3 posts tagged “business”

All you residents of South Pasadena, California, remember this. Contain your temper on the first week of March each year. And it starts now.

What? So for these folks, no Eminem tunes on the first week of March? Snoop Doggy Dog is also out, as well as Paris Hilton. Why Paris Hilton? Well, it’s easier to say bad words when provoked.

If you are wondering what will happen if you accidentally let out a cuss, well, be afraid. Be very afraid.

No arrests were made. No jail time either. But you will be glared at by the town’s conservative folks as if you did something really bad and you need a lot of spanking. Maybe the people’s behavior is affected by the tranquility of the place that is surrounded by trees at the bottom of a mountain range.

Don’t laugh. This is serious. Ask the person who proposed it, 14-year-old McKay Hatch. This boy is also the founder of the No Cussing Club in South Pasadena High School.

If you’re raving mad because it got approved, you can’t do anything about it. Oh, maybe you can beat the boy by proposing the second week of March as the week where no 14-year-olds should be allowed to watch TV or even get near to a PC.

But hey, I’m kidding. This is a good proposal. Thanks to city Mayor Michael Cacciotti who proclaimed the date as No Cussing Week.

So if you are in town on these dates, try selling anything, from Girl Scout cookies to insurance to anything else you can imagine and you won’t be hearing an earful of truly cursed words.

McKay only wants to help. He even started a website dedicated to the No Cussing Club. (Wonder if he is even bent on putting that on a card someday. You know, as some kind of reference he’d attach to himself, like business card printing to go with the reputation.) Nevertheless, the boy hopes to maintain such good quality in people. I just want to see this boy grow and experience life in full.

For now, McKay hopes that this will be a start of something bigger. He wants other places to follow suit. Good boy. And I really hope he maintains that fu*$%ng attitude. Just kidding kiddo.

Direct marketing may seem to be an easy task to begin with.

You start by formulating your marketing message and then you send it to your target audience in a form of a promotional brochure, a sleek postcard or a glossy catalog. It is relatively simple.

At first glance, building your brand through direct mail may seem easy to achieve, given you have the right resources. But when we say ‘the right resources’ one may fall into the confusion of overwhelming marketing strategies, dozens of direct marketing print providers offering rock bottom printing quotes and prices plus hundreds of direct marketing tips telling you what to do. It’s like everything you need is already thrown at you.

For most marketers and businesses, it is only logical and safe to rely with what is already proven. They seem to pick up the marketing tools at random and think that all the tools provide the same result. Direct marketing guarantees a good sales activity. Direct marketing increases ROI and so on and so on.

But I have noticed that most promotional postcards and catalogs that I received contain almost the same marketing message. I am starting to think that maybe marketers are not trying so hard anymore to make their print advertisements different.

I am not here to impart new marketing ideas for marketers. But as for the moment, mild critical knocks might save them from being stuck with the same repetitive marketing adage.

Here are some things I’ve noticed to some print advertisements that lack that ‘little something’:

1.    Some print advertisements echo the same message consumers already know. Yawn.
2.    Weak marketing taglines. Not too compelling.
3.    They all look the same.
4.    Poor copywriting. Just a mere jumble of words.
5.    No further function after reading the content.

There may be no exact formula to avoid these marketing deadfalls but what’s interesting about direct marketing is that possibilities are as wide as your imagination. Putting a good content to your print medium is not a wasted effort since you will certainly reap its advantageous results.

Why are small businesses obsessing over brand management far too much when they can focus on a million other things like improving their services, or making their products better? I’m not talking about the inherent brand identity but rather the ones created in the drawing boards of the marketing offices.
 
They want to control how consumers think, and we can tell. Although there have is a long list brainwashing wonders in the history of advertising to present, they are mostly those with big budgets to spend and a lifetime’s worth of patience.

Small businesses though work on a tight cash flow of a few thousand dollars a month. They need immediate returns on their investment and marketing materials that can get places, are cheap to print, and  work fast, even instantly. Color business card printing double as flyers, brochures, calendars, anything to get their message stick.

It’s not that big companies simply can afford to spend on branding it’s that it is crucial to their survival. They need to earn the money to keep their big shots on the pay roll. They don’t need a million one-time-sale, they need millions of avid customers and regular consumers.

Back room businesses on the other hand simply need cheap advertising you can hand out with a sales pitch.  Winning one customer now, is considered a success. Getting that one customer to tell a friend is and get a subsequent purchase is heaven sent, and getting two regular customers is a bonanza.

Learn to act accordingly.

Large companies are backed by large corporations who spend other people’s investment. Their one big ideal can be matched with one big capital. As a sole proprietor, you use your own money as capital and have everything to lose. You will be answerable to any debts your business incurs. This should make you far more careful than large companies.

Slow but sure is the way to go.

Keep your day job and allocate a small capital while keeping some money for your personal use. Start with a small production: sell it to your friends, neighbors, and anyone you can get a hold of. From the profit you were able to generate, have a handful of marketing materials printed you can mail to certain people, or put up a website even.

The most important thing though is keep your day job until you have established customer loyalty and are sure your business is sustainable.