Finished Work: Jumbo Tote Bag for the YMCA

By Fausto Mendez

    Our partner AnyPromo.com is a promotional products retailer/supplier, and the company’s graphic artists love to show off their finished work. This is just another design of the many, many designs they finalize on a daily basis.

    The YMCA of Somerset Hills reached out to us this week for a low-cost, high-quality and lightweight promotional tote bag. It’s a rather simple project, and the Y’s imprint is a mere one color. Still, we’re excited and honored to serve such a well-known and established organization, such as the YMCA. 

    Promotional tote bags are some of our hottest sellers, and this one is made of eco-friendly and non-woven polypropylene. The bag opens to reveal a ten-inch gusset, and its face measures 13”  x 15”. A removable insert for the bottom keeps it sturdy and flat when lifted off the ground. The reinforced handles measure 20 inches from one end to the other, so this promotional tote is rather easy to carry. 

    Our clients love to hand out promotional tote bags at industry events, trade shows and corporate meetups because most attendees don’t bring bags to these events, but it’s pretty common for businesses to offer attendees informative media, free gifts and promotional giveaways. Of course, two hands can only hold so much. As a result, people really appreciate a nice tote bag, and if you flood the event with your bags (so that your logo is visible no matter where people look), you WILL make a lasting impression on the attending audience. 

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

#DIY Promotional Giveaway: Super-Easy Themed Envelopes / Note Holders

By Fausto Mendez

    If you’re a fan of #DIY crafts for personalized gifts and promotional giveaways, you should consider adding a personal touch to your next promotional gift with a super easy-to-make themed envelope or note holder. 

    This DIY project is so easy, it’s hard to write at any length on the concept. In fact, Sweet Tidings managed to explain the whole project with a simple photo (seen above) and the following caption: “cookie-cutter cut-out note holder.” Basically, you use cookie cutters to cut folded, colored paper. The key is to cut right at the folded edge so that it folds open like a greeting card. The fold also enables it to stand upright, which is a pretty cool feature if you’re trying to make someone feel special or appreciated. 

    You can use the same process (with bigger cookie cutters) to make a larger version, though I’d hesitate to call it a note holder at that size. It’s more like a greeting card. 

    If you’re planning a promotional giveaway or promotional gift basket, I highly recommend mixing in a DIY gift, such as this one, to further impress your target. Promotional gifts are very common in the realm of business, but few individuals think about adding a personal touch to a promo. In this case, you can use the note holder as a way to deliver a fun, appreciative note, or you might just use it to identify the recipient. I’m sure there are more interesting ways to mix these into your promos; you’re only limited by your creativity.

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

Bring Your Own Lunch Recipe: Sweet “Chick-Fil-A-Style” Nuggets #BYOL

    Every week, we suggest a fascinating, unique and delicious dish that is easy to reheat at your office lunchroom. This week’s #BYOL recipe: Sweet “Chick-fil-A-Style” Nuggets.

    There’s no interesting backstory to this recipe. Apparently, Amy at My Name is Snicker Doodle has a deep love for nuggets that come from a certain fast food chain that does not sell cow meat, and she also loves to reverse engineer recipes for fun. Now, let’s get started on this week’s #BYOL recipe.

Step 0 - Gather Your Ingredients

+ Skinless and boneless chicken breasts

+ 1 cup milk

+ 1 egg

+ 1 1/4 cups of flour

+ 2 tbsp powdered sugar

+ 2 tsp salt

+ 1 tsp pepper

+ Peanut oil

Step 1 - Cut & Marinate those Nuggets

+ Whisk the egg and milk in a bowl.

+ Slice the chicken into bit-size cubes.

+ Place chicken in milk mixture. Let the chicken marinate for 2-4 hours inside your refrigerator. 

Step 2 - Flavor Infuse those Nuggets

+ Mix the flour, powdered sugar, pepper and salt in a large (gallon-size) zip-lock bag. Throw the chicken into the bag, and shake it up. 

Step 3 - Fry those Nuggets

+ Heat up two inches of oil in a medium pot over a medium-high flame. The oil will be ready at 375 degrees Fahrenheit. 

