It’s been said time and again that you never get a second chance to make a first impression, and this axiom is particularly true in the business world.

The first impression that prospective clients get of your business most often comes by way of your logo. Your logo symbolizes your company and plays a crucial role in promoting your business in the marketplace. A great logo design is the foundation for building a recognizable and memorable brand for your business. And a professionally designed logo can make even the smallest business look established, stable and credible.

Below are the 3 main reasons for having a great logo.

1.     To create a unique identity

In almost every industry imaginable, the market is very competitive with very little differentiation between products and services. A unique mark or logo can help to separate you from your competitors. A particular design can help to make an impact on prospective clients’ relative short-term memories by providing a representation of your product as being more attractive than the competition. A visual identity can establish a good image and personality for your business even more so then a written description can (a picture is worth a thousand words after all).

2.       To represent a reputable image

Most people, whether it’s right or wrong, judge a thing or person by what they see. An effective logo has the capability to communicate immediately to a prospective client that your company exists and is ready to cater their needs. This is why it is vital to come up with a mark that mirrors the strengths and vision of your company. A weak or non-existent logo can lead to anonymity, causing you to blend into the market, eventually leading to failure.

3.       To represent quality

Along with creating a reputable image, a quality logo will also portray the quality of your product in prospects’ minds. If it looks like you spent some time and resources on developing a quality logo, it means that you have most likely done the same when developing your products and services. People usually stick with quality brands that can be trusted, so if your logo can help get them to that point then so much the better.

Attaining success in the business world requires proper management, accurate planning and effective marketing strategies. Your logo should be at the core of your marketing strategy in order to give you that edge against your competition in order to attract more prospective clients. Your logo is a representation of your company and can say, “Hey there! Consider us, we are the best in the industry!” On the other hand, poor logo design will miss to serve its purpose to identify and communicate, and in many cases can in fact negatively impact your business.

Designing an effective logo is not an easy task and usually requires a lot of thought and effort. In order to have the most appealing and persuading logo possible, kindly consider letting the professionals at Adpro Imprints help you conceptualize and create it for you. With almost 30 years of experience making our clients look good, you can trust that we will do the same for you.

Learn to Sell Apparel Like a Pro!

I got an email the other day with “Scared Shirtless?” as the headline from a supplier in the promotional products industry.

After a quick chuckle surrounding the play on words, I found myself more than a little curious so I clicked through. I opened the email and was invited to a webinar where I could “Learn to Sell Apparel Like a Pro!” Now I’m thinking, ‘well since I get paid to sell apparel, that makes me a pro…I’d better check it out to make sure the other “pros” know what they’re talking about’. In any event, the value proposition was there, I would get FREE tips for apparel sales.

With a simple headline I was “pulled” in, I wanted to find out more, I was curious, I was engaged and I couldn’t help myself. The headline didn’t try to “push” me to buy anything…there would be plenty of time for that, an abundance of opportunities for me to buy something once they got me to the site…books, cds, mp3, videos, etc.

If the headline had just offered me “10% Off This Great CD Set To Sell More Shirts”, I would have deleted that email in about a half-a-second.

It can be argued that headlines may be more important than the content itself because if they never click through there is no chance of conversion. So the goal should always be to get them to click through, but then make sure you can deliver or they won’t be coming back.

John Zalepka

One of the first things that I did when I started this blog was to link it up with Google Analytics. I wanted to see just how much traffic my site would get and from what referral sources the traffic was coming in.

I have learned a lot in these past two weeks about how people get to the site, how long they stay, and how many pages they view just to name a few. And with great pride, I watched how the daily traffic to my site steadily built on itself…that is until Sunday and Monday (yesterday).

I did not post anything on Sunday or Monday because I wanted to see what would happen to the traffic. And if you didn’t guess it already, Sunday’s traffic dropped off drastically and Monday’s was nearly non-existent.

How many times have you stumbled upon someone’s blog post because of a link in an article or due to a Google search, only to see that their last post was from over two ago? Even if their post was earth-shattering (at the time), you most likely didn’t finish reading the article, or worse never went back to that site because as we now know…no new content = no new traffic.

So get to posting & then keep on posting. For that is the only way that you will stay relevant in the minds of those you wish to eventually sell something to.

John Zalepka

We have all heard the many success stories about how average everyday people are just crushing it (you know making million$) with social media. The great news is that these average everyday people are using the very same social media platforms that we all have access to, and the best part is that most of them are FREE!

However, just having access to them for FREE! does not guarantee you anything.

It is the equivalent of having a FREE! gym membership and expecting to have six-pack abs because you go to the gym once or twice a month. You need to put in the hard work necessary to really get in shape.

Similarly, your FREE! social media membership will only benefit you in direct proportion to the amount of hard work you put in.

