I have this idea for a great invention but I don’t know were to start, tips?

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Right now, you have only an idea, which unfortunately isn’t worth anything.

If your invention is something tangible (a product), then before you spend any time trying to build it, first see if the idea has already been patented (Google Patents or USPTO Office). If it hasn’t been patented, then your next step is to build a prototype. Either do it yourself, hire someone, or convince someone to help you create it. If it doesn’t do what you want, keep iterating.

If you have an idea for a new graphic/logo/book (intellectual property), then create it and copyright it. That will protect the words/images.

If you have an idea for a new process (way of doing something), then you’ll need to first confirm that your process works. You won’t be able to patent it (you can patent the algorithm if it’s part of something tangible).

Once you have tested your idea, then you’ll want to decide what to do about it. Patents are useful if you have the money to protect them (in court) and/or you want to sell the idea to someone else. Otherwise, simply build it and realize that the more people that see it, the greater the likelihood someone may want to copy it. However, people will only copy it if it’s something that’s already making money or they can figure a way to get it to market easily.

Eventually, you may want to create non-disclosures, etc. For more information, I recommend the book: Patent It Yourself.

Please help me name a quiz Contest and also a tagline for the same. This quiz contest comprises of four rounds: business, literature, sports and current affairs and finally a rapid fire round. It is a quiz contest that would be conducted at my high-tech company where around 100 participants are expected. The name of the quiz contest should be one word like”Quest”.

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How about:

• Dataphobia
• Arcania
• Quibble
• Obscura
• Minutia
• RandomBits
• Rapidata

Taglines:

• Go To The Head of the Company
• Show Your True Employee Value
• Are You Smarter Than Your Boss?

I am looking for an online service/website that will generate quality traffic to my site so my sales will increase.

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You actually have 2 questions: “How to increase traffic” and “How to increase sales”. The second question is actually more important. Just because you get more visitors doesn’t mean you’ll get more sales. You need to be selling the right thing to the right people at the right time. That means your site should clearly identify who your audience is, what problem you solve of theirs, and how you solve it.

Once you’ve crafted this compelling benefit statement, only then it makes sense to find sites that drive traffic to you. And what type of traffic? You only want to attract that matches your audience. If you’re selling a product for men, and you only get women visiting your site, while it’s possible some women will buy the product for a man in her life, you would get many more conversions if you started by getting men to visit your site.

See also: Marketing 101

I am looking for a clear, concise ‘how to” on the steps necessary to successfully launch a new web site. What are the things I need to think about in terms of my audience (bankers), the press, trade shows, email blasts, direct mail, and other marketing tactics.

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A website is a business. Make sure you have a clear strategic plan for what you’re trying to accomplish, who you’re trying to sell to, how you differentiate yourself, etc. Here’s an article to get you started.

If you’ve already done your planning “homework”, then after your site is up, your next step is traffic. This is a function of targeting your website’s solution to your market’s problem. Each campaign is different, because each market is different and you want your site to standout from the others. In general online solutions can include: emails to existing clients, co-marketing with other sites, back-links from other sites, press releases, white papers, SEO, PPC, videos, eBooks, and articles.

I’m faced with the challenge to think of a creative way to promote a sale of my retail products. I want to give the 2nd item off a purchase at a cheaper price (e.g. buy 1 and get the second at 20 or 30% off).

I have thought of conventional means of communicating this.: “Buy more save more”, “More savings with us”, “Your brand, your savings”, but I am searching for a more creative message.

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The key is in the value of the 2nd item. Offer to donate the 2nd item (buy one and we donate one) to a homeless shelter, orphanage, etc. Your client gets PR + a potential write-off, the shopper gets their product (and feels like they helped), and the non-profit can help with the advertising as well.

If the product’s price point is high for the demographic (adults, teens, etc.), you can try another direction. Create a matching service for people who want to buy 1 of the item. You’ll match them with someone else who wants to buy 1, they both get their item for less, and once again you’ve got the opportunity for goodwill + PR. It requires additional work on your client’s behalf, though.

My client has been building his brand in B2B for over 5 years. The name is pretty generic and in no way implies what the company itself offers.

Recently an idea cropped up to refresh its logo. It does in fact needs some redesign as being too off-handedly and amateurishly designed does not reflect the changes the company is going through. The changes include new sophisticated technology being implemented, better customer service and effective sales force.

Now a new idea was conceived; not only to change the logo design, but the brand name proper. Why? In order to make the brand name depict what the company does.

What should they do?

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Before you change the logo and/or brand to reflect what the company is doing now, I would suggest that your client step back to see where the company is going strategically. If they want to change their logo/brand, make sure it will serve them today…and into the foreseeable future.

If there are changes, do them gradually to avoid confusion in the minds of the existing consumers. When the changes begin, it’s a natural time to explain why they are changing, mentions about products or services the existing customers may not know about, and a sneak peak about what’s coming.

You may also have your client have their customers vote for the new name/logo, depending on the relationship they have with their customers. It will create a sense of customer ownership, and will give a preview that a change may be coming.

It was suggested to have some of our testimonial ads made into posters and I’ve invited technical staff to work at focus groups which helped but that doesn’t cover the other departments.

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Posters alone won’t do much. Ideally, you want your customers to be in front of your employees and tell them how what they did mattered to their lives (so it becomes more than simply selling to meet quotas).

Given the size of your organization, you might consider creating a video of what made a difference in the lives of your customers. Close ups of the people talking. Emotional content. The videos could be available for internal downloading and/or a group showing (followed by a discussion).

The posters would be of the people in the video - so the static words don’t get ignored - they reinforce the emotional punch of the videos.

I have a trade show booth and I need creative games to attract clients to sign up. Our product is corporate salary loans. We are promoting fast processing of salary loans in 3 days. Do you know any games that can be related to our “fast, easy, speed” loan application and processing theme? I’m tired of spin a wheel, pick a prize, common games. I really need to come up with new ideas and games.

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Because of the 3 days/3 attributes:

- 3 Card Monte

- 3 Cups & Pea/ball

- 3 balls into a hoop (basketball/nerf ball toss)

Because of fast/easy/speed:

- a dollar catch

- reaction timer (have them press a button after a light goes on)

- categories (give contestants 15 seconds to come up with as many different examples of a category — car brands, fruits, state capitals, etc.)

My niche is self-development / law of attraction and the best I’ve come up with so far is “The Self-Dev Junkie” and “Your Universal Healer”)

I consider my unique talents to be: excellent customer service, creates products that make a difference, strong passion to help others achieve, and friendly, willing to help.

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Are you a coach? Seminar leader? Spiritual Leader?

Before you focus on the branding, tagline, etc. you need to focus on your strategy.

Answer the following questions to start on your strategic plan:

Who is your ideal client? What problem do you solve for them? How do you solve their problem? Why are you the best for solving it?

The rest will flow from your strategy.

What the first thing I should do on the Internet? I want to have a PR rank website 4 at least, should I have a blog, forum, if yes, where, and where is should I tell about my posting, site, etc..?

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Site optimization is a long-term process. First, you need to identify what keywords you want top position for, and determine what page rank (a number from 0 to 10) the top sites have. You’re looking for keywords that have traffic (there are people interested in the topic) as well as relatively low page ranks for the top sites.

Once you identify your keywords, you need to populate at least your home page with the words “naturally”. Don’t forget to include the keywords in the title of the page itself and in the keywords tag (which isn’t as important as it once was).

Next, you need backlinks, links from other sites to your site. The better the site that gives you backlinks, the better your pagerank.

It takes time for your site to go up in rank. Newer sites naturally get a lower ranking than newer sites.