We have a company – All Media Makeup – we are professional airbrush media makeup artists. We are branching out to include weddings and are looking for a catchy tag line for our brochures etc. We are targeting high dollar, classy clientele. We are trying to stress how important beautiful makeup is. You spend thousands of dollars on a wedding, and your look is one of the most important details to tend to.

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Jay’s Answer:

• Blushing Brides Our Specialty
• Fall In Love With Your Look

I am starting up my own event/wedding planning business. I would like the tagline to reflect the fact that I have the resources to create eco-friendly events but at the same time not draw any non-eco clients away. The name of the business is Mulberry Events.

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Jay’s Answer: You’re trying to do too much in too little space. Let me explain.

First, wedding planning isn’t the same as event planning from a client’s perspective (from your perspective, an event is an event…). When I think of event planning, I think more corporate events than a simple party. A business client has different needs than a bride/groom.

Secondly, either you specialize in eco-friendly events or you don’t. While eco-friendly is a concern for many people, it’s not a primary benefit they care about. They want a great party. Great food. Great music. No headaches. At a great price. Oh, and it’s eco-friendly? Bonus points. It may well be the niche you go after to differentiate yourself from the other planners. The problem you may have is in perception: If the event is eco-friendly, is it less fun? Less tasty food? Less spectacular?

Here are a couple of ideas to get you thinking:

• Specializing in Earth-Friendly Wows
• Spectacular Event Planning From The Ground Up

Our company is turning 10 this year and wanted to boost morale of both employees and distributors. What would be the best possible slogans/taglines we can use to boost morale of both employees and distributors.

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Jay’s Answer: Boosting morale isn’t done with some words – it’s done with actions and stories. If you try to come up with something to inspire, it’ll most likely sound trite or annoying (or both). Instead design craft activities/actions that would boost morale, since actions speak louder than words.

Taped at the 2009 HomeSchool Association of California (HSC) conference in Sacramento (CA), this show attempts to answer many common questions, including:

• What is homeschooling?
• What is a typical homeschooling day like?
• What about college?
• Do homeschoolers socialize?
• What are the benefits to homeschooling?

Website: www.hsc.org

By Chapter:

Trailer:

Carola Detrick grew up in a small suburb near Frankfurt, Germany where she attended both the University of Frankfurt and University of Muenchen. Soon after, she launched the HCL Leather company. In 1993, she started the non-profit organization Meals of Marin in her home kitchen. Since then, she and her staff of volunteers have cooked for and home-delivered over 900,000 appetizing, healthy, home-cooked meals to people with life threatening illnesses living in Marin County, California.

Email: carola.detrick@gmail.com
Website: www.MealsOfMarin.net
Phone: (415) 457-4666

We are redesigning our website and brochures and our old tagline (Home away from home) is so outdated and overused and I really need to come up with a new one.

Location: St. Lawrence Gap, Barbados
Best selling points: amazing view, outstanding service, numerous bars, restaurants and nightclubs within walking distance. Studios and suites all oceanfront

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Jay’s Answer:

• Wake Up To Amazing Views
• Relax. Rejuvenate. Recharge.
• Come For The View. Stay For The Convenience.

Need a tagline or slogan for next years calendar for www.datelinecargo.com

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Jay’s Answer: Here are some ideas to play with:

• Moving Heaven And Earth For Our Customers (connecting with cargo/freight-forwarding)
• We Have Your Packages Covered From Albania to Zambia (protection/world-wide)
• We’re Not A Freight Of Any Packages (humor)

Photo by disco | modjo

We’ve all been to a party where we remember someone’s face, but not their name. Or their name, but not their “story”. Or their “story” but not what they look like. We even have language for it (“good with faces”, etc.)

So why is it that when we launch a business we’re so focused on the perfect business name? Or the perfect tagline? The goal of any name, phrase, or image is to be remembered (when the time is right by the prospect). We forget that not everyone remembers what we tell them. To usual way to help them remember (in business) is with emails, advertisements, direct mail, etc. That’s somewhat useful, since people are barraged with information daily, and reminding people keeps you “top of mind”.

Consider that a business’ image is much like a person’s image. Both have names. Both live somewhere. Both have stories about themselves. Instead of a face, a business has a logo. Therefore, the next time you create a marketing effort, ensure that you are tickling all your prospects’ brain cells: visual (logo), logical (name), and context (stories). If you want to tickle more brain cells, engage more senses: smell (like Abercrombie’s stores), hearing (a jingle), or even touch/taste (something tangible). That’s why the best marketing engages the brain’s ability to recall not just facts but sensory memory (“The sound of a light rain on an autumn night” or “The first bite of an imported dark chocolate bar” or “The new car smell”).

