7 Landscaping Flyer Design Tips for Every Door Direct Mail

It’s somewhat mind-boggling how many landscapers and home contractors spend thousands of dollars on advertising, but pay almost no attention to their graphic design. After all, it is the design that will determine whether or not the flyer gets noticed or discarded. So, why risk your advertising budget on a terrible flyer design?

Use these 7 powerful design tips to create an Every Door Direct Mail campaign that works. This simple advice could turn your campaign into a smash hit and prevent a massive failure.

1. Create an “Eye Magnet”

The landscaping flyer should be designed in such a manner that it instantly grabs the attention of a prospective customer. Whether you use amazing photos, powerful keywords (ie: FREE!), or high-contrast techniques – your design must look incredible and captivate people.

2. Use Before and After Photos

If the contractor is promoting an event like a recognizable band or DJ, the best idea is to print the photo of the recognizable face in the forefront as the public often does not even bother to read the printed matter in such cases.

3. Less Is More

Many landscapers tend to print too much information on the flyers in an effort impress their audience. This seem like the right thing to do, however, too much information often results in complete loss of interest and makes you “blend in” instead of stand out.

4. Choose a Font, Stick With It

Remove clutter, and sharpen your message with one or two fonts. The use of too many fonts can make your flyer look mediocre or unprofessional.

5. Order Early, Allow Time for Delivery

Flyers should be designed to be delivered using the Every Door Direct Mail service at least 3-43 weeks before your desired “in home” date.

6. Don’t Reinvent The Wheel

Note sure where to begin? Find you biggest competitors’ ads and make your deals even better. Think about your target audience and plan your offers around their needs. Don’t reinvent the wheel, just improve upon an idea that works.

7. Check Twice, Mail Once

Once your flyers go to print, it’s too late to make changes. Always double check your design proofs twice, or even better, three times. This will ensure you mail the correct information to thousands of homes.

Good luck, and happy marketing!

Chris Barr is a marketing professional and graduate of Christopher Newport University. His areas of expertise include direct mail, internet marketing, copy writing, SEO, and new business development. Chris currently serves as Marketing Director for Taradel LLC in Richmond, VA.

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Top Reasons Why You Should Know What A Stock Market Trend Is

The question is what is a stock market trend? Well, a stock market trend is essentially the direction that a market moves at. Should the value of a market rise, it is said to be trending upwards. If the market’s direction is going lower, it is trending downwards. Take note also of the fact that horizontal movements do happen, particularly with individual stocks.

Having foreknowledge of market trends is crucial to an investing strategy because they make it possible for investors to profit from a stock going up or down before it actually moves. This makes it easier or traders to determine whether a trade is a good idea and will also make for successful transactions more often than not. These are a few reasons why traders should take time out to make sure they comprehend stock market trends.

Understanding market trends is beneficial when using technical analysis. Investors, who trade without any use of technical indicators, are not going to make money for very long. Technical indicators allow traders to see what the future movement of a stock will be. They make it possible for investors to make quick decisions that still result in profit.

This is crucial because investors are able to make money regularly through application of technical analysis. Traders will profit both short terms and in the long run through a fundamental understanding of technical indicators. Those investors, who have been profiting for years, do so in large part because they have taken time to learn about stock market trends.

Investors are able to make money in a more stable and calculated manner with trends than their gambling counterparts. To serious stock traders this is clearly quite high on the list of priorities. There is very little guessing involved when trends are used to invest. Traders do not have to constantly consult experts while hanging onto trades and ideas. Individuals who are investing in the stock market can make sound decisions while directing their own investment portfolios.

Correctly timing a trade for either the start or the exit is of paramount importance to trading stocks. More money is lost through a failure to either buy or sell at the right time rather than by taking part in clearly unprofitable transactions. An understanding of stock market trends will prepare individuals such that they are able to use the indicators to either begin or end trades to their advantage. Money is less likely to be made and lost wildly with these factors in place.

In some circles the prevailing mindset has a tendency to tell newcomers that the only way to learn about correct timing is through experience. The use of market trends will save you time, grief, and money. Reason being that you won’t need to ‘get a feel for the market’ in the sense of trial and error. Trends make it possible for you to avoid that scenario altogether.

