All posts by Jay

Slogan For A New Custom Designed Venue

Looking for a slogan for a new, custom designed portable event venue. Something really different and one in a range of such venues. This version is a combination of other types and should reference this. It is also faster to construct. This is a curved roof structure made of tensile steel with a PVC covering. It is fully configurable in shape by adding “bays” along the length to turn it from a circular venue to a cigar-shaped structure’
Clients in Africa for rental, clients worldwide for sale. This is a slick and stylish venue, very safe (compared to marquee), aircon, automatic doors etc, put it down anywhere you want to have the event, conference, awards ceremony, storage space, you name it. Pax up to 2000..high end product. Its a known product but this new combination version is smaller, faster and more affordable.

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Jay’s Answer:

  • Wherever Your Meeting – We’re There
  • Expecting 2000? We’re Ready.
  • Meet Anywhere For Less

 

Call To Action For Cabinets Mailer

I am doing a direct mail campaign for cabinets. I used a company to narrow my demographic to consumers with a net worth of 125K. My cabinets sell between $8,000 – $12,000. I don’t have any financing set up as of now, which is why I am targeting a high end customer. I am looking for a good message/catch to get the customer to call, email or come in. Any ideas? Thanks in advance

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Jay’s Answer:   Focus the message on why/when your prospective clients will want YOUR cabinets. Are they made of sustainable hardwoods? Do you reface the cabinets in a day? Do you specialize in exotic woods or design one-of-a-kind cabinets that fit unique spaces?

Instead of focusing your message on the consumers, why not make some direct connections with people likely to recommend your services – architects and high-end builders?

Name our university quiz competition

We are organizing a quiz competition in our university which would comprise of questions from electrical and electronics engineering. Please suggest a cool name for our event.

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Jay’s Answer:   A “cool name” should do 2 things: 1) convey who you’re addressing and 2) the benefit of competing. For example, you might be appealing to the students, the college faculty, the greater college community, your local community, or other universities (for intra-school competition). Also, what’s the goal of competing? Are you awarding bragging rights, a scholarship, a chance to compete nationally, a fundraising tie-in, etc.? To tie the name together, you need to speak the language of the people you’re “targeting” – where are they physically located? What economic bracket? Men and women? Age range?

As one idea to help promote the competition, why not have a school-wide competition to name the event? It’ll help to spread the word about the quiz earlier, get people thinking about it deeply, and have people who wouldn’t normally be involved in the quiz participate in a different way – to figure out ways to promote it.

My New Upholstery Shop Needs a Great Name

I have had a part time upholstery shop at home for 3 years. Now with company cut backs, I lost my full time job and I am wanting to open my upholstery shop up in town. My business name now is Chad’s Custom Upholstery. I know that it lets people know what I do, but I people don’t always put automotive upholstery with it. If I went with Chad’s Auto Upholstery, then people wouldn’t know that I did furniture and other upholstery as well. If I went with Chad’s Furniture and Auto Upholstery, I don’t know if some would think of it as a furniture store and vice versa if I switched them, then they would think auto sales. What do you think? Thank you.

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Jay’s Answer:   Who is likely to need you more often: people looking for furniture upholstery or people looking for auto upholstery? You could make that your core business name.

Or, you could use your tagline to clarify your expertise:

Chad’s Upholstery Shop: Specializing in Furniture & Automobiles

Or, create two separate business names (Chad’s Auto Upholstery and Chad’s Furniture Upholstery) to look like they are specialty businesses.

Or, as you suggested, create a single all-encompassing name (Chad’s Furniture and Auto Upholstery) – which looks & sounds like a mouthful and may cause you problems in the future if you want to focus on one or the other business or add a third major service.

Each of these approaches has pro’s and con’s in naming. But the bottom line is – if you do great work and treat your customers very well, then people will be spreading the word about your talent/shop no matter what your name is. And, if people are curious what you can do for them, your marketing materials (website, business card, flyers, etc.) should make it clear (both with text & graphic) that you do both furniture and automobile work.

Tagline For Promoting Print List Rentals

We are a list rental company and we are trying to promote our Direct Mail list of medical doctors who buy medical equipment from manufacturers. Its a slow list category and we want to create a cool marketing strategy to get manufacturers to create DM and purchase our list. Any suggestions on a catchy tagline?

