Atricle Dump - Business

Jewellery Impressions In The World Of Fashion Jewellery
In today’s world of conscious people, fashion Jewelry is playing a remarkable role in giving vivacity to one’s attitude. Starting from clothes, a woman is also quite choosy in the selection of Jewellery she wears. The more attractive the Jewellery is, the more easier it will be for her to choose them. Jewelry is not only a status symbol as many people invest their life long savings on the Jewelry, they carry a set of jewels years after years, generation after generation. Nowadays jewelry market is turning out to be profitable market for investment as well as elegant way of updating one’s attire. Starting from vintage jewelry to contemporary ones all of them are part of the jewelry market.Diamond and pearls are long lasting favorites of women. Enduring these jewels gives their personality a classy and decent look altogether. While fashions keep on changing as well as contemporary designs, new designs endorsed by celebrity people becomes the benchmark of changing fashion. Personified jewels are also in the rang

distributed. Let's define each. A flyer is an independant piece of printed material typically distributed by hand and bundled with many other flyers. An Insert is a flyer that is inserted into the local paper for distribution. Direct Mail is a flyer, card or Ad in a sealed envelope that can be specifically targeted to certain city zones, apartments, streets, businesses, high or low income areas etc. As you can imagine, direct mail is the more expensive method but best targeted.

Pros: Flyers are stand alone Ads that thrifty retail shoppers look forward to. The key is, to have an outstanding promotion or offer. Strong creative, pleasing layout and quality paper stock all make a difference as to how you are perceived by the shopper. Shoddy Ads = Shoddy business. (There are exceptions, but that will be discussed in another article.) Flyers allow you to coupon your product or service.

Cons: Flyers rarely deliver a high rate of return. Even when expertly conceived, designed and printed, they can easily get cast into the garbage bin. The key is to pre-promote your flyer i

Medical Billing - Billing The Wrong Carrier
In a previous installment of medical billing goofs, we discussed what happens when you bill the wrong item to a carrier and how you can be charged with fraud, but what happens when you send a bill to the wrong carrier. What follows is a genuine story. It's kind of funny when you read it, but the truth is, it's far from funny. This is some serious stuff.A medical billing company, we'll call them XYZ company, was sending out a claim for a patient, we'll call him John Smith, to Medicare Region A, which is in the New York area of the United States. Now in actuality, the name of the patient was a common name so there could have very well been many people with that name.Anyway, the bill makes its way to Medicare Region A and the response from Region A is that they are not going to pay the claim because the patient that the company was billing was dead. Well, to make a long story short, the medical billing company gets on a conference call with Medicare Region A and the patient. On the one end, the patient

When it comes to small business marketing and advertising, I am amazed at how many local advertisers squander their money. I wish I had the money they wasted. I'd be a rich man.

Let's talk about your typical retailer with 1 - 5 locations.

One of the biggest problems I've seen is that most retailers have no idea of which media to use when running a campaign. In fact, some don't even know WHY they are running a campaign.

They know they should advertise, but they don't really know what they are trying to accomplish.

Let's clarify the TOP 10 obvious reasons you should advertise.

1. You are opening a new business

2. You are closing a business

3. You have a problem selling sufficient quantities of your product or service

4. Your competitor has started a price war

5. You have taken on a new product line or phasing out a product

6. Your business is expanding with new locations

7. You need to renovate but don't want to lose business

8. Sales are dropping and you need to create a new buzz

9. You are moving your location

10.You want to go public

All these reasons to advertise are born of typical "problems" and Advertising solves problems!

I prefer to see problems as challenges and recommend that mindset for everyone. It makes it more of a positive game and stimulates the problem-solving areas of the brain instead of bringing on the worry & depression when you're scrambling to generate sales or save a business.

Now. Which media to use?

Let me give you the bigger picture of the Top 5 advertising vehicles.

RADIO

Need to get a message out fast? Nothing works better than radio!

Radio Pros: This is the sizzle. Hollywood. The Buzz. Entertainment. Excitement. Light my fire. Theatre of the mind. Fast turnaround. With the right production your local burger joint can come across like MacDonald's. Fairly inexpensive. A "word of mouth" medium that taps into the trusting subconscious that "A friend told me about such & such...".

Radio Cons: Sausage factory radio spot production and mediocre creative copywriting due to time constraints and poor client communication. Limited inventory of spots means there's nothing to buy when station is in a sold-out position.

PRINT

Print is all about details. Not enough time to say it in 30 seconds on radio? Take out a print Ad!

Print Pros: Powerful headlines work. Graphic images can be a powerful selling tool! Lots of room to showcase plenty of inventory. Good target market penetration. Good vehicle for couponing. Color Ads grab the eye. Reader can cut & save Ad or coupon.

