Office Cleaning, Industrial Maintenance – Employ Contractors And Save.

Who cleans your offices? Who is wandering around your private spaces with possible sight of your confidential documents? Most companies employ cleaning staff directly. Supervision of these cleaners can be a time-consuming management task. This is the main reason that an increasing number of companies are choosing to employ specialist, cleaning contractors to maintain their office environment.

You will find many companies that specialize in cleaning offices. These companies…

Keywords:
office cleaning,commercial cleaning,tank cleaning,descaling,cleaning companies,cleaning company

Who cleans your offices? Who is wandering around your private spaces with possible sight of your confidential documents? Most companies employ cleaning staff directly. Supervision of these cleaners can be a time-consuming management task. This is the main reason that an increasing number of companies are choosing to employ specialist, cleaning contractors to maintain their office environment.

You will find many companies that specialize in cleaning offices. These companies may employ personnel who have security clearances and have been trained in using heavy duty carpet vacuuming and cleaning systems. Commercial cleaning systems can achieve far higher dust removal and hygiene standards than those generally available in retail outlets.

Industrial cleaning contractors who specialize in cleaning equipment and plant are fewer in number. There are a few national companies and you will also find local businesses that specialize in this area.

If a company is carrying food in tankers, flour, for example, the tankers will need to be cleaned by specialist and certified companies. Road tankers and storage tanks for chemicals and oil products need to be cleaned to ensure the integrity of the manufacturing process. Only a company specializing in tank cleaning will have the special equipment and certification that are necessary.

Another specialist area is in the removal of lime-scale from the heating elements of boilers and hot water systems. If these are not cleaned regularly there will be significantly increased running costs to bear. Again these are specialist jobs, requiring specialist chemicals and personnel trained in their use.

It is not a good use of capital for any company to train and retain its own maintenance department, when there are external contractors who will do the job for a fair price. The contractor can offer a low quote for a job because their equipment and personnel are kept busy and you will not be paying the costs associated with under use of resources.

Share This

Get Paid Anytime Anyone In The World Plays An Online Game!

Get Paid Anytime Anyone In The World Plays An Online Game!
Ken Hammond has discovered an amazing way to make money while having fun in the online gaming industry.

The online gaming industry is exploding and is now even bigger than the movie industry bringing in over 10 billion dollars a year!! This does not include the lucrative online gambling industry.

Keywords:
Advergames, online games, online golf game, online racing game, MVP Network, Egolf International, The Country Club

Get Paid Anytime Anyone In The World Plays An Online Game!

Ken Hammond has discovered an amazing way to make money while having fun in the online gaming industry.

The online gaming industry is exploding and is now even bigger than the movie industry bringing in over 10 billion dollars a year!! This does not include the lucrative online gambling industry.

With the growth of online gaming, companies and internet marketers are turning to a new way to market and advertise through Advergames.

According to the Interactive Digital Software Association, the number of online gaming users is growing 12 to 15 percent per month, and some 111 million people are already playing online games. The opportunity for entrepreneurs, is more likely in advergaming-games created to help businesses attract users to their sites.

Advergames can assist in building a database of information about its users, directly target the market they want to hit and all very inexpensively when compared to what it costs to advertise by other means. That’s one of the reasons they’ve taken off since being introduced in the late 1990s.

Advergames also have the ability of spreading by what one marketer called “word of mouse.” You like a game, therefore you e-mail it to your network of friends. They might get the game, or a link to the game site – always with an ad.
At virtually no cost to the marketer or the company, the consumer is doing the advertising for you!
In the industry, it’s called “viral marketing.”

So, here is where you have the opportunity to get a piece of this 10 + billion dollar industry!

Ken Hammond has discovered one of the best advergames on the market that can be customized for every industry. In addition to making you money, this advergame also has the ability to help non profits and charities do fundraising for their organization.

Imagine… Thousands Of People Playing Online Games All Over The World And Making You Money 24 Hours A Day, 7 Days A Week.

For a free download of the new addicting advergames go to:

RichGamers.com

Share This

Why Has Digital Printing Become Popular?

Technology has improved a lot over the years and has become more affordable. With this improvement in technology comes digital printing.