This is how I’m getting started…

I believe that the best way to get started is to concentrate on your core. Much in the same way it is important to have a strong core when working out, it is important to have a strong core when starting out in social media…my Core 4:

Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, YouTube

Studies have shown that people only believe about 15% of online advertising, while they believe 90% of their peer reviews.

Get your accounts up and running and start connecting with people. But whatever you do, don’t start selling (adverting) right away. Instead, start posting great information (content). Information that your customers and prospective customers will find useful. Try to become THE source for when people need information about something in your industry. Become the local celebrity expert! We’ve all seen people become famous recently just because of something “crazy” they posted on social media. But really aren’t they just positioning themselves as the expert of ‘how not to jump off your roof onto a trampoline while riding a bicycle’?

After you have connected and engaged your friends / readers / followers / subscribers by providing great content, they will start to give you back their information and hopefully start to refer you to others who may find your product or services useful by retweeting, reposting, liking, etc, etc, etc.

Make sure to put links back to your website where people can get more information and make a purchase; only then will you be able to capitalize on your hard work on the Core 4: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin & YouTube.

So let’s get started!

John Zalepka

I read an article today about how a fast-food chicken franchise was able to garner a 280% response rate on a 5,000 piece postcard mailing. For perspective, in case you were wondering, the “typical” or “average” response rate for direct mail is 2%. 

So how, you might ask, is it even possible to get more responses then the number of pieces sent?

The answer is quite simply by incorporating social media and the sharing element of this type of networking into the campaign.

From a cold list that they purchased from a list broker, they were able to get 14,128 hits (280%) to their micro-site that they set up specifically for the campaign, with 6,089 people providing some sort of personal data.

First, a postcard was sent which had perforated coupons that were redeemable in the store. The postcard also featured a PURL, or personalized URL which incorporated the recipient’s name, encouraging them to visit “their own” website for additional coupons and a “chance to win” something big. Once on the site, they were asked to “share” these great offers and chance to win with their friends via Facebook, Twitter, etc.

All told, in four weeks they had over 1,300 coupons redeemed and over 3,400 additional names and contact information for their data base.

This fully integrated multi-channel direct marketing campaign with viral components earned the agency the 2010 Direct Marketing Practices award from PODi (the digital printing initiative).

The simple fact that this direct mail campaign was more “social” then the traditional one-way communication of most postcards blew away any preconceived notions that direct mail is dead.

With the saturation of the market with email messages, right now is a great time to spend on direct mail. Coupled with the fact that many businesses are scaling back on direct mail, this is the perfect opportunity for a well-planned campaign to really stand out in people’s “actual” mailboxes…just make sure it’s “social”.

John Zalepka

As a marketer, this comment from prospects and clients has always baffled me. I have always screamed in my head, ‘What do you mean you have enough business already?!’ 

Tonight as I presided over our biweekly meeting as President of the Freehold Phrasers Toastmasters Club, as is customary at the end of the meeting, we took volunteers for the different roles for upcoming meetings; Grammarian, Ah Counter, Joke Master, and the ever-coveted Speaker role. We basically set our agenda until the middle of September…it’s starting to seems like “we have enough business already”.

When I first took over the position of President of the club, I quickly assembled the executive board for a meeting about the upcoming year. When it came time to discuss public relations and new membership, I had a TON of great marketing ideas.

After I was finished presenting all of my “great ideas” to the group, they asked me a very poignant question, “How big do we want to get?” At 32 members, our club is rather large for a Toastmasters club. And because we have so many members, and a limited amount of roles, I understood what they were saying.

Of course we could get more members if we advertised more, but at what cost? By adding too many members too fast, we would risk alienating and discouraging the members that we already have.

However, as a marketer this is unacceptable to me. Maybe we could just add a few minutes to the agenda to allow for more speeches? Maybe we could meet 3 or 4 times a month instead of 2? Maybe we could start a whole new club? Maybe, maybe, maybe…

Or maybe we should focus our marketing internally for now. Perhaps we need to focus on developing the talent we already have and really help our members to grow. Yes of course, that’s it! While we can and should plan for expansion and the future, we should never do it at the expense of what we already have.

So when you feel like you have enough business already, focus on what you have and how you can help your people grow. Then, when the time is right you will grow too. 

Because let’s be TOTALLY honest here, you can never really have enough business, can you?

John Zalepka

The sun got in my eyes…

…the #Trust30 challenge ended on Friday…

…it’s a holiday weekend…

…I never got to a computer yesterday…

…I was spending time with my family…

…I’ll just say I meant 30 business days.

Yesterday was a very busy day for me with the family. The beach in the morning, a dip in the pool in the afternoon, and a pig party in the evening.

The truth of the matter is that I could have posted to my blog yesterday from anywhere, but then I could have gotten sand in my phone, or dropped it in the pool, or, well there I go again.

You see there was never a perfect time for me to sit down and write, plus I hate typing on my phone, you know I have fat thumbs. What if I had typos or grammatical errors…wouldn’t people think I was an idiot?

Plus, what would I write about? What could I possible offer about marketing while sunning (burning) myself on the beach that would be really thought provoking or interesting? I’m doing it again, aren’t I?

Now what do my excuses have to do with marketing?

Well my suspicion is that if you are a small business owner, you probably have some excuses about why you don’t market your business more, or worse don’t market it at all. 

Marketing is all about putting yourself out there and telling people who you are. And as long as you stay true to your message and target properly, then your message will be fine. Will it always be perfect and great? Probably not, even the greatest of marketers don’t always get it right…New Coke, anyone?

Anyway, I found a good article on the Top 3 Excuses for Not Marketing a Small Business, and what to do about it.

So let’s cut out the excuses and get to work.

John Zalepka

Here I am, 4 days into my commitment to myself to post for 30 days straight. I got the idea from the #Trust30 prompt of the day, which is basically a fantastic marketing tactic for promoting a book. The book, Self-Reliance, is in celebration of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s 208^th birthday.

When I received the prompt today however, I was having a difficult time trying to formulate an answer that somehow related back to marketing. So I decided to skip the prompt and just focus on the marketing.

When I first began my social media journey (this past Monday), I found myself with about 100 tabs open on my browser as bounced around the internet trying to absorb as much information as possible. I think I saw the link on a tweet… ralphwaldoemerson.me

Upon landing on this very basic looking site, I was immediately asked to take a challenge. Being that I am such a competitive person, I am always up for a challenge. And the best part was, I would only be competing against myself (which isn’t as easy as you may think, but that’s another topic for another day).

So here I am committing to better myself through writing this blog. And I am grateful for #Trust30 for making me take on this challenge and make that commitment, that pledge. And yet, they never asked me to buy the book, sure they let me know it was for sale, but they gave me value first.

It appeared as though they really wanted me to increase my own self-reliance and better myself. And all they asked for in exchange for helping me along was the proper credit in my posts, tweets, and updates.

And even though I didn’t use their prompt today I’m still talking them up, aren’t I?

I’m sure there will be quite a few people in my network (friends, followers, connections) that are bound to see, click, read, or perhaps buy the book (note to self: maybe I should figure out how to monetize these referrals).

And what did it cost them?

Domain Registration $10… Design $1000… Hosting: $100… Thousands of people blogging and referencing your book on social networking sites for free: Priceless!

So basically, if I figure out what value I can give first, maybe more people will buy my “book”… I just bought theirs.

John Zalepka

Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my constitution, the only wrong what is against it. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

We are our most potent at our most ordinary. And yet most of us discount our “ordinary” because it is, well, ordinary. Or so we believe. But my ordinary is not yours. Three things block us from putting down our clever and picking up our ordinary: false comparisons with others (I’m not as good a writer as _____), false expectations of ourselves (I should be on the NYTimes best seller list or not write at all), and false investments in a story (it’s all been written before, I shouldn’t bother). What are your false comparisons? What are your false expectations? What are your false investments in a story? List them. Each keep you from that internal knowing about which Emerson writes. Each keeps you from making your strong offer to the world. Put down your clever, and pick up your ordinary.

(Author: Patti Digh)

All of my businesses have revolved around some aspect of marketing, advertising or sales. Even as a small child I can remember being a sucker for great marketing… whether is was gum or baseball cards conveniently placed down low on the checkout line at the grocery store, or TV commercials in between my Saturday morning cartoons, or the Sears Christmas Wish Book, I had to have it all.

That’s why it was no surprise that when I saw today’s #Trust30 challenge question, I read it from a marketer’s perspective.

Ordinary, much like beauty, is indeed also in the eyes of the beholder.

Busy business owners often borrow (steal) ideas from successful companies in their industry, often trying to emulate concepts and product offerings that they cannot deliver on. A small retail boutique would be crazy to try and compete on price with Walmart… it’d be like like asking a Little-Leaguer to try and hit a CC Sabathia fastball (I’m a Yankees fan btw).

However, time and again I have small business clients ask me to print up fancy brochures and marketing collateral that contain a lot of industry jargon, that, truth be told, they hope no one ever asks them about. They try to be “clever”, but what they are really doing is over-promising and setting themselves up to under-deliver.

Your marketing efforts should focus on what you already do well and apply it to your ideal market segment, then rinse and repeat as often as possible. Social networking sites and blogs can make your marketing go viral as fast as you can upload a video customer testimonial or whitepaper answering questions about subject matter that you know about.

I firmly believe that if you spend a little “extra” time focusing on what you already do well (ordinary), then it’s just a matter of time before your ordinary becomes extraordinary!

John Zalepka