“Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

- Thomas Edison

“If you can’t do it better, why do it?”

- Herbert H. Dow (Founder of Dow Chemical)

Most experts predict ad spending in 2009 will be down 5-8% over last year, but for small businesses that number could be tripple or more.

The trick about advertising is simply to be smart about how you spend your money.  Imagine it were your own.  Don’t get oversold by print salespeople.  Take fresh ideas in and evanulate your options.  Find new ways to reach people.  Learn about new online techniques that can hypertarget a better audience.  Track your results, and always question if there is a better way.

The most important thing about advertising is creativity.  Think about the superbowl commercial you still remember.  What’s the last billboard your remember?  What recent print ad really made an impression?

I had a friend email me some fun examples of ad examples that really made a mark.  You can do something like this for any size company, and it doesn’t have to cost a lot.  The magic happens when you get people taking pictures of it, then share it with their friends.  A regular billboard does little.  A billboard that 1,000 people twitter about, post to their facebook, or email out can reach millions.

Bic razor. $1000 custom razor + billboard.

Mr. Clean. $20 in paint, plus getting the city to allow it.

Quit smoking. $500 for outdoor adhesive, plus ad space.

Local Office Supply store. $3000 custom product, plus telling the city you'll repaint the lines every year for free.

Over the next 5 blog posts I’m going to cover the broad spectrum of event planning.  I’m going to dive in a little more on the topics of Event Branding, SWAG (Stuff We All Get) and Buzz.  For 5 years, before starting Collar Free, I was an event planner that handled 15+ events/year, and served over 6,000 sales reps and managers for Cutco/Vector Marketing.  My annual event budget was well over a $1M, and we were masters at putting on a show.  Vector was a great place for a young person to work, and an even better place for a young person to learn some mad business skills on the inside.

Not many people know it but the majority of our business actually serve the business community.  Collar Free was how we got started, but it takes a lot of resources, money, people and time, to launch a new brand.  When we started collar free, we also created a “Custom” division to the company.  Here we helped share our knowledge on promotional products (SWAG), custom apparel, commercial printing, and effective on and off-line promotion to other businesses.  Now operating under the Artistic Hub umbrella, our custom division has a handful of additional products and services, and we serve all types and sizes of organizations.

This post is going to be a 5-part series on effective promotional marketing.  It’s meant for Event planners, directors, and marketing managers, but can be applied to lots of industries.  Here’s the outline for the next few posts:

1. Branding an Event – How to lay the groundwork for a great event/campaign.
2. How to Negotiate everything!
3. Effective marketing through promotional products (SWAG) – Turning an expense into a revenue stream.
4. How to generate Buzz!
5. How to manage an event.

We’re launching a new product right now, so I was really interested in the sales related stories. God I love great promotion.  Below, a funny story I just had to read up more on…

Before the TV show Barney and Friends became a knock-out annoyance on the everyone’s radar, there was the unknown “Barney and The Backyard Gang,” a video series created by the Lyons Group.  Actually, Barney was created in 1988 by Sheryl Leach, and was the only product of the Lyons Group, a privately held company in Allen, Tex.

The clever thing was the marketing genius here.  They couldnt get the retarded Dinosaur in a single store, so they sent free tapes to area preschools to create buzz.  The creater had created it for her children, and I imagine was pretty passionate about it’s possible success.  Then they hired telemarketers to call on stores to stock it.  Once stocked, they sent a list of stores where parents could go buy the tapes to the schools they shipped the tapes.

Barney became the best selling toy in 1993, selling over $500 million in products.

Read an article that my business partner Jimmy sent me a while back.  Social Media Predictions 2009 interviewed a number of industry experts and gave some great advice on what’s to come.

This article led me to Scott Monty, head of Social Media at Ford. Here’s a great recent interview with Scott on Fox:

One thing seems clear. Twitter may be one of the most powerful and fastest “listening” tools on the internet.

My old boss used to say “headlines” when he wanted the short on something we were working on. Twitter forces people to use headlines, and there’s great value in that. How many times have you tweeted, and had to go back and eliminate unnecessary words.

Off to tweet this post…

Design refers to many things.  It’s not just the creative used in advertising, promotion, product development or communication of ideas, but it’s in the design of a company’s culture and structure.  Open platforms that break down internal communication barriers are designed to create innovation.  Open work spaces that create better work flow in companies are designed to foster collaboration.

The root problem of the design philosophy in most companies is that “as soon as a designer is hired, the perceived value in his or her talents depreciates faster than a BMW showroom.” – TDC, p. 98

The reality – the design department is just as important, or more important than any other department.  Designers create the visual expression of the company.  They link the company to its customers through memorable cues.  The designer does more for a company’s brand message than almost any other company role.

The value of truly great design on a company-wide scale may be immeasurable.