Keywords:
digital, printing, services

Consider for a moment how different the printing industry is today compared to ten years ago. Few could have foreseen the remarkable depth and breadth of change the industry has experienced over the past decade. Now cast an eye to the future. In what ways and to what extent will the industry continue to evolve over the next ten years? What specific areas will experience growth? Which will suffer or cease to exist? What new technologies will emerge? Will the lines between services—including creative, prepress, photography, and printing—continue to blur? Nevertheless, with the continued progress that the printing industry is experiencing, digital printing is one of the technologies that keep on improving.

By and large, digital printing has progressed with leaps and bounds in recent history. Technology has improved a lot over the years and has become more affordable. With this improvement in technology comes digital printing. Digital printing is the term used to describe the new way of printing that compliments traditional and modern offset printing. Technically speaking, switching to digital printing is not necessarily an easy undertaking. While it is no longer as difficult and frustrating as it used to be, there are still some important decisions to make and it can be daunting without some knowledge of the issues.

But why has this printing technique become popular? There are basically three reasons. First, customers these days are ordering less and less quantities. Information nowadays needs to be changed constantly. More and more obsolescence in printed products and in printed inventory are thrown away. This has led to print users reducing quantities ordered so they can choose to change or update information as needed.

Second, businesses oftentimes need materials right away. They require on demand printing and have the right quantity of supply when needed. Because of the reduction in the production steps from offset printing, digital printing can produce materials a lot quicker. This can be attributed to the ink being dry enough to be folded or cut as it comes off the press.

Lastly, creating a good impression is important for most businesses. One to one marketing is where the image or text changes from impression to impression. This is still a growing market up till now. When you are able to project a good image in your marketing materials you can perhaps easily transform prospects into serious customers.

Aside from these reasons, there are still other driving forces that encourage businesses to use digital printing. But these three reasons seem to be the main driving force.

Share This

How To Kill Your Competitors Product And Get A Great Big Laugh While Doing It

I’ll never forget the day one of my competitors began copying and imitating our products and services! At first it was “flattering” or at least I told myself that, in order to not get flaming mad. I kept telling myself, “it’s competition that makes the world go-round”.

Keywords:
laser engraving, design logo, free logo, logo company, free embroidery, screen printing, christmas clip art, wedding clip art, baby clip art, religious clip art, flower clip art, food clip art, birthday clip art, medical clip art, music clip art, clip art pictures, school clip art, basketball clip art, golf clip art, angel clip art, sports clip art, kids clip art, clip art gallery, baseball clip art, halloween clip art, clip art library, graduation clip art, dance clip art, clip art online, flag clip art, clip art, clip art review, thanksgiving clip art, laser engraver, laser engraving machine, laser engraving software, screen printing designs

I’ll never forget the day one of my competitors began copying and imitating our products and services! At first it was “flattering” or at least I told myself that, in order to not get flaming mad. I kept telling myself, “it’s competition that makes the world go-round”.

After several months of seeing similar ads, same size, same publications, same frequency and then showing up at the same tradeshows, I decided to do something about it. I did so in an up front, aggressive, in your face, humiliating, embarrassing, and however legit way, that ended my competitions tradeshow appearances once and forever!!

I knew our product was far more superior and much more stable than that of our competitors. It was irritating to see them capitalize on our advertising efforts and “piggy back” on our success by having a “me too” product. Reading and hearing their claims of how our product was trash and nothing but garbage caused me to take action. My company used their negative comments and turned them into an advertising campaign, that led to the demise of their product and we enjoyed every minute of it.

Due to such similarity in our product and our competition, we often received bitter phone calls about their product. So many calls came in each month that we got smart and started offering a discount on our product if they wanted to “switch”! All they had to do was send us their non-working competing product and we discounted our product (usually 30%, sometimes more if needed) and shipped it to them with a full warranty guarantee and support.

By offering the “switch” it was doing several things for us.

1 – It made us look good, better than our competition. Customers couldn’t believe we would actually take a “dead” trade-in for our superior working product! Knowing that we didn’t manufacture the inferior product astounded them.

2 – It increased our sales. By fielding the “unhappy camper” calls that were coming into our office by mistake, we turned them into positive “happy campers”.

3 – Our reputation as “the good guys” became even more pronounced. Customers throughout our industry were singing praises about our customer service and our product popularity.

4 – Customers began to advertise our product for us. Many of our customers supplied us with personal written testimonies that were then used in trade magazine publications and displayed at industry tradeshows.

As if this wasn’t enough, we then began to publicize our offer while attending national and international tradeshows. This was by far the most effective and best “kill your competition” move; we’ve ever done in our entire 21 years of business.