The impact stock market trends have on individual stocks cannot be understated. Understanding trends will bring about a more informed use of technical indicators; the indicators in turn make it possible for investors to make consistent money while giving them a head start in getting involved with the right trades at the right time. Nobody feels sorry for traders who do not take the time to learn about what is most likely to be successful. Lots of money is made and lost each day on the stock market. What is a stock market trend? It is the way that you can profit trading stocks time and time again.

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Direct Sellers: Building a Community Is Like Building a Business

As a direct seller, there are many things you can utilize in promoting your brand. You don’t have to be limited to the physical world – nowadays, more and more people are deciding to take their brand online so they can extend their reach and gain more leads. The Internet has become one of the most popular marketing tools, since compared to traditional media such as TV and radio, marketing your brand online is a lot easier and far less expensive.

There are various things you can do online to promote your brand. A website or blog is a great way to showcase your products as well as your brand – it’s a way for you to stand out from other direct sellers out there, by offering unique and relevant content to your audience.

Another thing you can do is to build a community around your brand. More and more businesses are realizing the effect of these brand communities, that they’re a great way to engage their audience, promote the brand, discover the key influencers, and ultimately increase their customers and sales.

So how exactly do you build a brand community? It’s all about getting likeminded people who are interested in your brand to form a community or group and start discussing things. And when you effectively build a community around your brand, it actually creates business for you as your community helps spread the word and answer questions regarding your brand.

As a direct seller, your brand community actually already exists – it includes your customers, clients, and the people you recruit. What you simply need to do is find a way to get these people together so they can connect with each other as well as engage with your brand. Get to know them more intimately so you can learn who the key influencers are and how to improve your services.

Here are some steps to guide you.

1. Build a strong brand

When you build a strong brand that resonates with your audience and conveys a powerful message, this is the time that you attract fans and followers who become loyal to you and who are willing to go the extra mile for your brand. And you don’t have to be a huge corporation such as Apple or Starbucks to be able to do this. As a direct seller, as long as you have a personal brand that has a passionate message, then you can create this community of followers.

Social media has really been a game changer when it comes to building a community. As long as you understand how to use Facebook or Twitter to reach your audience and get them engaged, then you can really build a strong brand that can eventually result in increased sales for your business.

2. Get to know your audience

Once you have a group of people together who are all interested in your brand, then it’s important that you get to know them, find out what their likes and dislikes are, get their feedback, and be open to any criticisms or suggestions regarding your brand.

Your community should be able to discuss with each other openly and even talk about other things that aren’t related to your brand. They should also be able to ask questions and get answers from you. And sometimes, it’s all about listening to them – you don’t really let your customers run your company for you, but it’s really important that you listen to what they’re saying.

3. Offer great content

Though a brand community is all about its members, great content is what keeps them coming back. This can be a challenge for you since you really have to put out content that engages your audience so they keep returning for more. You should set the right tone, the right style, as well as define what purpose or objective you want to achieve with each post you put out. Once you effectively offer great content that gets people talking, the community can actually take over and post content that’s relevant to the group.

You can also offer insider information to your community to make them feel special. Share stories and tidbits that let them see your brand more intimately and in a deeper way compared to everyone else.

Honestly, brand communities are not just for major corporations or companies with huge budgets. As a direct seller, you can take advantage of the opportunity to create a powerful brand that resonates with your audience and really gets them talking. With a successful brand community, you may be surprised at how far your reach extends, that you could possibly even become a well-known brand. And isn’t that the real goal of any business or brand?

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Internet Marketing Tools – Do You Have These Marketing Tools Working for You 24/7?

If you’re pursuing any form of online marketing or just running a website, you will probably be aware there are some essential tools that you simply must have in order to reach your full potential. Having the right Internet marketing tools will make your online business run much, much smoother. These tools can also greatly influence your bottom line.

What are these marketing tools and do I really need them?