+ Cook up to eight nuggets (or whatever fits comfortably) at a time. Turn them when they’re half done. You’ll know when they’re half done when the edge of the chicken whitens. You only need about a minute for each side, but double check each batch by cutting a nugget to find any pink (under-cooked) meat.

Step 4 - Eat & Enjoy

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

Three Critical Tips to Write Better Marketing Copy (Slogans, Email Subjects, Ad Copy, Etc.)

By Fausto Mendez

    Whether it’s a brand slogan, a promotional giveaway, a marketing email or a highway billboard, the best marketing copy is rather short and simple, but it can be far from easy to write. Effective marketing copy can take a long time (maybe even several days) to produce and revise, and it sometimes requires a draining amount of frustrating effort. But improving your copywriting skills can add a significant boost to your business’s success, so it’s important to continuously refine and hone your work.

    I’ve recognized three key principles throughout my career that have helped me improve my copy over time. Keep these principles in mind the next time you write to help you boost the quality of your work (see the #copywriting tips page for more). 

Don’t Start with Words

+ Don’t start with words; start with a feeling. You shouldn’t write if you don’t know what feelings you want to evoke, but if you identify and target a specific feeling, such as relief or confidence, you’ll have a much better idea of what you are really trying to say. After all, that’s the point of marketing copy (to evoke or sell a specific feeling, not really the product itself). People don’t care much for products or services, but they love the good feelings certain products or services bring them.

+ The example above doesn’t feature any marketing copy, but it does a good job of evoking the the childish joy and wonder of one’s imagination. Actually, the intentional lack of marketing copy amplifies the feeling, so it’s also a good example of the “less is more” principal described later in this article. 

Short Verbs Are Safe Bets

+ Get in the habit of starting your copy with an action word; it’s beneficial to your writing process to start your copy with a short verb, such as “win” or “boost”. That’s because good marketing copy gets to the point fast, but the practice can also direct your writing process in a positive direction. You may find that this rule is too formulaic in certain situations, but most of the time, it’s a safe bet - especially if you’re pressed for time and not feeling super creative. 

+ The example above is a perfect illustration of this concept, and it gets right to the point. The feelings being evoked are joy and laughter, and that emotion leaves a positive impression with you as it associates joy and laughter with the name “Chick-Fil-A”. Furthermore, when a customer creates an emotional association to a brand, it makes the brand more memorable. 

Less is More

+ I can’t stress this principal enough: use less words whenever you can. The shorter your message, the more people will consume it and understand it. It’s not a difficult concept to understand, but it seems to be a difficult concept for newer writers to apply. 

+ In the above Nike ad, the writer could have written: “It doesn’t matter what you do. It doesn’t matter how or why you do it. It doesn’t matter how good you are when you do it - as long as you do it and you do it for yourself.”  But the standard Nike slogan, “just do it”, works much better. It communicates the same message in a fraction of a second, so the team that designed the ad effectively maximized the audience that will consume and understand the ad. 

    Here’s an extra bonus tip that can apply to any creative professional, not just writers: develop amazing, outstanding taste. Simply by improving your taste (for example, learning to enjoy more sophisticated books or higher-quality blogs), you will improve your creative work. That’s because you can more easily and quickly identify bad ideas, so you can trash those ideas before you finish them. The best creatives kill almost all of their ideas, and they only keep a few shining gems to refine. Similarly, you should find a thick pile of unused ideas in your trash bin at the end of any writing session.

    For more copywriting advice, check out “10 Ways to Improve your Marketing Copy.”

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

How Social-Media Marketing Boosts Sales by 30% in the Video Game Industry

By Fausto Mendez

    The effectiveness of SMM (social-media marketing) is a widely debated topic, but the video game industry is done with that debate. And its verdict is in. It turns out SMM may be its most powerful marketing channel yet. 

     Twitter broadcasts over 400 million tweets everyday. That’s a lot of talk - most of it gibberish, but the video game industry is learning that guiding those conversations towards upcoming video-game releases has a very significant impact on sales, according Twitter and Deloitte LLP. Twitter UK commissioned Deloitte LLP to measure the impact of those 400 million daily Tweets on the sales of 100 best-selling PS3 and Xbox 360 games, and you can see the results for yourself in the full infographic below (click to enlarge it). 