Remember, they were claiming our product was trash, nothing but garbage. If you listen closely enough to your competitions rhetoric, you can glean some pretty nifty ideas. Especially if you’re inclined to fire back with some “in your face” type claims and back them up with sound action and documentation. It’s been reported that “documentation” beats “conversation” and we had hard-core proof that our competitions product was, well … TRASH!

The best “in your face” action … we hung an acrylic (see through) trash can from the top of our booth at all tradeshow appearances that said, “CAN THE LINK”! (The Link was the name of their product). Stuffed inside the trashcan were gobs of their product!! Jammed in the can, hanging over the edges and dangling 10 feet in the air for all to see. It was so effective that customers were taking pictures of it and giving us “high fives” as a way of support and encouragement. At one particular show it was becoming such an attraction that the Executive Director of the tradeshow asked me to take it down. I asked him if we were violating any tradeshow policies, he said no. So, I politely refused and informed him of the nasty tactics of the competition and let the director know it was our intention to increase the pressure at upcoming shows. We would do this by hanging more trashcans and get larger ones if needed.

To add to the humility some customers had decided (all on their own doing) to wear bright pink t-shirts to the tradeshow that said negative things about the Link. Even worse than just walking around displaying the shirts, they stood outside their booth until the owner of the competing company wrote them a refund check!

That my friends, is the way to kill your competitors product and get a great big laugh while doing it!

Share This

Tips to Add Credibility to Your Web Directory Listings

Quality backlinks add value to search engine rankings; however each website directory has rules that you need to follow to avoid having your efforts backfire.

Keywords:
website directory listing, submit URL, advice, backlinks, submission guidelines

Natural linking to add related one-way links to your website is an accepted method for boosting search engine ranking. Done properly, the results will be worthwhile. If you are determined to take shortcuts, consider the consequences. There are valid services who will hand submit your URL to directories, and the best will provide evidence of value for money paid.

Quick and low cost solutions may backfire because others may broadcast your site to 500-1000 or more sites for $19.95, or some similar number up to $99, with varying results. You may see ads for one million sites for some ridiculously low amount. You need to think twice about where your www domain will end up listed. A low price may not be a good price.

None of the services can guarantee you will be approved and listed to all that receive your submission. Each directory has rules, and although some will automatically add your URL, most are reviewed by a human editor prior to approval.

My advice is doing it yourself. Unless you hand submit your www domain to website directories, the quality backlinks you expect from a service company could leave you wondering if your efforts were in vain. By physically visiting each site and reviewing their guidelines, you improve your chances of being approved. More importantly, the rules change.

For example, I developed a list of 150 well established directories that accept free listing of your URL. For natural listing, I choose to submit 5 per day to avoid a spike in backlinks that may be perceived as spam by the search engines.

In the course of submitting over several months, I discovered some directories change policy due to the large number of sites submitted and then they do one of three things. They charge a fee, require a reciprocal link, or temporarily discontinue accepting free submissions. Broadcast submissions will fail without picking up this valuable information, so many will not be approved.

The first step is making sure your website is ready to submit. Be prepared with quality content and then do search engine optimization review prior to submitting to website directories. Use these guidelines to determine if your site is worthy. Keep in mind these are general rules, and may vary from one directory to another. Each listing structure may be organized with variable categories, so an automated system may not properly evaluate the rules.

Do not submit:
1. websites under construction
2. more pages other than your home page
3. to unrelated categories
4. porn, vulgar, hate, or illegal content sites
5. sites in languages other than English
6. pages with plug-ins, pop-ups, or flash only design
7. any graphic only sites with unreasonable load time
8. just your sitemap, a pdf, or catalog only page
9. a site designed primarily with ads or affiliate links
10. a mirror site with duplicate content to another URL
11. the same URL disguised to try to get multiple listings
12. to unique niche directories if your site is unrelated

Some website directories will tolerate minor violations of the above rules. For example, some may allow you to submit multiple pages of your www domain. Most will not list subdomains from free hosting services. If you have built high quality unique content on a free hosting service, some directories may make an exception. By physically visiting each directory, you have the opportunity to evaluate each based on first impression, other sites listed, and any special rules that may affect your approval.

Bonus Tip: Do not use a free service email address when submitting to directories. Most require that you provide a working email address to qualify for submitting your URL. Some may not tell you, however, most expect that the email address provided includes the same ending as your www domain. The editors are often too busy to respond to each site submitted, so if you are not approved, they won’t tell you.