Amy touched on elements of the sign of hard times.  From Larry Flynt applying for a bailout to Trump running into trouble.  But what really hit home was the a point she made about people talking about the job market.

In a time of economic uncertainty, with the unemployment rate now at 7.6%, and every time you turn on the news all it is is bad news, it’s easy to passively agree with people when they say things like, “you’re lucky to be doing well,” or “your people are lucky to have a job.”  The reality on the other hand is, as Amy points out, we are lucky to have such great people.  Last night, while reading this I felt compelled to make a list of the things we’re lucky to have when it comes to our business:

• Understanding, patient and reasonable investors who trust us to do the right thing.  A special note to my brother Rob, and my old roommate and close friend Mike, who were the first two investors and put large portions of their savings into this business before we event had a real business plan.  Thank you for your faith in us.
• Great, hardworking and positive employees who follow us and trust us.  Mel, our first employee, who has been a part of such fun change over the last year and a half.  Seth, who came in and fixed everything.  Michelle, who helped provide the candy coating to the “M&M”.  Andrew, who we’re always happy to have come in and take over
  Conference Room D (we work out of an apartment, so all the multi-use spaces are named for their real rooms, D=dining room).  Our new sales team, Eric, Nate, Carlee, and Mike; it’s going to be very exciting to see what you will do, and what we give back to the organizations you’re calling to help.
• A best friend, and fantastic business partner.  The naysayers are wrong.  Go into business with a friend, the right friend.  Business is tough in any environment.  Weighing the daily decisions against their short term benefits and long term implications is a constant struggle.  Managing debt, creating change, forming a culture, investing in new directions are no walk in the park either.  I’m the luckiest person in business that I know.
• Fantastic Mentors.  There are so many to name, and I’m sure Jimmy would add people to this list.  People like Philip Rowcliff, Jimmy’s old boss and a Director at The Active Network, who we may never be able to really measure the impact of to the both of us and our organization.  My dad, Ingrid Sanders, Steven Cox, Dmitry Shapiro, and many former bosses and collegues like Dave Durand, PJ Potter, and Earl Seals and Mike Muriel.
• The Springboard Program.  Jimmy wrote about this before here, so I’ll spare re-writing what he covered perfectly the first time.

A last note on our team.  It’s called many things from Karma to divine justice, to simply cause and effect, but the reality is luck does go both ways.  Jimmmy and I are very lucky have found such a great team, and it’s turned out to be our best investment yet.

M&M (Mel & Michelle, our design team)

Jimmy, Eric, Mike & Nate (part of The Sales Team).

One of the most important keys to keeping fresh, staying ahead of the competition, and separating yourself from the pack on something other than price, is simply proving why you’re different. In a tough economy like today where everyone is offering big discounts to land business, simply being a little bit different can help keep your products and services selling at full price. So many companies cut their prices, and their margins to stay afloat. This puts so much strain on a business, and causes many to collapse.

Here are some great ideas or areas to differentiating you product:

• Differentiate based on quality – a higher quality product almost always commands a higher price.
• Differentiate based on being first or the latest.

“Artistic Hub is the first custom design competition platform with fully integrated on-demand printing capabilities hosted within a company’s website.” 

• Differentiate through unique features or design – add unique features people care about and would pay more for.
  
• Differentiate by creating clever marketing or promotion – a funny ad, or a clever newsletter can create a following who’s willing to buy more often, and pay more for the same product.
• Differentiate base on deliverables and availability – if the other guys say 4-6 weeks, figure out how to deliver in 2-3 weeks.
• Differentiate based on your market specialty - if you offer many products, focus on the products you are an absolute expert in, and share why you are.
• Create customer intimacy – show how you’re there to learn from them, and help develop a unique solution for them.

Remember, positioning starts with identifying your customer’s needs. Nobody cares if you’re different if what you’re different on doesn’t affect their concerns.  Always do a proper needs analysis before creating your differentiation strategy.

“My friend just Twitter’d me and it says, “USA Swimming suspends Michael Phelps for three months!” Can we please leave this kid alone? Here’s a guy that has been training his ASS off since the age of 9, which means he has had to sacrifice all fun.

Now, at 23, he’s a 14-time Olympic Gold Medalist, a swimming God and the benefactor of several multi-million dollar endorsements. So, the kid wants to let loose, meet a few chicks and holy shit, smoke some a little herb to relax and ponder his massive accomplishments. People, let’s worry about how we’re going to solve the economic crises. Oh, and can you call Cheech and Chong and tell them Phelps is coming over!! Go Phelps. Go Phelps. Go Phelps.”

A note from me:
I would like to note here that who should be reprimanded is the greedy paparazzi, journalist or fellow classmate looking to make a buck by spying on and taking a picture of Phelps. This unnecessary slander of a great national treasure is the real sad story.