Print Cons: Slow turnaround time due to production. Your Ad can end up on the same page as your competition (not recommended if the competition is underselling, but that's a whole other story!) Print production by the newspaper graphic department offers up less than interesting creative Ad design or punchy layout (because of time constraints). Can be quite expensive in certain markets. Easy to get lost on a page of Ads. Powerful headlines are key but hard to come by unless you hire an outside creative person oe design firm.

How else can you walk into someone's living room and get them to buy your product while they're still in their underwear?

TV Pros: Let's face it. Nothing beats the one-two punch of audio-video. Powerful visuals. Emotionally stirring music or audio sound bites. A dash of sex...intrique...fear...laughter... Yes - your emotions are being assaulted & manipulated by the very best advertisers in the world. And you know what? TV works!

So what if it cost Apple $10,000,000 to sell you 1 ipod? They'll make it back a hundred times!

TV Cons: Can be very expensive in local markets. Production is key but again, very expensive. Out of reach for many local businesses. That being said, there are TV. package opportunities available during off-season and sometimes end-of-season that are affordable. (I highly recommend you take advantage and get your feet wet with these type of offers).

FLYERS / INSERTS / DIRECT MAIL:

I have grouped these together because they fall into the category of distribution of printed material. The most telling difference is the way they are distributed. Let's define each. A flyer is an independant piece of printed material typically distributed by hand and bundled with many other flyers. An Insert is a flyer that is inserted into the local paper for distribution. Direct Mail is a flyer, card or Ad in a sealed envelope that can be specifically targeted to certain city zones, apartments, streets, businesses, high or low income areas etc. As you can imagine, direct mail is the more expensive method but best targeted.

Cons: Flyers rarely deliver a high rate of return. Even when expertly conceived, designed and printed, they can easily get cast into the garbage bin. The key is to pre-promote your flyer i

Write Headlines That Get Read
The Headline is the most important part of the ad. 80% of people will only read the headline. Therefore the headline has to do a selling job, to get people to read the rest of the ad. 20% of the people will read the rest of the ad because of the headline. The headline needs to show a benefit to the reader. We need to appeal to the readers needs. The readers needs are pleasure, convenience, health, money... Write your headline as if you are talking to your friend. Unless you tell the reader immediately and upfront what you have for them, they will be gone. If your ad isn't read, you have zero chance of selling the prospect. Words that will make people look are words like FREE, WIN, MAKE BIG MONEY... Get people to take action by using words like limited time offer, bonus if they act now. Study other headlines, and especially study headlines that keep repeating day after day. Repeating ads mean the person is making money with it, pay extra attention to these ads.Headlines need to show a benefit to the reader, an

cation

10.You want to go public

All these reasons to advertise are born of typical "problems" and Advertising solves problems!

Now. Which media to use?

Let me give you the bigger picture of the Top 5 advertising vehicles.

RADIO

Need to get a message out fast? Nothing works better than radio!

PRINT

Print is all about details. Not enough time to say it in 30 seconds on radio? Take out a print Ad!

How else can you walk into someone's living room and get them to buy your product while they're still in their underwear?

So what if it cost Apple $10,000,000 to sell you 1 ipod? They'll make it back a hundred times!

FLYERS / INSERTS / DIRECT MAIL:

Cons: Flyers rarely deliver a high rate of return. Even when expertly conceived, designed and printed, they can easily get cast into the garbage bin. The key is to pre-promote your flyer i

As Walgreens Goes, So Goes the Country
Walgreens is the second largest drug store company in the country (behind CVS, which has more stores but does not make as much money). Walgreens, founded by a man named... you guessed it, Walgreen, started in Chicago almost a hundred years ago. Walgreens grew rapidly mainly because the soda fountains featured something new, a chocolate malted milk shake. Today, with 425 new stores opening each year and 7,000 planned by 2010 it is a marketing force to be reckoned with.If you are even sleepily observant you have seen digital signs at the curb, under the big Walgreens logo. BIG Deal, you say. They ARE a big deal because they are not your father's digital signs with letters made of light bulbs that are turned on and off to make a scrolling pitch for headache remedies at half price. These boards are digital. Sort of a scaled down version of the jumbotron giant TVs in all the big stadiums.No longer is Walgreens limited to scrolling text; the nifty new digital signs can display product logos and many fonts o

and poor client communication. Limited inventory of spots means there's nothing to buy when station is in a sold-out position.

PRINT

Print is all about details. Not enough time to say it in 30 seconds on radio? Take out a print Ad!