The definite answer is yes, but you must realize these tools come in all shapes and forms; some are non-conventional and you may not even think of them as marketing tools. However, you must keep an open mind and realize anything you use online to promote your products or business can be considered a marketing tool.

First, you really have to consider your domain name since your online site will probably be one of your most important marketing tools. You must choose your domain very carefully and many SEO experts suggest you place your main keyword in the domain name. It you have a site on hotels then having “hotels.com” would be an excellent marketing vehicle for your business. That’s the reason many short, targeted domain names sell in the millions of dollars… people searching for a hotel room will probably just type in your domain name and go directly to your site. This alone can be worth millions in direct traffic and business.

Of course, most if not all of the major important keyword domain names have been taken, still if you’re trying to establish an online business you should get a good domain name which can bring in customers 24 hours of the day. If may even be worth your while to buy a domain if it’s connected to your business, never underestimate how important a domain name is for branding, bringing in search engine traffic and for getting direct customers and clients.

Next, you also have to realize your website will play an important part in the success of your online endeavors, so create a site that is user friendly and optimized for all the search engines. Your online site will be your main business drawing card – it will present your company to the world. It is vital that you make a good first impression so invest in some professional graphics, logos and site creation. Your site must look and feel professional in the eyes of your visitors. If you’re selling products make sure you have a reliable “shopping cart” system which quickly turns interested customers into buyers. Remember, your site will be working for you around the clock, drawing in business.

Another essential marketing tool you simply must have is an autoresponder system to follow-up with your potential customers. You must build your list of contacts, those interested in your site or product. You must give these interested parties a convenient way to opt-in for further follow-up or to subscribe to your site or newsletter. Growing this contact list will play an important role in the success or failure of your online business.

A good reliable autoresponder system will automatically do all of this for you 24/7. Also, don’t forget to use all the social bookmarking sites like Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Google+, Digg… and also make sure your visitors can follow you on Twitter. Most of these sites and programs are simply glorified auto-responders, dressed up to make everyone using them to look cool.

Viral Link Bait, sounds like something you would use at your favorite fishing hole, but actually creating well crafted and well branded viral videos, ebooks, articles, slideshows, special reports or just plain good quality content can be very effective marketing tools on the web. Mainly because you can use these viral products to help build backlinks to your site and content; this will automatically increase your keyword rankings in all the search engines. As more and more people link to your content, this will increase the importance of your site.

One of the best ways to succeed online is to get top rankings for your targeted keywords in the search engines, especially in Google. Get those top rankings and when someone searches to buy something online, your site and product is listed in the number one spot in organic search, they click through to your site and buy your product. Sounds simple and it is, this scenario is being repeated millions, if not billions, of times each day on the web.

For this reason, many professional online marketers consider keywords to be the ultimate Internet marketing tools. It all comes down to keywords. Get high rankings for your keywords in all the search engines and it will be almost impossible to fail since those top keywords will be bringing in a steady stream of customers around the clock.

Now, there are many more web marketing tools which you can use, but put the ones mentioned above working for you 24/7 and you will see a great improvement in your online marketing.

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Affiliate Meaning, Relation, and Benefit in Marketing

According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, the general meanings of the word ‘affiliate’ among others are “to bring or receive into close connection as a member or branch”, “to associate as a member”, “to trace the origin of”, and “to connect or associate oneself”. Meanwhile, taken from Wikipedia, from the marketing point of view, affiliate meaning is “a commercial entity with a relationship with a peer or a larger entity”.

Still in relation with marketing field, affiliate marketing is a form of internet marketing practice where a business cooperates with one or more affiliates. When these affiliates bring visitors or customers on their own marketing efforts, they will be rewarded by the business. There are four main components in affiliate marketing:

- The merchant who is also called the brand or the retailer;

- The network;

- The publisher, also known as the affiliate; and

- The customer.

Affiliate marketing has some beneficial gains towards both the merchant and the affiliates. However, a merchant who considers using this internet marketing method should know its benefits which include:

1. It does not need huge marketing budget. Compared to other forms of internet marketing (e.g. pay-per-click, multimedia, or billboard ads), affiliate marketing is less expensive. The other types of marketing consume your budget even when you have not seen their direct result yet. Affiliate marketing is more efficient since you will only pay the marketing cost when the result is clearly seen.

