8 Free Advertising Ideas For Weird Ads

Writen by Tino Buntic

In the wake of CBS placing advertisements on eggs (yes, it's true, CBS is placing ads on actual egg shells), I've decided to come up with a compilation of ideas for places to put a company advertisement.

Eggs are the last place that you would expect to see an advertisement. That's why, if you were to see an ad on an egg, you would stop to take notice. Advertising can work if people stop to take notice, especially if it's really weird and garners free publicity (like the body part advertising on eBay a little while ago). So, putting a business ad on an unexpected place can do wonders.

With that said, I've compiled a list of 20 free advertising ideas for weird places that you can place your company ad. To my knowledge, none of these have yet been done:

1. On top of coffee lids – You don't expect to see a marketing message staring up at you when taking that morning sip of coffee.
2. On a competitor's product - This may be difficult to do but if you and a competitor advertise on each other's products it would even out. This may attract free publicity, as well.
3. Inside the pages of books - Magazines have pages of ads, so why not books? There could be a special advertising section in books. This could provide very targeted advertising.
4. Straws - I've yet to see an ad on a McDonalds straw that I drink my Coca-Cola with.
5. Songs - We've seen product placement in movies and TV shows like Donald Trump's The Apprentice, but I've yet to hear a product placement in a song. Imagine paying Britney Spears to sing about your product in the chorus of one of her hit pop songs that gets a lot of radio play... Hit me baby one more time – in the passenger seat of my brand-new 2008 Audi A4.
6. Beside the "nutrition facts" label of food products - This one might be geared more towards diet or weight loss types of companies. The people that actually look at these labels are probably more likely to notice that type of marketing message.
7. Emergency vehicles - Police, ambulance, fire trucks. That might be difficult to set up, but what better way for, say, a cash strapped police department to find revenue to hire more police officers than to sell some advertising space on their police cars?
8. Moon - I'm sure it can't be done, and if it can it would cost too much. But, how about an advertisement on the face of the moon?

Tino Buntic created TradePals to provide free advertising to business professionals and entrepreneurs across North America. Tino also enjoys reading blogs and two of his favorite blogs include AdJab and Jaffe Juice.

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11 Ways To Make Your Business Cards Work For You

Writen by Tanya Beaudoin

1. Spend money on decent quality business cards. Home made cards just don't compare to the quality of professionally printed cards. Your cards reflect your business - do you really want your cards screaming cheap!

2. Always hand out two business cards – one for the prospect and one for them to handout to a colleague.

3. Enter your business cards in Free Lunch draws at restaurants.

4. Make your card unique in size, shape or texture. You want your card to stand out from the crowd. There are very nice folded cards that will provide more room to detail your services.

5. Leave your business cards everywhere you go – leave one on the table in a restaurant, post a few on community bulletin boards.

6. Tuck one of your business cards inside of library books – especially books related to your services. Perhaps someone who is researching databases will decide to save him or herself the trouble and will hire you instead!

7. Include business cards with your invoices, or bill payments.

8. Quite often, you will see vehicles lettered with their business info parked in parking lots – tuck your business card in the window on the driver's door.

9. Are you attending a trade or consumer show? Use your business card as a ballot for the many draws and contests through out the event.

10. When handing out a business card to a prospecting take the time to write a personal message on the back of the card. This could be a promotion or discount or even your cell phone number. This personal message can make the prospect feel special and will save your business card from the dumpster.

11. Make your business card useful. On the backside of the card, include a calendar, map, or even keyboarding shortcuts. Something that will encourage the prospect to hold on to your card.

© 2004-2005 Tanya Beaudoin o/a Office on Demand, All rights reserved. You are free to use this article in its entirety, as long as you include complete attribution, including live web site link. Please also notify Mrs. Beaudoin as to where the material will appear. The attribution should read: "Tanya Beaudoin, B.A. is a virtual assistant who specializes in e-solutions (including graphic and and web site design) and administrative support for small businesses and non-profit organizations.

Please visit Tanya's web site at http://www.officeondemand.ca for additional business related articles"

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10 Ways To Improve Your Print Ads

Writen by David Coyne

1) Include a coupon in your large ads. This can increase response from 25 to 100 percent. Your coupon could offer the prospect your brochure or catalog.

2) Use a benefit headline on your coupon that affirms the prospect is getting valuable, needed information. E.g. "Yes, I want to reduce my inventory costs by 50 percent."

3) Include a picture of your brochure or catalog in your ad.

4) Use a sidebar in your ad packed with tips that your prospect will find useful. E.g "10 Ways To Reduce Your Phone Bill."

5) Concentrate your copy on the prospect, not on your company. Tell your prospect how your product or service will solve their problems. Use the words "you" and "your" frequently and "I" and "We" less.

