Archive for the ‘Marketing Tips’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

The Art Preservative of all the Arts

Wednesday, October 30th, 2013

Printing is “The Art Preservative of all the Arts”. We, the people who are engaged in the work of Printing are the Preservatives of these accounts. The History of Printing is also the history of Civilization. When the Art of Printing was unknown, only a few people were able to read and write, and all the book knowledge was confined to a particular group of people. Printing preserves a complete and accurate record of people, ideas and events. Printing helps to replicate a piece of writing on a large scale, it also reduces the risk of a material being lost, corrupted, destroyed or suppressed. The attention span of a printed material is much longer than any other thing.

Being in this industry for a long time we have earned our good reputation one customer at a time by combining old fashioned craftsmanship with high-end printing equipment to deliver exceptional quality on time and on budget. We now not only have the expertise, but also the experience of delivering print quality comparable. Nothing ever becomes real till it experienced. So come and experience our “Art” that is preserving all the “Arts”.

Tags:, ,
Posted in Marketing Tips | No Comments »

How to Protect your Intellectual Property?

Monday, October 21st, 2013

What is your intellectual property and how should you protect it? Intellectual property is something you create that’s unique. It is something you invent, like a new product or a product’s design or appearance or a brand or logo or written work, like content on a website, in a brochure, artistic work, like photography, illustration, film recordings, musical compositions, computer software etc.. You can’t protect an idea – but you can often protect what you do with it. For example, you can’t protect an idea for a book. But if you write it, you can protect the words you’ve written. Protecting your intellectual property is crucial to the success of your business. How you protect your intellectual property depends on what types of intellectual property you have.

What is a Patent?

If your business has developed a new and better product or process that is unique, useful, and non-obvious you will want to protect the competitive advantage this gives you by obtaining a patent. The holder of a patent can stop third parties from making, using or selling his invention for a period of years depending on the type of invention. If your business is one in which inventions are created on a continuing basis, it is very important that you have a clear understanding about who owns the inventions. Does your business own the inventions or do the employees who create the inventions own them? This can depend on the type of work arrangement you have. You will want to make sure workers sign an agreement that any inventions created by them while working for your business belong to the business.

What is a Copyright?

A copyright provides protection for original works of authorship, fixed in a tangible medium of expression including literary, musical, and dramatic works, as well as photographs, audio and visual recordings, software, and other intellectual works. Copyright protection begins as soon as the work is fixed in a tangible medium. The author should begin using the copyright symbol immediately as a method of informing others that he intends to exercise control over the production, distribution, display, and or performance of the work. While it is not necessary to file for copywriting protection, doing so will make it easier to seek court enforcement of your copyright.

What is a Trademark?

A trademark protects the name of your product by preventing other business from selling a product under the same name. Having a unique and identifiable name for your product is an advantage for your business. Trademark law seeks to protect consumers from confusion or deception by preventing other businesses from using the same or a confusingly similar name for their products. A servicemark is used when what your business sells is a service rather than a product. Being the first to use the name is important to protect the continuing right to use the name, but filing is important for enforcement purposes. The first step in filing for trademark registration is performing a trademark search. This step is extremely important because it could prevent you from investing a lot in the promotion of a product under a trademark that is already in use.

Intellectual property protection is a important thing in protecting your product. Without Intellectual property protection, there is nothing that legally prevents anyone that wants to, from copying and marketing your product. This would mean that all your hard work in developing your idea into a working, viable product would have been for nothing. Unless it is protected, anyone can go into production and market their version of your product to leading retailers or manufacturers without any recourse available to you, the actual inventor. Whether you are an experienced inventor, or just happened to come up with an innovative idea and have developed it into a viable product, the most important thing you can do to protect your work is to get any of the intellectual property protection.Put quite bluntly, if you have come up with a good or innovative product and it is not protected by any of the above said, you can pretty much rest assured someone will take your idea, make a knock-off of it and start manufacturing and selling it. To make absolutely sure that no one copies your product or a similar product that will compete with yours, you have to apply for the intellectual property protection.

Tags:, ,
Posted in Marketing Tips | No Comments »

Does Direct Mail works?

