Extra Ink is a free marketing and graphic design newsletter. http://splatteredink.com Fri, 30 Jul 2010 08:11:51 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://splatteredink.com/images/M_images/joomla_rss.png http://splatteredink.com Extra Ink is a free marketing and graphic design newsletter. http://splatteredink.com/index.php/Extra-Ink-Articles/Gain-Customer-Confidence.html Customer indecisiveness, skepticism, indifference, or confusion are among the top sales killers in the business world. It's up to you to project an image of experience, quality, dependability, excellent customer service, and/or added value to your prospective customers in order to win their confidence. Here are some easy tips to help build customer confidence: Let people know who you are. This might be conveyed through an identifiable logo or an “About Us” section on your web site. Join a chamber or networking group and get to know those in the business community. Courtesy. Be friendly, helpful, polite, courteous, and flexible. These attitudes and behaviors are not just nice, but they are indeed expected. Use testimonials. Show potential customers that other clients just like them also believe you have the best quality, longevity, security, price and ease of use that there is to offer. Be honest. Perhaps the most important of all. Reputation, good or bad, tends to spread quickly. If you haven't clearly communicated the advantages and solid reasons for them to do business with you, then they'll be hesitant to commit and the sale will go to your competitor. Wed, 22 Oct 2008 06:55:26 +0100 http://splatteredink.com/index.php/Extra-Ink-Articles/Revive-Your-Brand.html by Tim Parli Running a business is no small task, ask any owner. With day-to-day activities consuming time and energy, it’s easy to forget about the need to keep up with the changing times. Unfortunately, there are often key elements of companies that are overlooked throughout these cycles of change. Often-times businesses update their infrastructure and technologies, but neglect their corporate appearance and identity. Is there a conflicting message being sent? Having and maintaining an up-to-date professional appearance, or corporate identity, is not something that only large companies do. Rather, it is a vital key to the growth and survival of nearly every business. One local company that has done just this is Louie’s P R, located in Herrin, IL. Following a professional renovation of the company’s storefront location, they decided to revamp their brand image with a new logo and marketing materials. This update to the image of Louie’s P R has resulted in an increase of business by 50%. Following, are some tips to give your brand new life and to keep your business on track for future growth. Revive your brand personality by taking an unbiased view of the company. Consider whether or not anything has changed that might define the company differently now than when it first began. Keep in mind not just environmental factors, but mind sets, attitudes and actions as well. Maintain a brand logo that reflects your current market and demographic. If this is not the case, you might be in need of a complete redesign or a simple refreshing to smooth out any “rough spots”. Having a consistent brand image that accurately reflects what your brand is, or does, is essential. Question your business associates and partners to search for any opportunities worth embracing and any pitfalls to overcome. By getting the perspectives from others involved in the business, your eyes may be opened to things which you were unaware of and may also strengthen your professional relationships with your business associates. Evaluate your overall brand image by assessing the use of the company’s logo, icon, colors, font, etc in a consistent manner throughout all aspects of daily operation. If not, you may wish to consider doing an evaluation of your corporate identity and work at re-defining it. Motivate the sales staff to accurately represent the brand and the deliverable that they are marketing and selling. Revitalize your own attitude so that your employees become inspired and uplifted. If you have a lousy attitude, even when it may seem warranted, you not only run the risk of becoming less productive but may even lose employees to more inspiring competition. Not to mention, your attitude may deter future clients. Improve the workplace and aim at creating a pleasant and creative work environment. Look for ways to make the job more enjoyable, this doesn’t necessarily translate to increasing employee salaries or benefits. Improve you customer care by taking time for your customers. Don’t just call them when you or they need something. Contact them just to see how they doing or to take them out to lunch. This will give your customers a reason to keep you top-of- mind the next time they need something related to your company. Offer customers a small, simple, yet memorable gift that isn’t an advertised special but something that says you appreciate them. Consider at times moving away from the impersonal email and make a phone call or drop in on your clients. Improve your product or service offerings. Go above and beyond customer service and create personal relationships that take care of your clients. Offer benefits to your products or services that, even if more expensive, are well worth the extra expense due to the attention to detail and personal care offered. Maintain an active interest in your company’s public relations. Keep people notified when you hire a new employee or expand a product line through the use of