article starts out with the following:

“ Family” is the operative word in holiday marketing, says Mike Blaney, a Vancouver, B.C., Canada-based marketing expert who operates an online marketing blog for small businesses at www.themarketingguy.wordpress.com.

This ensures people know who I am , what I do, where I do it and how to find out more. Want to build credibility?  Start a blog.

And call or contact me about your holiday marketing plan.

If you enjoyed this article and don’t want to miss the next one click here to get my marketing posts by email as soon as they are published. You will be prompted for an email address and you are set to go.

Have you ever wanted to have an audit trail of every email you send?  While sent emails can be found in your Sent Folder it can get clogged up quickly with mundane replys that are not worth keeping.  If you have more than one email address you also have more than one Sent Folder so it makes it hard to maintain an audit trail.

Adding a bcc to every email is also time-consuming and what if you forget?

We have the solution at inboxFX.com the leading, “on-the-fly” email stationery in the world.  We have now added the ability to automatically bcc or blind copy yourself on every email that you send so you can easily find your email correspondence.  One idea is to set up a different account just for this purpose which will accumulate your emails.  Any email sent using our service will automatically be blind copied to you.

You can then refer to sent emails as a tickler system to follow up on proposals, as proof you actually sent an email or as reference for future emails.

This service is available with or without our customer email stationery designs.  Samples of our customa stationery can be found by clicking here.

Call Mike Blaney at 800-568-8338 or email me at mike@inboxfx.com for more information.

Have you ever thought of giving away pumpkins to your clients?

I am not sure how widespread the practice of pumpkin carving is at Halloween, but in our neck of the woods a carved pumpkin means you should knock on the door.

One of my clients hand delivered pumpkins to her client’s and used a doorhanger as a pumpkin hanger. It had tips on carving and an amusing message on the other side. I deleted the client’s name, but you get the idea. Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.

If you don’t want to hand deliver why not set up a display at a local gas station or mall and give away the pumpkins there. An even better idea is to accept donations for the pumpkins on behalf of a charity.

This a sample layout of a postcard that hangs over the stem of the pumpkin:

Click for a larger image.

If you enjoyed this article and don’t want to miss the next one click here to get my marketing posts by email as soon as they are published. You will be prompted for an email address and you are set to go.

The back of your business card is valuable marketing real estate and can be utilized in many ways depending on your business or service you offer.

The first thing to understand is that printing on the back of the card does not double the price, but even if it did, you only get one chance to make an impression so your business card is like a silent salesman advertising who you are and what you do.

I have written a number of posts about business cards, but this one is about the back only.

Recent Business Card Designs, Business Card Stuff , How To Make Your Business Card Unforgettable, How To Make Your Business Card Stand Out and Business Card Tricks - How To Make Them Work.

The back of a typical business card is only 3-1/2″ wide by 2″ high so you don’t have a lot of room to play with but there are a number of things that  you can consider.

1. Amortization Schedule
2. Appointment Times
3. Before and After Photos
4. Blank Lines for Writing
5. Calendar
6. Checklist
7. Emergency Phone Numbers
8. Eye-Catching Picture
9. Frequently Asked Questions
10. Map and Directions to Your Business
11. Mission Statement
12. Product Comparison Chart
13. Return or Refund Policy
14. Ruler
15. Team Schedule

There is a web site with 175 ideas, but it is overwhelming to read through.

I used to have a directory publishing business called Regent Publishing and the business card I handed out was designed to do three things:

• Provide as much information as possible
  

  Click on picture for larger size

• Demonstrate what the actual product looks like
• Stand out from all other business cards

The picture at the right shows the color back and front of the business card with the actual cover from one of the publications.  The back list the dates each directory was going to be published.

The black and white inside was designed to look like pages out of the directory with all of my contact information.

Another real life sample is my current business card pictured below.  I expound on my marketing philosophy, added lines for writing and added my slogan.

While it is a personal decision I recommend you consider using the back of your business card as soon as possible.

Click for a larger version

If you have any other ideas please share them with us.

If you enjoyed this article and don’t want to miss the next one click here to get my marketing posts by email as soon as they are published. You will be prompted for an email address and you are set to go.