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Jay’s Answer:   How about: “Our Lists Need No Doctoring…”

Apartment Staffing Agency Needs Tradeshow Ideas

We need ideas for a tradeshow for our local apartment association. The theme is The 60’s – A time for greatness in space and technology. So we have decided to go with the space theme. NASA – how can we incorporate that into what we do? We a local staffing agency that specializes in the apartment industry. We supply Manager’s, Leasing personnel, Maintenance, Groundskeepers and Housekeepers on a temporary basis and also do full-time placement.

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Jay’s Answer:
(Aside: Technology from the 60s is 40+ years old – which doesn’t connote anything cutting-edge nowadays)

Here’s an idea to play with: “We Put Men (and Women) Into Your Space(s)”

A Tagline For an Italian Preschool Flyer?

I am needing a tagline for our children’s preschool flyer that is exploring Italy. Do you have any suggestions?

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Jay’s Answer:  Technically you’re not looking for a tagline (which describes a unique benefit to a company or organization) – you’re looking for a headline for attracting attention to something you’re “selling”. And the headline isn’t for the preschoolers – it’s to excite their parents. Some ideas to play with:

  • Let’s Pretend Travelling To Rome
  • Here Comes Rome & Pizza!
  • Andiamo! (which means let’s go in Italian)

Help Me Name My Bakery in India

My shop’s name is Raj Baker’s. We made fresh cakes.cookies n biscuits in india. I want to put the best tagline for my cakes n pastries…so what it should be?

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Jay’s Answer:   The best tagline conveys a clear unique benefit to your prospective customers and it dovetails with your business name. If your business name is: Hitesh’s Fresh Cake & Pastries, then your tagline could be something like: Baked daily with organic ingredients (if you do bake with organic ingredients daily and if your customers are likely to care). But notice that the tagline doesn’t repeat cake & pastries – since that’s in your business name.

The best taglines come from a deep understanding of both the message/image you wish to present, and what your clients deeply care about. Without these two pieces of information, it’s either a guessing game or a generic phrase that resonates with no one.

Here are a couple of examples to get you started:

  • Smell The Freshness
  • We Are Deliciousness

 

How to Start Cross-Marketing My Business?

Hi i read an article on cross marketing,  how would i go about doing this what offers can i give the other business for advertising or promoting my company? i run a health club, and im looking to do some cross-marketing with some electronic stores. what do you think would work?

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Jay’s Answer:   Think of cross-marketing as a partnership. You want something from them. They want something from you. Start by thinking what you can offer your partner: email list? Spotlight in marketing materials? A flyer in your foyer? A special evening that you host for your VIP clients?

Next, think of what they have that you want. A flyer? Discounted product?

That’s the what. Then the “who” – are the people likely to buy from them also the people you have as clients? How do you know? How exclusive are your clients? Your partner will want to know numbers: ages, demographics, buying habits, etc. You’ll likewise want to know about their clients.

Finally the offer. What’s the quid-pro-quo? How will you measure success of the partnership? How long will you stay partners? Will you be exclusive to each other? How can each of you back out (and why)? How much $ will you each invest in the partnership?

Marketing With Measured Steps

Marketing Measured Steps

(Photo by Steve Harris)

It seems that everyone is telling you that you need to upgrade to the latest and greatest. A new hosting server. New contact manager software. New business cards. New flyers. An updated website. Tweeting around the clock. If you don’t keep moving (your business) forward, you’re likely dying. But is it true?

Since I don’t believe in giving advice without first-hand knowledge, I recently decided to change how I send out my monthly newsletter. I looked at a number of options, and decided to try MailChimp. It looks great and priced right. Since I’ve helped some clients tweak their MailChimp newsletters, I thought it would be a good experiment to try out. I copied over my text, my graphics, created new newsletter templates, imported contact lists, etc. After many hours, I was pleased with my results. And just before I was about to send out latest newsletter, I remembered to test it. I emailed it to a number of different email accounts and was surprised to see that the newsletter was labelled “spam” by my main email account! I dug deeper and figured out the links in the newsletter that MailChimp creates look spam-ish. So I tossed all my work away. A failed experiment? Hardly – I deeply learned the abilities of some new software and can speak in-depth about its abilities and even figured a way to use some of the features to my benefit.

The latest “thing” is simply that – the newest version. Jumping to use the new thing has a higher risk/reward. The “leading edge” is often called the “bleeding edge”, since you’re blazing new trails and learning new solutions and problems.

Definitely continue to innovate your business and marketing. But measure the results of the actions before you fully commit to ensure your steps are taking to your desired outcome.