Small business marketing categories «Aim It Media

Build a Better Business Card

Sunday, 16th of May 2010

Did you know that the business card was first used in China in the 15th century and then later in Europe in the 17th century? Back then it was originally called a “calling card” or “visiting card” and had all sorts of etiquette surrounding the proper use and presentation of it.

Business cards have come a long way since their early inception. They serve as an extension of you and your business and need to immediately make a statement to that effect. They need to tell a story or create the opportunity for a conversation to happen. They need to contain the answers to the basic questions of who, why, where, when and what.

Think of your business card as a miniature billboard along a busy highway. It has the potential to have a multitude of viewers, but usually only for a few brief seconds, so it must compel those viewers to look closer and learn more.

Here’s a little list of ideas to stimulate your creative juices so you can be unique when you build a better business card. Don’t miss the BONUS IDEA at the end of this article.

… continue reading “Build a Better Business Card” »

Multi-location promotion -Scavenger Hunt

AimItMedia

Wednesday, 24th of March 2010

Does your company have multiple locations, or are you part of a bigger franchise?

I recently had a client with multiple coffee-cart locations needing an inexpensive marketing promotion to get her customers to visit those other locations.

We were looking into custom printed paper coffee cups (or cup sleeves) with scratch-off or pull-off pieces for an “instant win” effect. As you can imagine, this type of promotion is cost-prohibitive and didn’t fit into her marketing budget.

My creative solution was to develop a Scavenger Hunt game using branded printed cards, where a customer has to visit each location, purchase a drink, and find the scavenger item. Here’s a break-down of how we created our game:

1. Decide upon the dates, duration, and rules for running your game. For this client, we chose to run the game during the month of August, starting on the 1st and running through to the end of the month. This worked well for this client because most of her customers are daily visitors and all of her locations are within driving distance of each other.

… continue reading “Multi-location promotion -Scavenger Hunt” »

3 Key Ingredients for a Better Business Blog

AimItMedia

Sunday, 14th of March 2010

You’re an entrepreneur or small business owner who has decided it’s the right time to develop a business website … better yet, a business blog … now what?

Here are my personal must-haves for any new website (blogsite) that I develop for clients:

WordPress – WordPress is the best option to choose for a blogging platform. It’s easy to install, has lots of themes and plug-ins and can be highly customized for various requirements. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that WordPress can only be used as a “blog” … there are many creative alternative uses for it.
Aweber – Aweber is an auto-responder that allows you to create a partially automatic dialogue with customers. It’s a great tool for instantly acknowledging form submitters that you received their submission and will get back to them, works great for email newsletters, and has wonderful tracking analytics so you can see what is or isn’t working with your email marketing campaigns and offers.
A Designer – Yes, I’m a little biased on my recommendation on this third item since I am one myself. A designer can setup your blogsite so that all you have to do is go in and keep it maintained with as little tech-know-how as possible. A designer can also customize the graphics for your blog so that your blogsite doesn’t look “cookie-cutter” and has a unique personality that fits your overall branding position. A designer can also help you choose which features and plug-ins would work best for your particular business blog based on your target audience.

You can learn about the WordPress plug-ins I use in my article: WordPress Blog Design: Plugins

I’m interested to have a dialogue with fellow designers, entrepreneurs and small business owners on this subject.

What other ingredients do you think make for a better business blog?

Construction Zone: Aim It Media & Creativarty

AimItMedia

Monday, 1st of March 2010

The Survey is in … I’ve heard back from Clients, Contacts, and Industry Professionals!

My entrepreneur and small business clients find all the design-related information to be unnecessary clutter for the majority of them. They prefer the information and ideas of how they can market their business better. Very few of them care about the how and why of design, they would rather have someone else worry about that –> like ME

My designer friends and industry professionals find all the marketing-related information to be unnecessary information for the majority of them. They are much more interested in knowing the how and why of design … and only want to know about marketing if it’s about the design of marketing materials.

So …

Over the next week (hopefully not longer), I will be redesigning Aim It Media to be simpler and more focused on Marketing (with some business).

I am designing a completely new blogsite Creativarty strictly for design-related articles, posts and resources.

I’ve also created a new Twitter profile at Twitter/Creativarty … although I’m not tweeting form it yet, follow me there for all design-related tweets since Twitter/AimItMedia will be used for business and marketing tweets.