2. Besides inviting consumers, affiliates who direct website surfers to your site also boost traffic to your website. That way, although these visitors don’t buy your product, it is possible that they will return to your website or subscribe themselves to your email list.

3. Affiliate marketing is a flexible internet marketing method. You can choose whether to reward the affiliates based on the traffic they bring, the sales they make, or the combination of the two. It is all your choice to manage in which direction your business will go.

4. Connected with SEO, having affiliates can improve your rank in Search Engine Result Page (SERP). These affiliates are good sources of inbound links toward your website. The better quality of your affiliates, the better rank the search engine will reward you.

5. You can trace and analyze the performance of each of your affiliate by using affiliate marketing software. The software helps you in finding out how many times people click your links and when. Using the software, you can also track which inbound links that give you the most traffic.

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Accentz Helps You Reach New Heights in Internet Marketing

Accentz is a company which encourages women to attain new heights by putting faith in them. This is done not just by offering women sophisticated jewelry to wear, but through a direct selling opportunity which helps them attain financial independence. As a member of the esteemed groups, Direct Selling Women’s Alliance and Direct Selling Association, Accentz builds on creating awareness of online marketing education for the empowerment of women. With the help of affordable jewelry, the company ensures that customers and members can earn rewards and incentives for hosting parties, as well as sharing the jewelry products with friends.

Accentz has been around since 1997 and it offers its associates the option of starting at the elementary level and scale their way upward, by progressing with the growth of the business. The selection of hand crafted jewelry is carefully chosen and Accentz claims that their 14K gold stuffed pieces carry more gold in them than the standards of the federal minimum. The company also claims that their collection includes hundreds of twice toned items including gold and silver filled ones which include signature styles.

Accentz Products

Each of the pieces of jewelry is especially hand crafted with minor variations, and includes a product which is carved from metals and stones of a variety of colors and shapes. The feather wire designs of the earrings are exquisite and this helps create an interesting effect. The wide range of high quality and stylish jewelry includes a variety of earrings, pendants, bracelets, necklaces and rings which cater to your particular tastes and preferences. The catalog is all of 68 pages and contains a spectrum of designs and styles. Since Accentz only has jewelry designs and products on offer, you will be spoilt for choice as to which design or pattern or shape suits you best.

Accentz Career Program

Accentz offers its member a unique opportunity of making money. Their career program is made for all the people who are interested in becoming sales representatives for the business. You will be offered choices in the way you want to market the product. Some of the chosen ways might include hosting a party at home, having an open house session, or choose the catalog for selling the jewelries to your family members or friends. Whichever option you choose, you receive the income immediately. Since you receive a commission instantly, you need not wait for the arrival of the check.

At Accentz, you need not carry inventories of products and this is why you can register for this opportunity of income at an affordable rate. The number of hours you dedicate to work rests solely on you and how much money you want. Members can even take advantage of the programs and contests which are offered by the company to bag free products. Their hostess package is a crowd puller as it helps hostesses earn credit for their personal purchases and half priced products. As a hostess, you may even earn a bonus for the bookings that are made at your party.

This is why it is always an advantage to earn money from the internet marketing opportunity of Accentz. To have a firm basis in the world of Accentz, you need to be marketing pro. With appropriate training, you can earn cash faster using helpful strategies. So, brace yourself for achieving your marketing goals with Accentz.

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Hot Secrets On How To Make Money With Article Marketing

If you want to know how you can make money online, you might like the ideas for how to make money with article marketing. Like any other legitimate form of making money online, its success depends solely on the time and effort you are ready to devote to it.

So if you are willing to spend your time and work hard, let’s find out how to make money with article marketing by first taking a quick look at it is all about-

What is article marketing?

Simply put, this method of marketing involves making money by writing articles. The Internet is filled with numerous advertising methods, but none of them have been as successful as marketing using articles. In this article, we will learn about different ways that you can use to market your business using articles.