“Pretend you started work this morning in my agency, and that you have dropped by my office to ask for advice. I will start with some generalities about how to go about your work. In later chapters I will give you more specific advice on producing advertisements for magazines, newspapers, television and radio. I ask you to forgive me for oversimplifying some complicated subjects, and for the dogmatism of my style – the dogmatism of brevity. We are both in a hurry.”

So begins David Ogilvy (the creative head of Ogilvy & Mather) in his classic book, describing in plain language what it takes to create great advertising and lead an organization. He also includes lots of advertisements that work – with a description of why they were effective.

In chapter 2, he provides the following key advertising points:

• It doesn’t always work. The wrong advertising can reduce the sales of products.
• Do your homework. Read everything you can about your client’s product with an eye toward what promise would most likely make someone buy their brand.
• Position your product. Make it clear who the product is for and what it does.
• Brand image, which is comprised of name, packaging, price, style of advertising, and the nature of the product.
• The big idea. Big ideas make products stand out and be remembered and are truly rare. Nowadays people hope that outrageousness will suffice for “big idea” (think Superbowl advertisement). Instead, here are 5 questions to ask:
  • Did it make me gasp when I first saw it?
  • Do I wish I had thought of it myself?
  • Is it unique?
  • Does it fit the strategy to perfection?
  • Could it be used for 30 years?

• Make the product the hero. You want the advertising copy to clearly solve the audience’s problem (“save the day”).
• The positively good. You don’t have position your product as superior to your competition. If the consumer feels certain yours is good and uncertain your competitors is, they will often buy yours to be safe.
• Repeat your winners. Just because you’re tired of an advertisement, doesn’t mean your audience is. Make your choices based on data, not feelings.
• Learn from direct response. Since direct response writers focus on what works in writing copy, do what they do (unless you have a proven solution that’s better): longer commercials, broadcast late at night, and use long copy. The best advertisements sell the most.
• The cult of creativity. If it doesn’t sell, it isn’t creative. Don’t strive for originality at the expense of what works.

In chapter 7 he gives details of what works in print advertising:

• Start with a great headline. Include the brand name. Ten or fewer words. Make it contain news (something new about the product). Make it specific (more memorable). Put it in “quotes” to increase recall by 28 percent. If you advertise locally, put the name of the city in the headline. Make it obvious – don’t use double meanings to be clever.
• Photographs produce better results than illustrations (but photographs don’t always reproduce well). Make the image arouse the reader’s curiosity. Show the end result of using the product. The most common effective imagery? Cute babies, cute animals, and sex appeal. The gender of the person in the ad should be the same as the target market (people want to identify with the image). His two favorite layouts: a large photograph (3/4 of the ad) with a brief headline and up to 240 words of copy and a narrow photograph (1/4 of the ad) with a longer headline (up to 20 words), a subheading, and 600 words of copy.

If you’re looking for ideas for your own advertising or marketing, have a copy of this book at-hand to inspire you.

You’ve probably been taught that the phrase “new and improved” are strong words to place in your marketing copy. People are supposedly always looking for an edge, so getting the newest thing will help them better. From the customer’s perspective however, does newer = better?

Newer might be a restyled product, additional features, fixed bugs, or brand new technology. But what are your customers looking for? Your past clients are looking for a reason to upgrade: what did they purchase from you in the past that’s now obsolete and would necessitate them to buy from you TODAY? (Aside: the goal is to convince someone that the new widget that they recently purchased is now old, and they need to toss it and get the newest best thing is well described in the new documentary film Objectified). Your prospects appreciated that you’re evolving your offering to make it cutting edge.

But is newer better? Only your customers can judge better. From your perspective, it might be cheaper to produce your new offering or newer makes you more competitive with your competition. From your customers’ perspective, does the new offering save them money? Does it really improve their quality of life? Does it remove pain from their body or psyche?

Most marketing focused on “new and improved” tries to keep the customers on the endless treadmill of buy new, discard old, and give them a psychological boost with something “new and shiny”. But to be a truly world-class marketer, your “new and improved” should sell itself with concrete reasons to own it. Do your business (and customers a favor): truly understand what they need, why they need it, how they use your offering, and how you can help make their lives better (even if they don’t know it yet).