Finally, if all this seems like a lot of work, it is. The preparation and time to submit requires long hours. Fortunately, you may spread out the task over time to make the job easier. Once you’re ready, do 5 a day for natural linking, and your listing in 100-150 directories should be accomplished in less than 2 hours a day over 30 days.

Share This

Your Site Logs Can Help You Make A Ton Of Money

I’m a busy guy. I own several traditional brick and mortar businesses, and I spend a lot of time online. Since last month I’ve been spending a lot of time working on this blog and re-orienting myself on the Net.

So every morning I let my four dogs out, grab a cup of coffee and toast a bagel, then run upstairs and get on my computer. Some days I need to be out of the house at 9:00 AM to get somewhere, and some days I have nothing but time. Either way there are three things …

Keywords:
making money, internet marketing, site logs, log analysis, monetization, revenue

I’m a busy guy. I own several traditional brick and mortar businesses, and I spend a lot of time online. Since last month I’ve been spending a lot of time working on this blog and re-orienting myself on the Net.

So every morning I let my four dogs out, grab a cup of coffee and toast a bagel, then run upstairs and get on my computer. Some days I need to be out of the house at 9:00 AM to get somewhere, and some days I have nothing but time. Either way there are three things I do every morning after looking over my emails. First I go and post an article to five different article sites. This ensures that a steady stream of new one-way links to this website is being produced.

Then I go to my RSS reader and poke around for a while on the forums and blogs to see what is going on. I keep a notebook next to my computer and write down anything that I think I can use later. Then I get to the most interesting and important part of the morning — I go to my awstats page.

Awstats is a basic site log analysis program that comes with most host accounts. I’ve always wondered how accurate the hit counts and other numbers really are, but that doesn’t matter because I’m not looking for counts…I’m looking for trends.

Reviewing and understanding your site traffic logs can help you make more money by tailoring your site to meet the needs of your visitors.

The first place I stop is my average page counts by day of week. I’ve noticed on AffiliateBlog that the traffic starts off strong on Monday, builds through Wednesday, then starts to trail off. There’s a small spike Saturday morning, but it’s a classic bell curve otherwise. What does this mean? It means that if I have something that I think is going to be well received I try to publish it on Sunday and get my pinging done for Monday. I’ve also noticed that my RSS Feed subscribership follows the same pattern. This all makes sense, because people start off the week strong and end it tired — including me.

I breeze by the countries and note the flags because I think it’s cool. Next I stop at the section that shows the robots visiting the site. I make sure all of them have been there recently (especially Google), and I make a note if it looks like something is not right. I recently realized that one of the minor robots had never visited, so I went to the site and submitted a listing. If you’re curious about all the robots out there, go to Robotstxt.com and take a look. Make sure the major robots on the list have visited your site in the last month. If not, you need to get them there. I’ve noticed that MSN, Yahoo and Google (in that order) visit my site the most. You need regular robot visits to ensure your latest content is indexed and available to prospective visitors.

Now we get to the fun part — the list of the most-viewed pages. This tells you which content people are most interested in, and which content isn’t really making the grade. The most popular post on AffiliateBlog has been The Ten Top Paying Programs at Commission Junction This Week. Oddly enough, a similar post about Shareasale is much farther down the list, meaning that people want to hear about top paying programs, but they want to hear about Commission Junction as well. I always watch for posts that climb up the line fast, and I always take note of them to brainstorm another entry that my visitors might like.

I get some search engine traffic but not much, so I glance at the keywords. Judging by some of the keywords that appear there, this section isn’t very accurate.

Still there? Okay…listen up. Here’s where you can really multiply your traffic, find some compatriots to work with and get some terrific insights into the minds of your visitors. Move down to the section that shows the external web sites that people are coming from. Understand…this is where your visitors saw something about you and clicked on it.

Go through this entire list. I look for blog sites, web sites, social bookmarking sites (like del.icio.us) and forums that have not appeared before or have moved up fast. I click on the link and see where it leads. Then I see the context in which my website appears.

Just as I do for people who trackback my blog (refer to it in their blog), I follow each link, get an email address and send off a quick email to the person thanking them for taking the time to mention my site. Nothing fancy — just a quick thanks is fine.

The responses I get back are terrific. I would say that a large majority of them (80% probably) are responded to with amazement that I would take the time to acknowledge their actions. But why wouldn’t I? If someone takes the time to recommend you the least you can do is acknowledge that recommendation and be grateful for it.