There are usually three ways in which you can make money, and these are listed and discussed below:

Straight marketing

This is the simplest form where you put up your article and link it directly to the sales page through your affiliate link. Once a reader clicks on the link, you get your money. This is easy and suits beginners who want to start learning how to make money with article marketing. However, it does require you to submit articles often, and you may need to pay the article directory for allowing you to use affiliate links to the sales page.

Traffic-centric marketing

In this method, you have to first direct traffic from your article toward a landing page. The landing page would contain the required affiliate links, and your readers can then go to the sales page from there. The objective of your article would be to attract traffic to the landing page. Ultimately, this helps you build your own readership and make a mailing list. You can also make the article more helpful and realistic because you are not pushing them directly for a sale.

Backlink-centric marketing

The final method is to create and receive backlinks to your website with your articles. The articles you write are not focused on the sale or promotion of a product or service. In fact, the best way for you to learn how to make money with article marketing for backlinking is to write high-quality articles. The main purpose of these articles is make backlinks to your page from different sources. You can write one article and offer it to different websites on the condition that they backlink it to you. However, they would only take your article if it is good enough, and that is what you have to aim for.

If you want to know how to make money with article marketing, then you have to try all three methods. If possible, you have to use more than one method to maximize the money you can get. Moreover, you have to keep practicing and improving your writing skills if you want to make money through writing. If you are finding it hard to write, then you have to persist for as long as it takes until it becomes easy for you.

Like any other field, you have to be consistent and meticulous if you want to make money with article marketing. Your aim has to be to slowly and steadily build a reputation online as an expert.

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Commercial and Retail Real Estate – Things I Have Learnt About Great Marketing Proposals

When it comes to commercial or retail real estate sales and leasing, you are frequently preparing marketing proposals for clients to consider in the promotion of their property. The marketing proposal is perhaps the most important document to win the business; get it wrong and you lose the game. Creativity is required given the prevailing market conditions. A great marketing proposal is essential.

Here is a potential structure to create a great marketing proposal that can apply in the promotion of most commercial and retail real estate.

The executive summary should always appear at the front of the document. This is one or two pages of key issues that relate to the promotion of the property. They are the most important issues that will have impact in resolving the client’s property targets.

The property brief outlines the relative property and the challenge that the client requires to be solved. This simple description process lets the client see that you as the agent totally understand their property need.

The property description completely describes the property and its current status. This removes any confusion that may potentially exist between the agent and the client.

An overview of the current market should be provided. This allows the client to understand the challenges and the opportunities that exist at this current point in time. This should include recent sales, recent leases, and comparable properties which will have impact in the current marketing campaign.

A description of the target market should be provided. This allows the client to see where most of the advertising focus will be directed, and give your reasons why. A clear and precise target market allows the advertising campaign to be well structured.

It is now time to provide a detailed and comprehensive recommended marketing campaign given all of the previous points and most particularly the target market. The marketing campaign should include all required promotional and advertising channels. They will be Internet, e-mail marketing, flyers, brochures, information memorandum, direct marketing telephone calls, direct mail, editorial, articles, newspaper advertising, radio and TV Advertising if appropriate, signboard, database strategies, and website promotional solutions.

A clear description and recommendation should be provided to the client with two or three alternative choices within the recommended marketing campaign. Some clients like to have choices for the purposes of budget or strategy.

You should provide a timeline for the client to see how the campaign will be commenced and staged. The best way to do this is through a simple Gantt chart.

A list of the key staff involved in the marketing campaign should be provided together with a description of their involvement and communication back to the client. Relative experience with the subject property should also be explained.

In the appendix at the rear of the document, you should have a selection of sample promotional material. You can also have prepared draft advertisements and property descriptions for the client to choose from and set their preferences.
A great marketing proposal will be achieved from the above components and structures. This allows the client to be fully informed before they make the final promotional decision in marketing their property.

Notice that this list is mainly about the property and the clients requirements; it is not overly about the agent or salesperson. When your document focuses on the client and the property, you have a much better chance of gaining the clients agreement to proceed. They can see that you really understand their property issues and you have a real solution for handling them in today’s economic climate. In simple terms they need you.