6) With a smaller ad, you can ask the prospect to tear out the ad, attach their business card and mail it to your company.

7) Consider converting your ad into an advertorial. This format looks more like an article and contains valuable information. It attracts people who normally skip over ads because advertorials look like editorial content. If the publisher will allow it, use the same typeface as the publication the advertorial appears in. To see advertorial samples, visit the "Portfolio" section of my website http://www.dc-infobiz.com/

8) Put quotation marks around the headline. This can draw 28 percent more attention than a headline without quotation marks.

9) Consider running your ad in black and white if you're using mostly text in the ad. Without colour, the ad looks more like an article.

10) The headline is the most important part of an ad. Spend time creating a powerful, benefit packed headline. If you don't stop the reader in their tracks with a good headline, few will bother to read the rest of the ad.

About The Author

David Coyne is a copywriter and marketing consultant. Need help writing your brochures, ads, web pages and other marketing materials? Contact David at his web site: http://www.dc-infobiz.com

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The Hidden Treasures Of Fax Advertising

Writen by Ray Mardo

Advertising is a major part of any successful business. Doing business without advertising is like winking at a girl in the dark: You know what you are doing, but nobody else does. That would be foolish, as well as a waste of time. We are not in business to waste time or to make foolish decisions.

Advertising can come in many different forms. It can be full page display ads in nationally distributed magazines, that produce thousands of dollars in profits. It can be in the form of television commercials that bring in tremendous amounts of inquiries and profits. It can even come in the form of word of mouth advertising that costs you nothing, yet brings you profits still. We will work on getting the best of all advertising mediums for you.

You do need to learn, and remember, one thing before we go on. You need to know that: "The only advertising that costs you money is unsuccessful advertising!" Unsuccessful advertising is foolish advertising. You must take several steps before spending any advertising dollars. Let's cover some of these steps:

1) Research, Research, Research!
2) Stick to a budget.
3) Test your idea before committing long term.
4) Learn from your competition.

There are several key factors that come into play when it comes to advertising. This article is merely meant to help you scratch the surface, and give you a few key pointers that will educate you enough to make educated decisions.

There are no guarantees when it comes to the world of advertising. You can have what appears to be the best idea in the world, and it can flop miserably. But, if you do your home work (research), these will be few and far between, if even at all.

It is assumed that most of you are not working with the largest of advertising budgets. That is perfectly ok. It is very possible to effectively advertise with little money. In fact, if you are industrious enough, I will show you how to advertise with virtually no money. Just read on...

Fax machines have revolutionized the way that business is conducted in the world. It is extremely affordable for anyone to own a fax machine. You can pick one up at a garage sale or on ebay for under ten dollars. If you are going to be conducting business, you should have one.

How many times have you heard someone say, "I'll fax that right over to you?" I'm not exactly sure how many times that I've heard it, but I am sure that businesses are not using the fax machine to it's full potential as a powerful advertising tool. The only time that I've seen the fax machine used to advertise (except for myself doing it) was by restaurants faxing their menus by request.

Think about it, by using your fax machine to advertise your business, you spend only the time that it takes to fax the message. Also, if it's a local call, you won't be spending any money. Even if the call is long distance, you will only incur a small telephone fee because of the information being transmitted so quickly.

Let's imagine that you have gone through your phone book, and you've found several businesses that you'd like to do business with. Instead of having several letters typed, addressing several envelopes, stamping each envelope, and taking the letters to the Post Office, with your fax machine, you can complete the task in a fraction of the time at a small percentage of the cost. You also will not even have to leave your home. You won't even have to pay for postage.

There is also one more way of faxing, and that is by a modem through your personal computer. With a fast modem and some decent software, you can have your computer fax documents that you have created in it to various individuals, or businesses, at times that you have predetermined. The computer will even try again if the fax does not go through the first time! Imagine that. You can literally be sleeping and conducting business all over the world.

Do not underestimate this powerful advertising medium. It is low cost and it gives your business a very professional looking presence. When properly used (especially through your computer modem), faxing can save you lots of time and money.

Ray Mardo has provided business consulting services to mom and pop stores and Fortune 500 companies. His DJ business LGRE was listed in Entrepreneur Magazine's top 500 businesses in the nation. These days the Austin Film Festival honored writer spends his time typing away screenplays and novels and internet marketing. Two of his websites are: http://www.raymardo.com
http://www.whoisthecoolestguyontheplanet.com

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How Much Money Do I Need To Spend On Advertising

Writen by Steve Moundzouris

Q: I've never really done much advertising for my business; I've always relied on networking and word-of-mouth. Now I'd like to launch a small campaign, but I'm frightened it will cost a lot of money. How can I figure out where to start?