a press release. Consider picking a cause that you can relate to and wish to consistently take part in and assist with sponsorship. You may even consider integrating your public relations into social networking websites. Maintain a good reputation, as this will contribute largely to your success. Your clients will recommend your company if you do good work and offer good service. Although, you don’t want to rely solely on word of mouth, since this is something that you honestly have no control over. Actively promote your services and products. This needs to be done consistently and sometimes on a weekly basis. Promote and market your business both during the good times and the slow times in order to maintain a steady and manageable workflow year-round. There are numerous ways, both big and small, to revive and improve your brand. Sometimes, it is the little things that make the biggest impact on maintaining an effective brand image. One area that might work well for one company, may not work well for another. Take some time to evaluate what you’ve done and what you’re currently doing at your business. During this time of reflection, consider the tips above to help you find out what you need to do in order to revive your brand. Tim Parli is a graphic designer at Splattered Ink. (mailto:tim@splatteredink.com) Tue, 21 Oct 2008 08:19:29 +0100 http://splatteredink.com/index.php/Extra-Ink-Articles/Marketing-Moment-Get-in-the-Mix.html by Karli Feldhake So what’s your marketing mix? Not sure? Generally accepted as the basic, tactical components of a marketing plan, the marketing mix refers to four basic components – product, price, place and promotion. Think of it like a cake recipe – almost all use the basic ingredients of eggs, milk, flour and sugar. When you alter the amounts of these basic ingredients you come out with completely different types of cakes. Similarly, by combining these four marketing “recipe” ingredients you can create a marketing plan that satisfies both your customers and company objectives. The marketing mix is portrayed in the following diagram: Product refers to the combination of goods and/or services offered to customers by your business. This can mean tangible items, a cup of coffee, or intangible items like computer repair. Be sure to think about features such as brand name, packaging and warranties that make your product more attractive to prospective customers. Simply put, Price is the monetary amount a customers pays for your product or service. Knowing how your price fits into the market is important as being too high or too low can have an adverse affect on sales. Price is determined by a number of factors including market share, competition, material costs, product identity and the customer's perceived value of the product. Place is often referred to as the distribution channel as it represents where your product or service can be purchased. Do you have an actual physical location where customers can come to you? Is business conducted via a website? Take aspects such as market coverage and warehousing into consideration when making decisions about place (distribution). Finally, Promotion represents all of the forms of communication between a business and its customers. The four basic elements included in promotion are advertising, public relations, word of mouth and point of sale. For the best success, blend all four promotional aspects together and work within a pre-determined budget. You don’t need to break the bank on promotion but don’t under utilize this very important piece of the marketing mix. Even if you are already open for business or are just getting started, it’s wise to give thought to your marketing mix. Maybe you’ve completely missed one of the components or are putting too much emphasis on another. From my baking experience, add the wrong amount of a key ingredient and you might get something that looks like a cake, but isn’t quite what you expect when you take a bite. It’s the same thing with marketing. If you want the end result to be delicious, use the right marketing mix! If you need help analyzing your entire marketing mix or maybe just with one of the components, Splattered Ink is here to assist you and your business. Karli Feldhake is the Sales and Marketing Director for Splattered Ink. Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100 http://splatteredink.com/index.php/Extra-Ink-Articles/Publicity-Learning-the-Tricks-of-the-Trade.html By: Chris Shelton In the summer of 2007, I packed my bags and moved to Nashville, Tennessee to do a publicity internship at Warner Brother Records. How excited was I to be moving 4 hours away from home, to see what Nashville offered, meet new people and most importantly learn as much as I could. During this internship, I learned by putting together press packages and having them sent. This is the Publicity department’s way of getting the artist information and music out to magazine editors and newspapers all across the United States. A compact disc was sent with the press packages, so the recipients could take a listen and then write, hopefully good things, about the music. Also, the publicity department would contact the editors and give free tickets to shows. The BIG goal was to have the editors write about the product, and there you have “publicity.” This internship really opened my eyes to what corporate Publicity Departments work to achieve. I was able to learn that if it wasn’t for the Publicity Department sending press packages and setting up interviews with radio, magazines and newspapers, we the customers would not be informed