Friday, October 4th, 2013

Direct mailing is a way of advertising mail printed ads, letters or other solicitations to the customers. Advertisers have found direct mail appealing for a number of reasons. It takes their message directly to the consumer, while consumers might walk away from a television ad or flip past a newspaper ad, they will eventually open their mailbox. Advertisers also like that they can direct their message the way they want it. By receiving the mail at home or office, direct mail puts the advertiser message in the hands of the consumer at the time the consumer might be likely to read it, along with the rest of the mail.

Direct mail campaigns can generate leads, promote special offers, support other campaigns, communicate with customer and raise your visibility in your market. In comparison to emails sent, direct mail has more chances of receiving response from the customer because customers may deleted the email seeing it as junk mail but whereas they will open the envelope to see what is inside.

But does Direct Mail works?

Marketers now use a variety of techniques to ensure that the receipient open their envelope. One of the best example is the Direct mail campaign by ABSOLUT Vodka newest super premium vodka range, ABSOLUT Elyx. A beautifully sourced box was sent to 300 invited guests. Within the box was a single blank key that was yet to be cut into shape. The only thing told to the receipient was to turn up at the exhibition and present the blank key to the key smith. The master key smith then cut the key on the spot to allow the guest to unlock the secret door hidden behind a wall at the end of the exhibition space. This direct mailer generated so much response that more than 700 guests trying to get into the secret party and within four days their Facebook page fans number jumped from 600 to 4,872 fans, along with 6,372 unique microsite and Youtube views.

So Direct Mail does and still works, however only when it is targeted to the right customer with the right innovative ideas.

Tags:
Posted in Marketing Tips | No Comments »

Are you Targeting The Right Customer?

Wednesday, September 25th, 2013

Targeting the Right Customer sounds simple enough. But many marketers make mistakes early in the marketing process, leading them to focus their marketing and media advertising resources on reaching an audience that may be too elusive for achieving both long and short term sales goals. If companies want to success at selling their products, they need to make sure that they are targeting the correct customers. If companies aren’t marketing their product toward the specific customers who might be interested in their products, they will have a much more difficult time selling them. Companies spend huge amount of time thinking about what to say and building this great strategy, but most fail to develop the most important part who to say it to. A well-defined target customer is a beacon for an organisation to follow.

One of the best advertisement targeting the right audience is the advertisement by ANAR Foundation, a Spanish child-advocacy organization. It used lenticular printing in its powerful outdoor ad to send different messages to children and adults. Anyone under about 4-foot-3 sees bruising on the child’s face in the poster, along with ANAR’s hotline number and copy that reads, “If somebody hurts you, phone us and we’ll help you.” People taller than that—i.e., most parents—simply see the child without the bruise and the line, “Sometimes child abuse is only visible to the child suffering it.” The metaphor embodied in the display is apt—the figurative differences in perception between abuser and abused here become literal. They kept the concept and content simple, too; it makes the interactivity more immediate and less gimmicky.

So Are you Targeting the Right Customer?

Tags:,
Posted in Marketing Tips | No Comments »

Think Before You Like & Share

Thursday, September 12th, 2013

Social Media presents great marketing opportunities for business of all sizes. Marketers view social media, particularly Facebook, as a great way to engage with fans through integrated campaigns and engagement strategies. However, some brands may be breaching Facebook rules, without fully understanding the promotions guidelines.Some brands kick off campaigns aimed at increasing “likes” or “shares” in return for credits or freebies.At one glance, the promotion may seem harmless and smart, but under Facebook, there are guidelines that need to be complied by brands or risk having their pages shut down by Facebook.

The four most important guidelines that certain brands fails to reckon are :

  1. Promotions on Facebook must be administered within Apps on Facebook.com, either on a Canvas Page or a Page App.
  2. The Brands must not condition registration or entry upon the user taking any action using any Facebook features or functionality other than liking a Page, checking in to a Place, or connecting to your app.For example, advertiser must not condition registration or entry upon the user liking a Wall post, or commenting or uploading a photo on a Wall.
  3. The Brands must not use Facebook features or functionality, such as the Like button, as a voting mechanism for a promotion.
  4. The Brands must not notify winners through Facebook, such as through Facebook messages, chat, or posts on profiles (timelines) or Pages.

In short, brands must receive permission from Facebook to run a contest, or either use a Facebook-approved third party application to run a contest on Facebook.

So think before you click Like or Share.