A: The first thing you must do is calculate your minimum and maximum allowable ad budgets:

· Step 1: Take 10 percent and 12 percent of your projected annual, gross sales and multiply each by the markup made on your average transaction. In this first step, it's important to remember that we're talking about gross markup here, not margin. Markup is gross profit above cost, expressed as a percentage of cost. Margin is gross profit expressed as a percentage of the selling price. Sell an item for $150 when it only costs you $100, and your markup is 50 percent. Your margin, however, is only 33.3 percent. This is because the same $50 gross profit represents 50 percent of your cost (markup,) but only 33.3 percent of the selling price (margin.) Most retail stores in America (carpet, jewelry and so on) operate on an average markup of approximately 100 percent, some operate on as little as 50 percent markup and others add as much as 200. More expensive items, such as cars, recreational vehicles and houses, typically carry a markup of only 10 to 15 percent.

· Step 2: Deduct your annual cost of occupancy (rent) from the adjusted 10 percent of sales number and the adjusted 12 percent number.

· Step 3: The remaining balances represent your minimum and maximum allowable ad budgets for the year. At this point in the calculation, you may learn that you've already spent your ad budget on expensive rent, or you might also learn that you should be doing a lot more advertising than you had previously suspected.

Now let's calculate an ad budget. Assume that my business is projected to do $1 million in sales this year, I have a profit margin of 48 percent, and my rent is $36,000 per year. The first thing to do is calculate 10 percent of sales and 12 percent of sales ($100,000 and $120,000, respectively).

Second, we must convert my 48 percent profit margin into markup, because markup is what we've got to have to make this formula work. Most business owners know their margin by heart, but never their markup. To make the conversion from margin to markup, simply divide gross profits by cost. Dividing $480,000 (gross profits) by $520,000 (hard cost) shows us that a 48 percent margin represents a markup of 92.3 percent. Bingo.

Now we multiply $100,000 times 92.3 percent to see that our adjusted low budget for total cost of exposure is $92,300. Likewise, we multiply $120,000 times 92.3 percent to get an adjusted high budget for total cost of exposure of $110,760. From each of these two budgets, we must now deduct our $36,000 rent. This leaves us with a correctly calculated ad budget that ranges from $56,300 on the low side to a maximum of $74,760 on the high side.

Most advertising salespeople will tell you that "5 to 7 percent of gross sales" is the correct amount to budget for advertising, but don't you believe it. It simply isn't possible to designate a percentage of gross sales for advertising without taking into consideration the markup on your average sale and your rent. Yes, expensive rent for a high-visibility location is often the best advertising your money can buy, since a business with a good sign in a high-visibility location will need to advertise significantly less than a similar business in an affordable location.

To prove this, just look at the example above and change the rent to $75,000 per year. In this case, the ad budget would range from $17,300 to $35,760, representing just 1.7 to 3.5 percent of sales. The formula I've given you is the only one that reconciles your ad budget with your rent as well as the profitability of your average sale. Good luck!

Steve Moundzouris, 423-653-2201 BigWater Media Group, Bigwater Media Group is a full service advertising and marketing agency.

http://www.bigwatermg.com

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5 Ultimate Graphic Design Mistakes Things That Graphic Designers Should Avoid At All Costs

Writen by Horatio Farquaar

1. Using web graphics on printed material.

With many young designers coming from a pre-dominantly web design background the transfer over from web design to traditional design for print can bring with it a multitude of design sins. Images supplied at 72dpi and crunched down to load fast on a website are going to reproduce very badly in print you can get away with small thumbnails but blowing things up to any appreciable size is going to be pushing your luck. There are a number of online sites offering free or very cheap quality hi resolution images which are a good source for suitable imagery.

2. Forgetting about or not allowing enough bleed.

A very common error is to send to print a document or flattened image that has no bleed at all. Generally speaking you should allow at least 3mm around every cut off edge. Failing to do so will give the printers no leeway and will either crop off the side of the page or give you a white border. It is always a good idea when supplying image files to save layered psd files then if things need extending or cropping you can do this on the background layer and hopefully cut down your work

3. Using obscure fonts and not embedding or outlining them for output.

We've all been guilty of this at some point and things are generally fine if you are going to be the only person accessing your artwork or documents. However if someone else needs to amend the files or use your vector logo on one of there publications. Unless you package up the used fonts, they are not going to be able to open the files correctly and some software programs may replace any unknown fonts with a default. This is a particular problem when you need to dig out stuff that was created several years previously and you no longer have your old fonts installed.

4. Supplying print ready artwork using spot colours or rgb

There are valid reasons for using spot colours in artwork, logos that need to reference particular pantone colours for example. In general design work however most print is sent through on 4 colour presses CMYK with occasional 5th colour for luminoius or metallic colour or for spot UV varnish. It is very common for lazy designers to just place rgb images into files and expect the vibrant colours seen on screen to reproduce in print.

5. Allowing design illiterate clients to lead you round the houses

The customer is always right, goes the old adage. However it is often said with gritted teeth and a sense of patience that recognizes that these morons will at some stage be handing over a fat cheque for your troubles. It is often a good idea when first submitting visuals to throw in a couple of stinkers to hopefully get them to appreciate the design you would like them to accept. There is the very real danger of course of them loving the piece of absolute arsewipe that you knocked up in five minutes to make them think you've been earning your money. Still it's a living.

Mindtap http://www.mindtap.co.uk is your single point entry into the UK creative industries. We are looking to create a unique site where you can access information on UK graphic design http://www.lunatrix.co.uk

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Advertising Advice To Ensure Your Ad Gets Results

Writen by Judy May

Here is a question my clients pose regularly:

I've been in business for several months and things are moving in the right direction; however, I want more business. I've thought about advertising but it seems so expensive. Do you have any advice on where to advertise and how much to spend?

Many design professionals equate advertising with marketing. This is not, in fact, the case. While advertising may be a component of an effective marketing strategy, the terms "advertising" and "marketing" are NOT synonymous.

Advertising is, in most cases, expensive and – without repeated ad appearances – fails to provide the new business you hoped for. As a result, I highly recommend focusing your efforts on other marketing strategies that are more effective, such as speaking and writing.

But, to the extent your budget is large enough to support an advertising campaign (as opposed to haphazard occasional placement of "an ad here and another ad there" – otherwise known as "shotgun advertising" which is NOT at all effective), I have a few things you should keep in mind:

• Advertising budget. The Small Business Administration suggests that 5% of your gross sales should be budgeted for advertising. As an example, if you project $50,000 in gross revenues, the SBA recommends that your annual advertising budget be $2,500 (or just over $200/month). While you can use this as a "rule of thumb," don't fret if your available funds do not support this kind of expenditure. Instead of investing hundreds of DOLLARS per month in traditional advertising, spend your TIME & EFFORTS seeking to "get in front of" your target market as much as possible (by, for example, speaking, writing or networking).

• Before placing an ad, do your homework. Contact the publication to ascertain demographics related to their subscribers and readers. Indeed, you need to confirm that your target market reads the publication you seek to advertise in.

• There is no correlation between the amount of money spent and the resulting new business. This conclusion was reached in a recent study at the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. So if the money spent does not necessarily indicate the success of an ad, what does?

• The message is the most important aspect of an ad. Often, the message is in the headline, which is the first – and, often, the only – part of the ad readers will see. The headline needs to be simple, compelling and, ideally, appeal to the reader's emotions. If the headline delivers in this way, the reader will likely be drawn in to read the rest of the ad.

• Think "out of the box" when creating your ad. If you want your ad to be read, you should strive to make it unique – ensure that it "stands out" from the rest. Let's take your local Yellow Pages as an example. If you would peruse your Yellow Pages, I'm confident you would see that most are of the same format – what is called an "institutional" ad. That is where the logo and/or company name are "front and center", along with their contact information. Rather than "leaping off the page with an attention-grabbing headline, many ads "look like all the rest", which often results in a less-than-expected return on investment. So, instead of creating a "cookie cutter" ad, take the time to focus on your target market – choosing a problem they struggle with (e.g., putting a space together to look cohesive and attractive) – and try to come up with a headline that promises a solution to that problem.

Here's an example: Instead of saying: "Specializing in One Day Room Makeovers", try this: "Come home to a beautiful like-new space . . . completed in just one day". Do you now see the difference?

• Repetition is key. As mentioned earlier, you cannot expect to get results from one ad placed one time in on publication. Likewise, placing an ad in one publication one month, then placing that same ad in another publication the following month, etc. will not get you the response you seek. To the contrary, the key to success in advertising is multiple appearances in the same publication so that readers begin to recognize you, get to know you, trust you, etc. The average reader will NOT contact you after seeing your ad once. In fact, most people will contact a business only after seeing the ad 8 or more times. As a result, before investing in advertising, realize that your investment will pay for itself only if you engage in a true advertising "campaign".

Judy May is the President of Show House Marketing, a business development and marketing firm catering exclusively to design industry professionals. She can be reached at 610.324.5240 or judy@ShowHouseMarketing.com. For FREE Resources, including the Weekly $uccess Secrets Newsletter and the New! 14-day Jump Start your Design Business E-Course, visit them online at: http://www.ShowHouseMarketing.com.

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