The Lesson: Creatively Integrate Multiple Channels in Your Marketing Campaigns

    The point is not to rely solely on Twitter - or even social-media marketing - but to shape your campaign using a variety of tools that guide your audience towards positive online conversations about your products or brand. 

    Now, let’s use this lesson to design an effective marketing campaign for a company like Rockstar, maker of the famed Grand Theft Auto series. As a marketer for a major gaming company, you have to think bigger than an unforgettable TV ad, a beautiful billboard, a hilarious Twitter author, or a well-designed Facebook page. You want to design marketing tactics that start conversations that move to and from various marketing channels. 

The Example: How to Move Customers From Channel to Channel

    For example, you might design a set of TV commercials that confuses and surprises viewers. Throughout the commercial, you’d display a unique hash tag at one of the corners of the screen. The confusing ad would encourage users to search for the video or the hash tag online. The confusing ad also airs between 4PM and 8PM because that’s when the target audience watches TV. By 9PM, the audience is most likely playing video games and/or browsing the Web.

    At this point, those gamers that aren’t gaming are probably searching for the video or hash tag in order to discuss it and share it with their friends. After discussing with their friends, they probably want more information, so they would search for related websites later that night. This campaign would have three important effects.

+ By adding social and online components (that are easily searchable and sharable) to the TV ads, the ads are viewed by many, many more people than if they were developed without those social and online components. 

+ Conversations with friends about upcoming games has a more powerful effect than ads that intrude on the audience’s time and attention. Friends are often entertaining, welcomed participants in such conversations. Ads that try to dictate how you think, on the other hand, run the risk of being an annoyance if they appear in the wrong situations. In other words, your friends’ excitement for the next Madden NFL game is more effective than a tv ad for the same game, but the conversation that exposed you to that excitement may have never occurred if it wasn’t for the TV ad in the first place.

+ The search-engine performance of your website is increasingly becoming dependent on the performance of your social-media profiles and content. As your profiles and content are shared across social-media sites, your website’s SEO grows too, so by catalyzing conversations that involve your social-media profiles, critical keywords and links to your website, you should increase the traffic that your website receives from search engines beyond the traffic that arises from curiosity just after a new ad airs. 

Why does it work?

    In the previous example, the process starts in the living room. That means you have to know when your audience will be there. If you do your homework, your customer will see your ad on TV at the perfect moment. They would then search for your hash tag or video online (which would cause the initial search-engine traffic boost). As the audience start conversations about the video and any related content, they would share this content on social networks, and then you get a second search-engine traffic boost as Google notices that your brand name and content are being shared on social-media sites. As excitement, rumors and information spreads, sales grow. Just rinse, and repeat.

    Whether you’re ordering promotional products for a trade show or finalizing the details for your next TV commercial, a strong and wise marketing campaign can go a long way. Take notes, people!

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

Bring Your Own Lunch Recipe: Bourbon “Crack” Chicken #BYOL

By Fausto Mendez

    Every week, we suggest a fascinating, unique and delicious dish that is easy to reheat at your office lunchroom. This week’s recipe: Bourbon “Crack” Chicken (Crock-Pot Style). 

    This recipe is called Bourbon “Crack” Chicken because once you start eating it, you can’t stop. It’s relatively easy to throw together. Let’s make some; shall we?

Step 0 - Gather Your Ingredients

+ 2 lbs boneless chicken breasts cut into bite-size pieces
+ 2 tablespoon cornstarch
+ 2 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil (evoo)
+ 1 garlic clove crushed
+ 1/4 teaspoon ginger
+ 3/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
+ 1/4 cup light apple juice
+ 1/3 cup light brown sugar
+ 2 tablespoons organic ketchup or chili sauce (depending on how hot you like stuff)
+ 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
+ 1/2 cup water
+ 1/3 cup reduced sodium soy sauce

Step 1 - Mix & Cook

+ Mix the above ingredients into your favorite crock pot, and set it on low for about eight hours. If you’re pressed for time, you may cook it on high for four hours, but we recommend the slow cook for best results.

+ While you wait, cook up a nice side of rice. I prefer white rice with this style of chicken, but to each his own. The original recipe also recommends adding a side of ginger glazed carrots.

+ That’s about it. Just serve the chicken over rice. I prefer to keep the carrots off to the side. 

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com. Thanks to My Time Passages for the original photo.

#MarketingMonday - How Refinery29 Launched a Multi-Million-Dollar E-Commerce Store Built Around Content Marketing

By Fausto Mendez

    Content marketing is a powerful but often underestimated tool in the world of business, and despite being misunderstood, it is the vehicle that is turning average Joes from all walks of life into millionaires.

    Justin Stefano and Phillippe von Borries are the owners and founders of Refinery29, a fashion content and e-commerce company out of New York. It’s raking in multimillion-dollar sums every year, but it didn’t start out that way. About eight years ago, the website could barely pay a $28,000 salary to each member of the founding duo, but thanks to a smart and evolved approach to content marketing, it pulled in $14.2 million dollars last year. Stefano and Borries expect that number to increase by another ten million for 2013, according to Business Insider. 

    Prior to launching Refinery29, both Stefano and Borries held down relatively cushy jobs in law and politics, but they quit their careers to launch the website in 2005. It started out as a somewhat traditional blog on fashion, music and design in New York City, but their dedication and taste finally paid off after three years. Riding on a $28k salary purely from ads, the blog took off around 2008 as smaller, niche brands found a growing and receptive audience at Refinery29. 

    Oddly enough, Stefano and Borries know nothing - and continue to know mostly nothing - about the fashion industry. But Refinery29 eventually became the place on the Web to talk about emerging fashions and up-and-coming brands. What they didn’t realize at the time was that they were perfecting the practice of content marketing, which would set the stage for an e-commerce store that would launch Refinery29 to new heights.

    The addition of an e-commerce component to Refinery29 enables the store to generate another $3-4 million per year, and it doesn’t cost the duo much time or effort to get the store off the ground. After all the, Stefano and Borries don’t even buy inventory. They just take a cut from the products sold by the smaller, niche brands that their audience loves to read about.

    What Stefano and Borries did with Refinery29 is what content marketers all around the world aim to do everyday, but content marketing doesn’t always produce such favorable results. Their success stems from a few basic principles: 

+ They are genuinely passionate about their jobs (as owners of Refinery29) and the content they produce. People are attracted to passion, and passion makes it easier to work harder and more effectively.

+ They write for the reader, not for search engines. Writing for search engines can help you boost traffic in the short term, but writing for real readers produces passionate, dedicated fans that love to come back to the site on a regular basis.

+ Like in TV, high-quality (entertaining and/or useful) content comes first because that what attracts people. Without the content, there is no audience.

+ Many e-commerce stores underpay content marketers, copywriters and bloggers in the belief that their contribution is not as important as, let’s say, a web developer. But to underpay your writers and bloggers is like ABC underpaying its sitcom-writing staff. The writers of a major sitcom at ABC are some of the highest-paid employees of the company. Think about that the next time you expect a minimum-wage employee to generate major traffic. Appreciate your content creators.

+ A content marketer should have (or at least strive to have) the same skills and professionalism as a staff writer for Time Magazine or Mashable.com.

+ Don’t forget to broadcast a healthy sense of humor. The Web is full of humor and people that appreciate a good joke. This is a fact of modern Web culture, and if you’re not in tune with modern Web culture, you won’t succeed as a content marketer.

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

#Marketing #Infographic: The #Psychology of #Color

By Fausto Mendez

    Colors are a critical factor when designing ads, branding materials and marketing campaigns. That’s because, whether you know it or not, colors can evoke certain moods in most people. Colors can even stimulate your appetite!

    We stumbled upon this fascinating infographic on the impact of colors on consumer behavior. The whole thing is rather interesting, but we were really moved by the following facts (check out the full infographic below - click to enlarge): 

+ Colors can improve comprehension, learning and reading ability in individuals.

+ A significant majority of consumers make purchasing decisions based on color alone.

+ 93% of consumers buy products based on visual appearance.

+ Strategic use of colors increases the rate that people pay attention to ads.

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com. Thanks to Web Page FX for the image.

Finished Work: Plastic Handle Bag for KSPR ABC of Springfield, MO

By Fausto Mendez

    Our partner AnyPromo.com is a promotional products retailer/supplier, and the company’s graphic artists love to show off their finished work. This is just another design of the many, many designs they finalize on a daily basis.

    We’re honored that ABC affiliate KSPR of Springfield, MO reached out to us this week for a fat stack of plastic handle bags. This inexpensive promotional item is currently item #668032 in our catalog, and they come in a variety of solid colors. The handles feature a fold-over, reinforced, die-cut design, and the front and back faces measure 12” x 15” with a depth of three inches. 

    Promotional handle bags function perfectly as custom gift bags (that hold other promotional giveaways), and they maximize brand awareness at industry events, retail stores, souvenir stores, music festivals, cruises, concerts, hotels, tourist spots and any place or event where members of your audience linger around each other for significant periods of time.

    AnyPromo is the low-price leader and one-stop shop for customized promotional products and personalized promotional products, and with a catalog of over 40,000 products, we guarantee you will find the promotional supplies that you need to launch the most effective promotional campaign - no matter your circumstances or budget.

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

Download this Free Font: Chalkboard Effects (13 Fonts)

By Fausto Mendez

    Finding the best #free fonts isn’t easy (except when we post them here), but it’s always good for business to have some extra out-of-the-box fonts on hand. That’s why we spend an hour or so per week searching the Web for its best-kept-secret fonts.

    This week, we stumbled upon a set of thirteen fonts and a downloadable background that create a chalkboard effect. As usual, these fonts can be installed on any modern computer, and no photoshopping is necessary to use them. So they’re ready to go out of the box. Download them at Nest of Posies, and install them onto any Mac or Windows PC by double clicking on the downloaded file.

    We encourage customers to try new fonts for their artwork and logo submissions (when ordering custom promotional products on AnyPromo.com). Of course, the best font for any circumstance depends on a variety of factors, but if you find yourself itching for a chalkboard font, you now know where to find it. 

    Join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.

Businesses and Advertisers May Not Use Google Glass for Ads

By Fausto Mendez

    Google Glass is the smartphone of the future, a wearable computer that sits on your head like a pair of glasses. Though it seems rather futuristic, the technology that powers Glass is hardly any different than the same stuff that powers your smartphone. Needless to say, advertisers and businesses continue to line up and compete for a chance to start using and building software for Glass - mostly programs and experiences centered around ads other types of marketing content (as is the custom in smartphone app development). There’s just one problem: no one is allowed to serve ads on Glass!

    Google recently announced that a set of Glass headsets would arrive at the doorsteps of some lucky developers and a few enthusiastic fans, and with that announcement, the company released the API (and guidelines) for developing software for Glass. It turns out the API specifically states that Glass and the user’s data connection may not be used to serve advertisements. Section Two of the API reads:

“No Ads. You may not serve or include any advertisements in your API Client. Data Usage. You may not use user data from your API Client for advertising purposes. You may not sell or transmit any user data received from your API Client(s) to a third-party ad network or service, data broker, or other advertising or marketing provider. For the avoidance of doubt, user data from the API Client(s) may not be used for Third-Party Ad Serving (‘3PAS’).”

    This development poses problems for businesses that have become accustomed to Google’s traditional business model: ads everywhere and anywhere, but whether or not Google will maintain this stance is unknown. It could very well be a temporary measure to ensure that only the most passionate developers jump on the bandwagon. On the other hand, Google may have a business model in mind that we’ve never seen before. 

    Google is no stranger to revolutionizing business models. After all, it is the company that shaped the modern Web and the way businesses to business on the it (with the help of the masses, of course). We look forward to seeing what Google has planned throughout the rest of this decade. It will certainly be an interesting ride.

    We’ll  watch the story as it develops, so stay tuned. In the meantime, join the conversation on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, or Google+, and stay ahead of the game with an occasional laugh and non-stop marketing & business advice, news and analysis. Brought to you by AnyPromo.com.