I love the site list because I find out some really interesting things. For example, my trackback to Google’s blog when they bought Writely was actually listed on the Google blog page and brought me some traffic. And I was on the front page of del.icio.us for a little while…long enough to get some hits that way too. It’s really interesting, and it’s really fun to go through. Sigh…I am a dork.

One last observation…I noticed that the people bookmarking my page hovers between 7 – 10%, which isn’t bad. My RSS feed list at Feedburner hovers at about the same range throughout the month, meaning that more people bookmark the site than sign up for RSS feeds. I’ve pondered this all month, and I’ve decided that a large majority of my visitors don’t use RSS regularly. That’s why the new crimson box at the top of my blog pages has appeared today. I put together an email version of my RSS feed in digest form that I’m going to make available weekly.

So there’s a ton of information out there in that log file — you just need to go over it carefully and think.

Share This

Free Affiliate Programs – an instrument to earn money online

You can earn money from your web traffic by using free affiliate programs.

Keywords:
how,to,earn,make,money,with,using,free,affiliate,programs,links,networks,market,web-site,your,from,web,traffic,to,about,good,best

If you have a website with some traffic, you can make money by having links to merchants’ online shops on your site.If someone goes through your links into the shop of the merchant, and buys something, you earn commission from the sale, between 5% and 40% depending on type of merchant. Some merchants also pay for each click or each lead. A lead is a new visitor to the shop that asks for more information or prize offers.

People or companies having these links on their web-sites, are called affiliates, and the links are called affiliate links. The administrative infrastructure by the merchant that the affiliate register into, in order to get the linking code, is called an affiliate program.

To register into an affiliate program is usually free, and through the program you get freely all you need to make the linking code, to monitor the traffic through your links, and to see what commission you have earned.
An affiliate program is not a MLM program, since the affiliates only earn from sales, leads or clicks.

However, in many programs you can recruit other affiliates and earn some commission from the sales made by the recruited affiliates too. There are also common networks operated by third-part companies where several merchants use a common software and administrative infrastructure to recruit affiliates and monitor the traffic from affiliates.

These are called affiliate networks. Both the merchants and potetial affilliates register into the network, and the affiliates can find links to the online shops of hundreds of merchants to use at their web-site. Examples of affiliate networks are Commission Junction and Clixgalore.

From my experience, the best affiliate programs are for merchants selling althernative health items or items for erotic improvements. I also have good experience with programs in the fields skincare, cosmetics and hobby.
What will work best for you, will however depend upon the kind of traffic you have, and the interests of people visiting your site.

Share This

Various Ways of Printing Posters

There are so many ways of printing posters, just choose the one that you deem is much easier for you.

Keywords:
Various, Ways, Printing, Posters

There are so many ways of printing posters, just choose the one that you deem is much easier for you.

Using Photoshop

The steps involved are quite simple to follow and anybody can do it. The first thing to do is to find and then open the Adobe Photoshop application. Then Open from the file menu. Choose your file and then click Open. If ever you want to resize your image, bear in mind that any changes made in the physical size of your image will have a direct effect on its file size. The larger the physical size, the larger the file size and a large file size takes quite a while to process. What you can do is to print at a resolution of 150 dpi. The reason for this is that, even if you choose a much higher resolution it will only be deemed useless since additional data from a higher resolution is usually ignored by the printer. Then don’t forget to use RGB color mode. If you’re already satisfied with the size of your image then you may save your file.

To save your file you have to choose Save As from the file menu in which a dialog box will appear prompting you to type a descriptive name for your file. Be sure to select Photoshop EPS as your format however if ever the Photoshop option is dimmed then you ought to click Cancel and then check if your image has been flattened. Afterwards, choose a directory and then click Save. To print your saved file, you may just open an on-screen preview and then print away.

Using PowerPoint

The first step is to set the page setup size to 8.5″x11″ or A4 or you may choose to use the custom 36″x48″ or the 50″x56″. However, the generally used page size is the 36″x48″. The second step is to set your page to either landscape of portrait bearing in mind that the poster is capable of 50″ wide printing.