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Why Is Your Marketing Plan So Important?

For today’s business man or entrepreneur, the internet offers the amazing opportunity of being able to put your product or service in front millions of people. But the drawback to this opportunity is that you will have thousands of competing products and companies who are doing the exact same thing, so if you want to be successful and profitable with all this competition then you will need to give your customers a reason to buy from you instead of any of your competitors.

So what is it that distinguishes those internet entrepreneurs who fail from those who succeed? The answer is marketing, and the best way to improve your marketing (and therefore increase your sales) is to have a good marketing plan. In the crowded marketplace of the internet, marketing is the one thing that distinguishes a profitable company from a company that is making zero sales. You might be offering the best product in the world, but if nobody knows about it then nobody will be interested in it.

One of the most popular ways to market on the internet is using search engine marketing, since this allows you to put your product or your company right in front of people who are already looking for something similar to what you are offering. This is different from traditional marketing such as television advertising where you broadcast your marketing message to as many people as possible that will listen; with search engine marketing you already know that they are interested in something similar to what you are offering.

Another important feature that you can integrate into your marketing plan is to do direct marketing on websites that are related to what you are offering. This can include buying links or banner ad space directly from that website, and this can be a very effective marketing tactic since you already know that there is a group of people who regularly use that site who will be interested in the product or service that you have to offer.

While the opportunity that the internet offers is vast (and maybe overwhelmingly so), you should see the massive amount of competition that you are dealing with as a good thing instead of a bad thing. A large amount of competitors indicates that there is a real opportunity for sales and profits, and reaping the rewards of that opportunity is not necessarily an easy task. Marketing on the internet is the one thing that will convince people to buy from you instead of buying from your competitors, so by placing the proper emphasis on your marketing plan you can maximize your sales and success.

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New Year – New Ideas for Your Direct Mail Campaign

We all start the New Year with extra enthusiasm and energy, resolutions made and diet and fitness regime in place so why not take this opportunity to tackle your marketing campaigns in the same way? Look at your advertising and direct mail campaigns with a different eye and add the same New Year enthusiasm and energy to them. In my experience the first thing you need to do is to dust off your database and cleanse it to ensure that you have all the right contacts and make sure that you amend any changes of contact name and address. The next thing is to decide what you need to say and how you are going to say it. I usually make a list of the points I need to convey and place them in order of priority analysing them as I go.

Next is the best bit, how to ensure that your direct mail is opened, read and responded to. This is easy with pop-up products that arrive in the post tray as lumpy mail. They will not be classified as “junk” and look so tempting that they entice your customers and contacts to open them immediately. And that is just the start, as the customised mailer is opened the pop-up products leap out with energy and vibrancy and start to work for you. Unlike many New Year resolutions these products go on working for a very long time indeed. They sit on desks and work stations serving as a constant reminder of your company and services. Imagine if you simply send a letter or a boring flat pamphlet, it will simply not capture the same attention. Shapes that have been established for a long time are the Pop-up Ball and the Pop-up Cube and they are still a first choice product for many because they have ample print area and can easily be transformed into desk-top pen holders and calendars too. You may prefer the more novel shapes such as the pop-up house and the pop-up pyramid to use as a platform for your promotion.

A Pop-up Calendar is of course a popular choice for a New Year promotion or marketing campaign, however just like dogs are not just for Christmas, so too Calendars are not just for the New Year. In fact it can carry extra weight if you send a pop-up calendar to start at any time of the year at all. For example, when I worked in the Corporate Events Industry pop-up products were often sent with a 12 month calendar on with significant dates of Trade Shows and/or Events highlighted and often they started from the Spring months, March, April or May.

So, to summarize what do we need? Firstly we need the gusto and enthusiasm to pull together an accurate and relevant contacts list, then we need to decide what we need to say and finally we simple choose the best pop-up product to work for us. Surprising your contacts will capture their full attention immediately and will create a talking point with co-workers and colleagues; you can concentrate on those New Year resolutions now that you know your marketing campaign is working for you and will continue to do so for a long time.

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