I believe if a marketing strategy / campaign / piece / program cannot be measured it should not be made or started. Well there are some exceptions, but like everything else in life you have to have a scorecard to see what is working and what is not.

When you are trying to measure the effectiveness of a marketing campaign there are three things you need to know. I am going to refer to our marketing strategy as a piece ( i.e. postcard, brochure, ad etc):

1) The cost of the marketing piece.
2) The revenue and profit from the piece.
3) The lifetime value of the customer.

Now let’s work backwards and compare two campaigns to see which one is actually the more effective taking into account the Lifetime Value of a Customer.

Lifetime Value of a Customer (LTV)
The LTV is the amount of gross profit generated per year by a customer multiplied by the number of years that they continue as a customer. For example if I sell business cards to a client for $250 and my gross margin is $100 and they buy business cards from me once a year for 5 years then the LTV is $500.

Cost of the Marketing Piece - A comparison of two campaigns
If I was to send out a brochure advertising my business cards to 2,000 prospects and paid $ 2.50 per brochure then my cost would be $5000.

If I placed 4 weekly ads in a business newspaper with a reach of 25,000 readers advertising my business cards and the ad cost was $250 per week then my cost would be $1000.

Revenue and Profit Per Piece
For comparison purposes the results were as follows:

1. New clients from the brochure mailed out - 40 clients x $250 = $10,000 revenue with a GP of $4000
2. New clients responding to newspaper ad - 15 clients x $250 = $3,750 revenue with a GP of $1500

So which campaign generated the best return in investment?

On the surface it would appear I am farther ahead with the results from my brochure as my Gross Profit is almost 3 times higher than that produced by the newspaper ad.  The brochure generated gross profit of $ 4000 and we have 40 new clients with an LTV of $20,000 (40 sales per year x $100 GP x 5 years)

The newspaper ad only generated 15 clients with a gross profit $1500.  The LTV is $7,500 (15 sales per year x $100 GP x 5 years)

Now we deduct the cost of the ad from the LTV it generated to determine our Return on Investment (ROI)

Brochure: $20,000 LTV - $5000 (brochure cost) = $15,000 / $5,000 (cost of brochure) = $3.00 ROI

Newspaper ad: $7,500 LTV -  $1,000 (ad cost) = $6,500 / $1,000 (cost of ad) = $ 5.50 ROI

So if I spend $ 1.00 on a brochure my ROI is $ 3.00…but if I spend $ 1.00 on the newspaper ad my ROI is $ 5.50.

The newspaper ad generated a higher ROI, but does that mean I should not use a brochure? No because it created $4,000 of  gross profit and making a profit is what it is all about.  Calculating or estimating the ROI is effective at ensuring your marketing is going to return a profit. If you are not going to make more than you spend then don’t fall into the age old trap of thinking “I will make it up in volume” because you can’t.

Most importantly ensure all of your marketing has a purpose, results that can be measured and call me to make sure it is top notch.

If you enjoyed this article and don’t want to miss the next one click here to get my marketing posts by email as soon as they are published. You will be prompted for an email address and you are set to go.

A lot of my clients are Realtors and this blog started out with an emphasis on Real Estate Marketing, but evolved into a general marketing blog over the first few months. For non-Realtor readers I am going to sprinkle a few more Realtor-specific posts into the mix every month, but I am confident the content applies equally to most businesses. I hope you enjoy reading them.

The Million Dollar Question? - Are Just Sold flyers an effective marketing tool?

One of my clients send Just Sold flyers to about 3,000 homes in the area surrounding the listing, but they always have

Just Sold Flyer in Black and White - Click for larger image

an important message and a call to action. Humor is always a big part of the message and some people have commented that they look forward to them. The combination of seeing a few Just Listed and Just Sold flyers over the course of 6 months can influence who a seller calls for an evaluation.

Most of the feedback is anecdotal, but there is no question the campaign is making an impact based on the number of people who make comments to the Realtor and the number that mention the flyers during listing presentations. Many of the recipients are clients of the Realtor so it helps to keep them at the top of their minds too.