The tables and text should be created in PowerPoint and should never be cut and pasted from other window applications. Then place all of your texts and pictures in a slide which will be printed to become your poster later on. However, you have to use very small font sizes if you want to include every text on the page. You may use the Zoom function to see what you have typed that is of course if you use the small page sizes but if you have chosen to use the custom page size (36″x48″) then you may view it at a 100%. This will display how your poster will come out. And another thing, avoid using dark backgrounds on your posters since it will only make your poster susceptible to scratches and then make fingerprints more obvious. Then save your work on a 3.5″ diskette or Zip 100 or 250 mega disk or CD or you may save it on a USB Flash Drive.

Using Illustrator

There is a need for you to create your poster to actual size. You may make use of Document Set-Up 42xN or 36xN. To view the actual size of your poster you may choose 100%, this way you can verify the resolution as well as the quality of your poster. Then don’t forget to make use of RGB color mode for that vibrant color of your poster. In order not to have any problem with your font, make use of only the cross platform system fonts either Arial or Times New Roman, two of the most reliable fonts.

Likewise, ensure that you bitmap images are scanned to a high enough resolution of 150 dpi. Any resolution much higher than 150 dpi will only result to excessive file size and will just be ignored by the printer.

Refrain from using solid black or dark backgrounds since it make the surface of your poster prone to scratches and make fingerprints more visible. Then Save-As as EPS but be very careful not to insert any special fonts or you may Export your file as a Tiff rasterizing the image to a 150 dpi.

Using Canvas

Just like the rest of the poster printing methods, canvassing requires for you to create your poster to actual size. To do this you have to Layout/Document setup 42xN or 36xN. Then view your file at 100% to verify the resolution plus the quality. Then make use of only system fonts either Arial or Times New Roman. Make certain that the bitmap images contained in your file are scanned to a resolution of 150 dpi. Then as usual refrain from using dark backgrounds. You may save your file as Tiff rasterized at 150 dpi or you may also save it as an EPS file as long as you don’t have any problems with your fonts.

Share This

What To Do When Nothing’s New: Five Strategies for Success

There are years when companies struggle to survive. Other years, it takes every ounce of effort just to maintain market position. Is it even worth exhibiting during these times? Do the results of participating in a trade show while your company’s in a lull phase justify the costs

Keywords:
trade show marketing, trade show planning, trade show training, trade show staff training, exhibitor staff training, trade show books

Look at that throng of people crowding the trade show floor. People come from all over the country to walk these aisles, eager eyes flitting from booth to booth, scanning the exhibits for…what, exactly?

Research shows that the vast majority – 76% – come to trade shows to discover what’s new and exciting. Maybe it’s a new product, or an innovative bit of technology, or a snazzy new application, or even an entire company that they were never aware of before. In an ideal world, every company would be constantly innovating, creating cutting edge products at phenomenal savings guaranteed to meet the customer’s needs.

But as you and I know, business doesn’t work that way. There are years when companies struggle to survive. Other years, it takes every ounce of effort just to maintain market position. And still other times, things might be fine, but the newest innovation is six, twelve, even eighteen months on the horizon.

Is it even worth exhibiting during these times? Do the results of participating in a trade show while your company’s in a lull phase justify the costs?

Absolutely! In fact, it is precisely at these times when not participating could hurt your bottom line. Businesses rise and fall based on the strength of personal relationships. There is no better place to form new relationships and maintain and reinforce existing relationships than at a trade show.

To do this, you need to create a positive impression with your exhibit. Demonstrate something new and exciting. Give the people what they want. How can you do that, you ask, when you don’t have any new and exciting products?

Here are five focus strategies the pros use when they’re in a similar situation:

1. Focus on Features: Purveyors of high-tech or complicated products often don’t realize how little consumers know about the items they purchase. For example, take the average word processing program. It has countless features – yet how many does the everyday user know about, much less use? Realize that your buyers may not even know what they don’t know. Here’s an opportunity to offer seminars, tutorials, or other interactive options centered on the more obscure features. This way, you’re demonstrating that you value your customers and want them to make the most of your products/services. You could win their loyalty for life.

2. Focus on the Future: If the next big innovation is in sight, but you’re not ready to spill the beans just yet, you’ve got an ideal opportunity to create a buzz. Some of the most effective excitement generating campaigns say little, if anything, about the new product, yet still create an impression that something noteworthy is about to happen. Signage, graphics, and literature all declaring “It’s Coming!” let the public know that you’re excited about the new product – and that they should be too.