about different products. Here is a quick lesson on publicity: Publicity: Pronunciation: pub·lic·i·ty Function: noun Date: 1788 1: the quality or state of being public 2 a: an act or device designed to attract public interest; specifically: information with news value issued as a means of gaining public attention or support b: the dissemination of information or promotional material c: paid advertising d: public attention or acclaim (Information from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/publicity) Press releases are used as a form of publicity: What is a press release? A press release is a pseudo-news story, written in third person that seeks to demonstrate to an editor or reporter the newsworthiness of a particular person, event, service or product. How is a press release used? Press releases are often sent alone, by email, fax or snail mail. They can also be part of a full press kit (like we did at Warner Brothers), or may be accompanied by a pitch letter. (This information is from Publicity Insider.com) Chris Shelton (mailto:chris@splatteredink.com) is our sales rep for the Mount Veron area. Fri, 05 Sep 2008 00:00:00 +0100 http://splatteredink.com/index.php/Extra-Ink-Articles/How-to-Use-Testimonials-Effectively.html by Kelly Jones Have you ever looked at the testimonials on a website or brochure before ordering a product or service? Were they the reason that you decided to invest? Have you used testimonials in your business? There are several key factors in using testimonials effectively to influence your customers to try your product or service. We’ll take a look at those factors as well as some tips and tricks to keep in mind when using them. Testimonials play an important part in building trust with potential buyers. Potential customers want to know that other people have tried and liked your product or service. When deciding to invest with a new company, there are several sources of anxiety that go along with a new purchase. These include the following: • Quality – Does your product or service meet their standards? • Longevity – Will the product or service be reliable, will it serve the needs required? • Security – Can they trust the security of your personnel or website with their personal or financial information? • Price – Is your price competitive with the competition? Is the benefit worth the price? • Ease of Use – Is your product/service easy to use, or does it require extensive knowledge or practice? These are all questions that can be answered with the use of testimonials. Customers want to know that other people just like them have taken the chance to try what you have to offer. Testimonials carry the authority that your product is real and has value to someone other than you. When past customers believe in what you have to offer as much as you do, it carries a lot of weight. How Do I Get Testimonials? Testimonials can be acquired in a number of different ways. You can have a customer satisfaction survey for them to fill out online or by mail. Offer a discount to encourage responses and future business. Follow-up calls are also a nice way to show extra customer service and find out how pleased the customer is. I recently received just such a follow-up from a local chain building supply company regarding the carpet install that was just completed. I gave a good review of not only the install service, but also of their customer service to verify that the job was completed in a satisfactory manner. This is a good way to get the customer talking about their experience. Ask them if they’d mind you quoting them for a testimonial, or if they’d send in a quick email or letter. Which Testimonials Do I Use? When you’ve been in business a while, hopefully you have an array of testimonials from which to choose. How do you know which ones? You should choose ones that focus on different areas of business. For example: Customer A focuses on her customer service experience as the best part of her purchase, Customer B talks about how easy your product was to use or install, Customer C is amazed how quick the delivery took place, and Customer D can’t believe the quality she received for the price. Use the testimonials throughout your website and literature. Use them in strategic places so that your potential client sees the one pertaining to the information they are viewing (installation ease on the product page, quick delivery on the shipping page). Bold words that are important so that they stand out at a glance. Insure them each step of the way that you can provide the customer service they expect and deserve. There are a few additional things to keep in mind when using testimonials. Always ask the customer’s permission before using their testimonial and ask if you can list their name and company if pertinent. Try to use first and last names, unless there is an issue of confidentiality where initials are more appropriate. Never polish or change a testimonial beyond spelling errors to make it sound better. Always consider testimonials a direct quote that can be verified. You don’t want to accidentally lose a customer that was praising your company. Just remember testimonials build trust and can encourage potential customers to try your product or service. Don’t overwhelm them with quotes, but use them wisely and in strategic locations. Show them that other clients just like them also believe you have the best quality, longevity, security, price and ease of use that there is to offer. Kelly Jones is the Operations Manager for Splattered Ink. (mailto:kelly@splatteredink.com) Mon, 04 Aug 2008 21:20:59 +0100