Tags:, , , ,
Posted in Marketing Tips | No Comments »

To Pitch or Not to Pitch

Wednesday, August 28th, 2013

About 20 Ad Agencies in Belgium have gone on a Pitch Strike in February 2010 refusing to participate in competitive bidding contests for ad accounts where more than 3 agencies are being considered at a time. In the advertising industry, a pitch is when an advertising agencies is trying to win the business to represent a product. Several agencies will probably be attempting to get the contract and have to go through a Pitch process. This may include examples of ads, the creative ideas, etc. Anyone who owns, runs or works for an agency knows just how expensive it can be to Pitch, and the many hours spend creating, an amazing concept for a client that is not guaranteed to go with them. Most agencies complain that client typical briefs are poorly prepared and ask for extensive campaign plans to be submitted within unrealistic deadlines and without any opportunity to discuss these with the ultimate decision maker.

Clients frequently mount fake pitches to ascertain industry costs for their benchmarking purposes. The clients appoints one agency, but takes the concepts of the agency that didn’t get appointed and asks the winner to use them. The worse thing about pitching is that agencies give away for free their highest value product – their strategic thinking. In the past the winning agency could amortize its investment in the pitch over a 10 or 20 years period, or even longer.

But today, relationships are shorter as the average contract period is below 2 years, so you will often have a change of agencies, 2 or 3 years of working with a client after winning a Pitch are often not enough for an agency to recoup its pitch investment in today revolving door environment. Before you Pitch look into these things:

  • If too many agencies pitched.
  • Clearly a lot of shopping for agencies going on here and the best deal usually nabs the deal. Chances are competition is going to heat up.
  • When the briefing for the Pitch keeps getting pushed back because the clients are too busy.
  • Surely, if a client is Sincere a meeting will be a top Priority.
  • If the Client is more Budget conscious.

So the decision is ours to pitch or not to pitch as well…

Tags:,
Posted in Marketing Tips | No Comments »

Beyond Words: 话中有画 Book Launch

Wednesday, May 29th, 2013

Joey & Me
Beyond Words Book Launch

I went to attend my client, the publisher book launch yesterday. It was held at The Plaza @ National Library Building. There are a total of 4 books published by different authors won by a competition held by Singapore National Arts Council (NAC).

During the 1 hour time frame, 1 author had a puppet show telling about her story. Another author had rubber stamp chops to allow kids to play with and to create simple cards for the upcoming Father’s Day. Simple activities, however allowed some bonding with the child and the parent, how’s nice.

Tags:, ,
Posted in Marketing Tips | No Comments »

Slow Trend or New Trend?

Thursday, April 25th, 2013

In today times, things seem to be moving slowly. Everyone is saying that the economic is going downwards or moving slowly. Likewise for us, we have been getting a lot of enquiries but no confirmation yet. Most of them are just pending the management decision whom in turn are sitting on it. On the other hand, a lot of new companies are starting up, with new businesses come new projects as well. We had quite a few logo design projects, which is a good sign as well.

So the question is which side do you belong to? The side where you say it is a slow trend and sit on it or you believe a new trend is coming up and prepare for it? Something for a thought…

Tags:, ,
Posted in Marketing Tips | No Comments »

Are you working SMART enough?

Wednesday, March 13th, 2013

Working hard is a good thing, but when it is not working right, your efforts may not arrive at the intended purpose. You do not need a professional consultant to tell you which direction to head, it is simply knowing and realising where you are going.

Above working hard, work SMART.

S.M.A.R.T is a mnemonics which generically stands for

Specific – Defining clearly the expected end result
Measurable – Suggesting an indicator of progress
Attainable – Exploring your or the department’s ability to reach the end result
Relevant – Understanding the importance of the end result
Trackable – Segregating objectives in tune with a chronological system

There are many synonyms associated with these criteria for different uses. If you are reading this, apply the right synonyms for your area of expertise. SMART first appeared in 1981, in an article of a management magazine by a man named George T. Doran and his team.

He stressed that SMART, in its deepest essence, is meant to be a guideline and framework for a step, therefore not meant to justify life in life’s entirety. It is highly versatile and is adapted by many individuals and corporations today, which is also known as Key Performance Index (KPI) in the industry.

Each section of SMART hinges key questions not fixed to a certain quantity, today let us define each section when applying SMART on a goal.

Ready to get your plan in shape? This is the sport for it.