3. Focus on Finesse: Is there a way to make your product new and improved? You’ll sometimes see this technique that I’ve called the Proctor & Gamble strategy. Every so often, you’ll see a new and improved version of a product introduced – laundry soap, shampoo, deodorant, and so on – yet you’d have to be a chemical engineer to notice any discernable difference between the old product and the new one. Still, consumers flock to the new, even if it’s only slightly different than the product they were previously satisfied with. If you can’t change your product, what about the packaging? Glidden changed their paint can while still keeping their actual product, the paint, the same as it ever was, and saw sales rise as a result.

4. Focus on People: Great products wouldn’t exist without great people. Consider putting a human face on your operation by centering your latest exhibit around the people who make, test, or use your product. Post Cereal, Reynold’s Wrap, and NAPA auto parts have all used this strategy successfully during periods when their product line was fairly static – and then carried the idea forward, altering it as needed to introduce new products!

5. Focus on Service: Many times, we’re asking buyers to make a huge investment to buy our products. If something goes wrong, the buyer worries that they will be left holding the bag on a very expensive mistake. Reassure consumers that they’ll never be alone if there is a problem. By promoting service plans, support networks, and other types of assistance, you’re demonstrating that you’ll be there for your customer – through thick or thin!

Share This

Do’s And Don’ts Of Emailing Press Releases From A Media Veteran

I’m a big believer in EMAILING press releases. Not only is email dirt cheap, email can often get you in front of editors a lot faster than regular mail or fax.

Here’s why. Media outlets like radio stations, TV stations, and newspapers get a TON of press releases. During my 20 years working in radio and TV, we got bag loads of mailed press releases every day.

Probably 90 percent of them came from politicians and local college athletic programs. Their publicity people are…

Keywords:
press release,PR,publicity,media,marketing,advertising

I’m a big believer in EMAILING press releases. Not only is email dirt cheap, email can often get you in front of editors a lot faster than regular mail or fax.

Here’s why. Media outlets like radio stations, TV stations, and newspapers get a TON of press releases. During my 20 years working in radio and TV, we got bag loads of mailed press releases every day.

Probably 90 percent of them came from politicians and local college athletic programs. Their publicity people are told to send out a release several times a week-whether they have any real news to tell or not. Consequently, media get a release every time a congress person helps someone or an athletic field house gets a new folding chair.

Are these mailed press releases ignored? You bet they are. Most go straight from the mail bag to the trash. Who has time to open 150 envelopes when most of them are pushing some story you will never be able to use? I know I’ll get some notes from a media workers who will say “WE don’t do it that way at our place.” And you can be sure a few news rooms are very organized about opening, reading, filing, and using releases.

Faxed releases work better, but not that much better given the expense. I worked at one station where the manager got tired of the fax machine burning up cartridges printing releases. Faxed releases were routed to the receptionist’s computer where she deleted them.

At another media outlet, faxes, ads, and all the other things that get faxed spilled out on the floor. Some were read, others were used for scratch paper, and most were trampled on until somebody bundled them into the trash.

But wait a minute! If nobody is reading press releases, why do studies claim that 75% of the stories you read in newspapers originate from press releases?

The answer lies in email. Email makes it easy to receive a release, forward it to the staff person who covers that particular topic, then store the release in an email “futures” file where it can be pulled up as needed.

It’s incredibly easy for newspaper people to import the email release into their writing program, change the headline, tweak a few things, and run it as a story. Editors don’t like to admit they do this, but we’ve seen big city newspapers run our releases as articles with very few changes.

You can’t blame journalists for doing this. Media outlets have cut staffs over and over again during the past 15 years. One person now does the work of three staffers.

Here are some tips for making your emailed release the starting point for a media report:

1. Start your subject line with RELEASE. Then follow with the most newsworthy/titillating part of your story.

2. Make your headline the first thing in the body of your email. I like to use two headlines, the second adding more information the first didn’t have room to mention. The media person should be able to tell what your release is about just by reading the headlines.

3. Include your contact information after the body of the release. This is becoming the standard way to do things on the Net. Journalists are now used to looking at the bottom for contact info.

4. Keep your release under 400 words. Make sure you have good information the media audience wants, otherwise you don’t stand a chance of getting coverage.

5. Take time to send your release to your local media. They are more likely to use your story than out-of-town media. You can find their email addresses by searching for their sites on search engines.

6. Send your release to trade publications covering your field. Even small developments can be of big interest to others in your line of work. One photographer client sent her release to photographic magazines and got coverage in almost every one.

7. Go national. Get the Gebbie Media Guide at Gebbie.com. It’s affordable and reliable.

Share This