We print 80,000 color shells at a time and then imprint in black the listing photos and text for the current listing. The cost for the shell, imprinting and mailing works out to about $ 0.21 each, plus labor of course, but we reach 3,000 homes for $ 630.00. If the average of 7% of people move each year there are 210 homes that will come on the market or about 17 per month.

Just Sold Flyer in Color - Click for larger image

The answer is yes! Because there is no more effective way to target these 210 homes.  If the timing is right the homeowners will read anything about real estate that comes through their door.

It is our challenge to provide the most compelling marketing material to stand out among all of the other direct mail.

A well-written Just Sold flyer educates the public that there are two sides to a transaction and that the Buyer’s Agent plays an important role representing their interests.

Just Sold Flyer in Color - Click for larger image

The flyer to the left was mailed out at a time when the average days on market was on the up swing and provided a forum to explain the importance of pricing a home properly.

The flyer on the right was sent out after a home had been on the market for a few months without

Just Sold Flyer - Click for larger image

selling so most of the neighbors would know it had taken a long time to sell the home.  The Just Sold flyer provided a forum to explain “Not Everything Sells in a Week..but it is Sold”.

Just Sold flyers should be considered as part of your overall marketing mix as they reach the people most likely to need your services and provide a forum for differentiating your marketing from others.

Halloween is one of the bigger holiday events of the year and a great time to take treats to clients and prospects. If you want to make a great, lasting impression you need to deliver treats in a customized donut, candy or cookie box. (Click here for more information or to place your order.)

Talk about a great Halloween marketing tool…this Jack O Lantern branding tool has everything you’d expect for

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Halloween. There is also a Trick Or Treat and Dancing Skeleton design. More than enough room for your logo, location information and slogan. The are three different sizes to choose from; Donut Box, Cookie Box or Candy Box. (see dimensions below)

Best of all you can add your contact information and marketing message to the white oval and on the donut and cookie box attach a card to the roof.

Donut Box Size
“Oval” imprint area is 3 3/4″ by 2 1/4″

Click for larger image

Dimensions:10″ x 4 3/8″ x 5 7/8″ plus roof - does include business card slot.
Cookie Box Size
“Oval” imprint area is 3″ by 1 3/4″
Dimensions: 6 3/8″ x 3 3/8″ x 3 7/8″ plus roof - does include business card slot.

Candy Box Size
“Oval” imprint area is 2″ by 1 1/4″
Dimensions: 4 3/8″ x 1 7/8″ x 2 1/2″ plus roof - does not include business card slot.

Imprinting
You can have a 4 color imprint in the white oval area. We can design this for you at no charge. (See samples below)

Click for larger image

Imprint for Customer boxes. (Click for larger image. )

Prospect imprint. (Click for larger image)

Pricing
There is a $ 19.99 set-up fee in addition to the printing cost.
No proofs are available and you must allow 10 days for delivery.
Payment by credit card is required with each order.
Shipping is extra.

(Click for larger image)

Orders must be placed by October 1st to ensure delivery. Call for pricing larger quantities. Click here to place your order, email me at marketingguy@shaw.ca or call Mike Blaney at 800-568-8338 for more information.

I get so busy doing what I do I find myself surfing the internet less and missing out on some amazing and interesting web sites, concepts and tools so I thought I would expose you to a few that I have found recently.  While they have little or nothing to do with marketing, life is not all about marketing…

Surfing Without Clicking a Mouse
There is a web site from the DONTCLICK.IT Institute for Interactive Research that has a demonstration site where you never click your mouse to navigate around a web page. (Actually you click one last time on the home page) They survey visitors to see if people miss the click or not and 952,699 people do not miss clicking while only 545,265 miss it.

I found not clicking to be easier in some ways as I was not distracted by trying to get my mouse on the right spot to go to a new menu.  They are experimenting with three ways of replacing clicks.

1) A left to right movement across a button.
2) Circling the button that you want to activate.
3) Holding the mouse over the button and activating in a set number of seconds.

I think this would be a great feature for high end fashion sites or sites where people take the time to enjoy the content.

New Web Browser from Google
The Google Chrome (BETA) for Windows
Google Chrome is a browser that combines a minimal design with sophisticated technology to make the web faster, safer, and easier.

• One box for everything - Type in the address bar and get suggestions for both search and web pages.
• Thumbnails of your top sites - Access your favorite pages instantly with lightning speed from any new tab.
• Shortcuts for your apps - Get desktop shortcuts to launch your favorite web applications.

It is a collaboration using parts of Apple’s WebKit and Mozilla’s Firefox, among others - and they are making all of their code open source hoping to “collaborate with the entire community to help drive the web forward.”

Learn more about it by clicking here.

Feel Like A Pilot - Cool Time Waster
There is a web site from Electric Oyster, an interactive Design, Development and Consulting comapny that I know nothing about, but they have this 3D animation where you can use your mouse to pilot a plane through snow-capped mountains.

Create Your Own Crossword Puzzles
It’s never been simpler—just give EclipseCrossword a list of words and clues, and it does the rest. In seconds, you’ll have a crossword puzzle with just the words you want. EclipseCrossword has been downloaded more than two million times by people just like you. There are lots of others available through a web search.  I have used crossword puzzles as part of a direct mail program and they can be effective tools.

Create, Share and Present 3D Models
Google SketchUp is software that you can use to create, share and present 3D models. Whether you want to design a new deck for your house, build models for Google Earth, or teach geometry to your fifth-graders, you can use SketchUp to see your ideas in 3D. And when you’re done, you can export an image, make a movie or print out a view of what you made.

Create Panoramas From Multiple Photos
Autostitch™ is the world’s first fully automatic 2D image stitcher. Capable of stitching full view panoramas without any user input whatsoever, Autostitch is a great new technology for panoramic photography, VR and visualisation applications. This is the first solution to stitch any panorama completely automatically, whether 1D (horizontal) or 2D (horizontal and vertical).  Autostitch is incredibly simple to use! Just select a set of photos, and Autostitch does the rest: digital photos in, panoramas out.

I use this all the time and it really works and it is free!

Panorama I Made of Coal Harbour, Vancouver

Pick a Color
Ever had to pick a color for a web site or marketing material.  A really easy to use tool is available from Color Picker.  You can just move your mouse around until you find the color (colour in Canada, the UK and Australia) you want and it will give you the hex code which you can give to your printer.

Find a Sample of Virtually and Document You Need
There is a web site called DocStoc that offers the following:

1. Download Legal, Business, Tech & Educational Docs
2. Store Your Documents Privately Online for Free
3. Get Your Documents Indexed by Search Engines

There is nothing you can’t find to get you started.

If you enjoyed this article and don’t want to miss the next one click here to get my marketing posts by email as soon as they are published. You will be prompted for an email address and you are set to go.

I posted my first lens on Squidoo about email branding and I thought I would see what you think.

What made me try my hand at this?  I receive daily Google Alerts on the search terms “email branding” and the other day one of the matches was a Squidoo post.  I decided in my never-ending quest to try every new marketing tool I would give Squidoo a whirl.

It is too early to tell, but I am hoping it will eventually drive traffic to my inboxFX web site.  I will keep you posted on whether Squidoo makes a difference.

What is Squidoo?
“Squidoo is a hand-built collection of half a million pages built by people just like you.”
“Squidoo is about finding people when you care what they know instead of who they know.”
“And Squidoo raises big money for charity every single day by donating money from the ads and links you see on every page.”

What is a Lens?
A lens is just a single, easy to make, free webpage–it’s your signpost on the web, you place to talk about or promote things that mean a lot to you.

Three or four facts
1. Squidoo has more than 600,000 hand built pages.
2. Squidoo has been reviewed by the New York Times, Mashable, BoingBoing and sites and papers around the world.
3. We are one of the 300 most popular websites in the US.
4. We generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual royalties to charities and to our users.

What about the money?
Squidoo makes money from ads and affiliate links.
We give 5% of what we earn, right off the top, to charity. We keep 45% to cover our overhead and stuff.
That leaves 50%. That goes to charity or to the people who build the pages. And we leave it up to you to choose one or the other.
It’s that simple. You can earn a dollar, a nickel or a dime at a time for your favorite cause or for you.
Did we mention that Squidoo is free? Always has been.