How else can you walk into someone's living room and get them to buy your product while they're still in their underwear?

So what if it cost Apple $10,000,000 to sell you 1 ipod? They'll make it back a hundred times!

FLYERS / INSERTS / DIRECT MAIL:

Cons: Flyers rarely deliver a high rate of return. Even when expertly conceived, designed and printed, they can easily get cast into the garbage bin. The key is to pre-promote your flyer i

Using Those Business Cards
One of the first things you do when starting a business is to have business cards made up. The next thing you need to do is give them out. If you keep them in the card holders or the box in your office, they are not doing what you got them for. You should send a card out with any correspondence you send. You should tell all your friends and family what you are doing. Give them a bunch of cards to give to others. Do you go to a dry cleaner? A special car repair place? What about the grocery store, do you like to go to a particular checker? All of these people should have your business card, and know what you do. One of the first things we tell our PFYS students to do is to get their name out there. We tell them to get cards made up and give them out to everyone. With lease purchasing we emphasize that we offer referral fees. For example, we gave cards (a bunch of them) to our video store. We told the owner that if we do a deal with someone who got the card from his store he would get 10% of whate

ou walk into someone's living room and get them to buy your product while they're still in their underwear?

So what if it cost Apple $10,000,000 to sell you 1 ipod? They'll make it back a hundred times!

FLYERS / INSERTS / DIRECT MAIL:

Cons: Flyers rarely deliver a high rate of return. Even when expertly conceived, designed and printed, they can easily get cast into the garbage bin. The key is to pre-promote your flyer i

Business Success Means Achieiving The Success Advantage Factor Through 3 External Capacities
Much is written about the how to achieve business success. From the Balance Scorecard for business to The On-Purpose Business, business owners have a wealth of information to turn their hard efforts into bountiful success. Yet, success still eludes many.What I have recently discovered as a small business coach, is that there are 3 distinct and separate capacities that every business has regardless of size and how these are used determines The Success Advantage Factor. Planning Execution Measurement How the business leverages, balances and aligns these capacities within each area or department or dashboard is the Success Advantage Factor.Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance? by Louis V. Gertner, he shared that IBM did great planning, but had a terrible time in the capacity of execution and measurement. Research suggests that many

Cons: You pay extra for mass targeting. Can be very expensive. Poor creative can render your efforts invisible. Production can eat up alot of your budget. Slow turnaround. Key positions are booked sometimes for years in advance.

The biggest question you are probably asking is: What do I do now?

That all depends on what "challenge" your business is presenting.

You need to formulate a plan of action. This is typically called an advertising plan.

You must:

1. come up with an affordable advertising budget

This money should be viewed as an investment

2. create a timeline (how long you need to advertise)

Decide if this is a longer image-building campaign or a short promotional campaign

3. define the nature of your campaign and what you hope to accomplish

Do you want to build up your name or sell a particular product or service?

4. come up with a strong creative campaign

You can play safe and follow everyone else who is successful, or lead with new and aggressive creative

5. select the media (preferrably more than one) you can afford

I caution you to avoid a one media campaign. They are very limiting. Whenever possible, use a combination - ie: print/radio, flyer/radio, tv/print, tv/billboard

Once you have done all of the above you are closer to taking your first step. Unfortunately, advertising goes much deeper than this. ie: what kind of Ad offer do I make? What kind of creative do I use? Is my logo strong enough? Is the newspaper Ad big enough? How many spots should I buy on the radio? Color? Black & White? What print stock should I use?

It can be daunting.

The good news is, most media have reliable reps to help you sort it all out. Your job then, may be to separate fact from fiction. The best way to do this is to pick the most knowledgeable rep who understands more than their own product and give them the opportunity to advise you.

You can also hire an independant consultant or a small Advertising Agency to put it all together for you.

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Avoid Companies That Promise Thousands Of Text Links For Your Site Via Blogs And Directories

Don't be fooled by companies that promise thousands of text links for your site via blogs and directories

The War at Home: Marketing Opportunities in an Era of Terrorism

America is in a new kind of war, and the demands on American business will be significantly different than in World War II. Then, the nation's entire business community focused on one objective, winning the war by mass-producing the weapons of war. This time the volume of weapons produced won't be a determining factor in the war's outcome. Victory may ultimately just be maintaining the American lifestyle. Here's how we can win.

Take Your Curtain Calls Later!

You may not want to brag about your success right now, advises Dr. Gary S. Goodman, President of Customersatisfaction.com, sales, service & success coach, and best-selling author. According to this popular speaker and radio and TV expert commentator, shouting about your success can spawn unwanted competition and threaten your business.

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