Tags:
Posted in Marketing Tips | No Comments »

Sales & Marketing or Marketing & Sales

Wednesday, February 27th, 2013

When you look at these two terms separately, both actually holds different meaning,

Sale [seyl] noun
1. The act of selling.
2. A quantity sold.
3. Opportunity to sell; demand: slow sale.
4. A special disposal of goods, as at reduced prices.
5. Transfer of property for money or credit.

Marketing [mahr-ki-ting] noun
1. The act of buying or selling in a market.
2. The total of activities involved in the transfer of goods from the producer or seller to the consumer or buyer, including advertising, shipping, storing, and selling.

Often times they are used as corporation slurs by unaware individuals of an organization, community or even within government. Usage of words require context to set a ground for a conversation, as some words can have very broad spectrum of meanings, therefore people in industry have to be sharp with words.

One does not simply list a thorough summaries of event that is happening for a duration when someone of authority says “Give me a minute”.

When we carefully observes how each intended meanings in these 2 words ring about, we can generally infer that “Marketing” applies like water in a big farmland, and “Sales” are those small seeds that need growing and tending.

“Sales” is one part of the entire ground, whereas “Marketing” hits the whole land. Thus we come to the paradoxical question, can “Sales” survive without “Marketing”? Will the ‘seed’ be able to grow without ‘water’?

Scientifically they can, but not for long. Empirically, in business perspective, especially in modern time, the proper combination of Sales & Marketing plays an important role in shifting your company from a little fig leaves to a gargantuan tree!

Because “Marketing” is entirely consumer based, it is a message tailored to suit your target audience, this ‘water’ that brings life to your “Sales” needs to be managed by tactful and sharp individuals. In turn this will cause heavy impact to the audience receiving the message in the product or service your company is providing.

Thus the key to an excellence Sales & Marketing team lies in pruning the right talents and cultivating mutual teamwork in your members!

Tags:,
Posted in Marketing Tips | No Comments »

Signs of a disaster?

Wednesday, January 16th, 2013

Much as we love to have more clients, however after so many years in the industry. There are certain clients that we have to turn down to. First of all, there are clients who think they know what they want already and to ask for a reduced price. They claim that they have everything in their head and just need someone with the Mac or the required software and skills to re-produce it. Sad to say, what you think in your head and what you see thereafter might not work. Often when we think in our head, we can only visualize this much and we tend to miss out certain details, not unless you are trained for it. Therefore when you created it out on hard copy, it tend to fall short of what you expected therefore resulting in more changes or correction or even change of concept entirely wasting even more time.

By saying that, I am not saying clients can’t offer certain ideas or concepts, of course they can. You can tell us what is your preferred look and feel and we can work in that particular direction and etc. Or if you have a particular design concept that you know might work or seen that it was already being achieved. However, it also depends if it works in that particular project or not. You may have certain elements or text that need to be in the artwork, however is the suggested concept suitable or not, let us work it out. After all, that is what we are being hired for, isn’t it? Else it defeat the purpose as well for us to come in and work on the project?

Tags:,
Posted in Marketing Tips | No Comments »

Is Social Media suitable for your business?

Wednesday, November 14th, 2012

With almost everyone logging in to Facebook or Twitter once everyday, it make one wonder, is the social media platform suitable for your business? Your client is in there so are your competitor. What make the difference or impact to it? The key is in COMMUNICATION. You can connected to your clients via emailer, eNewsletter or through social media platform, the main objective is to communicate. If you don’t communicate to them, someone else will and that is going to bring your clients away from you.

Likewise, it is good to keep them informed of what is going on. Be it is a new service, a new product or a trend to update them about. So they will keep you in mind and think of you when there is a need for such services. Also, this will enable them to see you as a company moving with or ahead of times. The last thing you want client to think of you is someone outdated and not keeping with times. Therefore, do something today to communicate to your clients before they leave you. Not just that, do it consistently, so if emailer works for you, do that. If updating in Facebook is better for you then do that, just get something out there to reach your clients. Before you knew it, someone is reading behind this and contact you…

——————————————————————————————————————-

From Elijah’s Consulting extract…

Dominate Your Market? Exploit Your Niche? 04 Nov 2012.

Heard these statements somewhere at some time? How about “Attracting your customers” and “Woo your buyers”? “Make it juicy for people”? While brand posturing, marketing and selling are of course very important, how many of you believe, really believe deep down inside, that your goods and services will truly deliver the highest value to your customers and clients? Read more…

Tags:, , ,
Posted in Marketing Tips | No Comments »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »