Marketing Help Requested

Originally Posted by debbie

Hi Everyone,

I have had some bulk orders- ie one was to a financial planner in my yoga class, a couple to assisted living facilities and one to another local business. Two of the businesses gave it out to employees and two gave it out as a thank you to customers/clients.


Debbie

Debbie, since these companies have shown an interest why not get a testimonial from them and simply place an ad with the testimonial in it of course in their various industry trade pub or mags.

More times then not business have what i call the "lemming effect". If one does something you can bet a lot of the others will.


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Jim

Jim,

You said: Debbie, since these companies have shown an interest why not get a testimonial from them and simply place an ad with the testimonial in it of course in their various industry trade pub or mags.

Do you mean a classified ad and can you give an example of a trade pub or mag that would be good? I am trying to get bulk orders either for employee appreciation or customer appreciation or people using the item as a promotional tool.. I am not sure what magazines would be appropriate. I think something that hr managers, sales managers, marketing managers of companies would read. What is that??

For the end user, I would be using more a psychology or wellness type of magazine. Thanks. I haven't done much offline so any ideas I appreciate.

Debbie

Debbie,
A display ad would be best however their is nothing wrong with the classifields either.

Quite frankly i don't know the trade magazinesfor your target market however the best way to find out is the ASK the people IN your target market.

Most libraries will also have a ref book that list all the trade magazines you should be able to find your target market's trade magazine in that.

Jim

[GordonJ]

Originally Posted by debbie

Jim,

I am trying to get bulk orders either for employee appreciation
or
customer appreciation
or
people using the item as a promotional tool..
Debbie

Hi Debbie,

My opinion is you are asking your booklet to be too many things. You are asking it to do too much, to work too hard.

I think the most profitable model is to use them as a "promotional" tool. Which could be a customer appreciation and employee appreciation thing too. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by those terms.

The booklet that most likely will earn you the most income, is one that a company can use to give to customers or prospects, that contains useful information relevant to the business.

Jimmy Krug's booklet to Credit Unions was about loans and financial things.

How do you "twist and turn" (as Phil might suggest)...your current booklet to match any of these targets?

I think with a different COVER. With today's printers, it is easy to create a glossy stock cover, either in 4 color or 2 color, and send at least TWO samples to the targets in questions. You let them know that you can custom create the COVER, which is four pages to be used by the company to put their logo, their contact information, an introduction, a mailing address...and all this without having to rewrite or edit the booklet.

NOW you have given your prospects a choice, and they are more likely to consider ordering from you if they can CUSTOMIZE the booklet to meet their needs.

How to reduce stress must be oriented toward their business however, so if you have several pages you can "slug" with industry specific jargon or give them industry specific suggestions, then you have a better product to offer.

Stress reduction for REALTORS. How to relax and thrive in today's economy.

Stress reduction for INSURANCE agents. Why today is the time to get your quotes going.

Stress reduction for BANKERS, Are you one of the 300,000 about to lose your job?

Stress reduction for Work From Home MOMS.

I'd think the actual techniques would be very similar, however, by addressing the industry, place, the time etc., and all done by having spots in the booklet that you simply use the industry you're targeting, might help out.

The KEY, I believe, to selling your booklets, is to target very specific industries...and when you do that, then the places to advertise become much clearer. TONS of things Realtors read. Same for Insurance types.

Whatever your target, they have newsletters, magazines, ezines, support groups etc. All places you can go fishing, IF you target them specifically.

There are about 100001 articles and such on "stress reduction". What makes yours unique? WHY would they be interested? What's in it for them?

When you differentiate yourself, and offer up something to HELP them, to solve their problems, to give them more business...then you start to get full cooperation. It is the old GIVE then Get principle.

Gordon Alexander

Hi Debbie,

Maybe an edge in the DESIGN of your booklet could also help.

I really like the work of Chuck Green.

Here’s some of his ideas and free templates:

The simple, small booklet
http://www.ideabook.com/tutorials/pr...l_package.html

Super-Simple Self-Publishing
http://www.okidata.com/mkt/html/nf/b...ublishing.html

Create an out-of-the-ordinary booklet
http://www.ideabook.com/tutorials/pr...ate_an_ou.html

Business Document Templates
http://www.okidata.com/mkt/html/nf/bdt_home.html

Cheers,

Rod Carr

one more...

Illustrated headlines
http://www.ideabook.com/tutorials/ty...headlines.html

Rod

Paulette Ensign (she's sold millions of booklets) has a great article on making money selling booklets on her blog...
http://tipsbooklets.blogspot.com/200...g-selling.html

Also...check out BizyMoms.com and Yudkin.com

Years ago, I did booklets for Credit Unions where I'd get Car Dealers to buy an ad in my "Car Buyers Guide" booklets. For their ad money they got;
1) Full Page Ad in the Booklet (5,000 copies given to Credit Unions to give to their members)
2) A Display Board in the lobby of the CU which held 8" by 10" Ads for participating Car Dealers.

You might want to consider providing FREE Booklets to a Target Market and selling Ads to the businesses who want to reach that Target Market.

Don Alm

Wow,

Gordon, Rod and Don I appreciate the additional ideas.

Gordon:

I already have them printed so I think the cover customization idea is good for me at this point. Would you do mailings and how would you target this if at this point it is generic? It has tips from yoga and psychology for stress reduction and I was thinking of pharmaceutical companies, hospitals, therapists, yoga teachers, mattress manufacturers etc. I have found the marketing directors names for a number of places via Research USA and Hoovers. It is expensive to mail each out and I'm trying to figure out best way to narrow things down as well as to reach top decision maker. As things stand for now the booklet is not for a specific industry and I want to market the quantity I just printed to get cashflow for other projects. Marcia Yudkin wrote that you can have press releases like xyz for lawyers and xyz for chiropractors etc so I thought that was another idea for the same book/booklet as a press release without changing content.

I received an order on the internet from someone for employee appreciation day so that was why I differentiated it from a promotional item as I think employee appreciation gifts are for employee recognition and retention (though ultimately it is to help the company's business so it is a promotional item too ). There is so much written about stress in workplace and people changing jobs due to stress as well as having chronic stress so I thought human resources depts could be good targets.

Rod,

Thank you for the links. I have had good feedback on the cover so that is good news.

Don,

Jimmy Krug did my first printing actually and said a car dealership liked my cover when he once showed them a bunch of booklets.

I like the idea of the ad being covered and then giving free distribution. I was thinking of a pharmaceutical company for the sponsor and then to give out free to hospitals, local clinics and girls/boys clubs but I wasn't sure how you "prove" to the sponsor that you did the distribution (can of course get a receipt from administrator who receives them). I know a NYC clinic that would take 1000 but wasn't sure how to find a sponsor for it. Thanks for all the ideas and feedback.

Debbie

Debbie,

Here's a pretty amazing article from David Frey that could also help:

How to Sell 120,000 Books With a Single Phone Call

http://www.marketingbestpractices.com/members/480.cfm

Registration to his membership site is free, and I would highly recommend.

Cheers,

Rod

Rod,

Thank you. I was just thinking about pharmaceutical companies and that is what the article is about. The person is a doctor so I think that helped his connections but it is a good read and there seems to be similar articles on the site about this. I found a very good book Jump Start Your Book Sales that has a good section on premiums and promotional items too.

Debbie