Oct

1

How to Create Print Mail on a Budget

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You have plenty of gift baskets to show customers on your Web site, but how will you get them there?

Customers often want to see a brochure. This print material can be expensive, but it’s a vital marketing component, and online resources as well as local printers will help you to reduce the expense so that it’s considered an investment.

See brochure samples on this page.

Jan

21

How to Plant Seeds that Grow Your Sales

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According to media reports, January is the month to resolve to work smarter, achieve goals, and end bad habits.

It’s a media focus that assaults us every year because it’s their agenda. How about your agenda? Have you devised your business strategy, the methods and the tools that will drive your 2009 success?

Gift basket sales will grow when you plant seeds on a daily basis. This is true in any economy. Opportunities to sell and market materialize as you take advantage of the contacts around you and in your database.

There’s no magic formula for achieving success. It takes persistence along with consistent determination to move forward every day.

Of course, there will be unforeseen circumstances that cause setbacks and missteps. But that’s a small part of the picture.

Stay focused on the parts you can control, and your resolutions will come true.

The CD, 99 Sizzling Marketing Ideas to Make More Money, January to June, acts as a business partner, providing you with time-tested and relevant information used by successful designers every day. Learn more about this popular CD here.

Read more New Year success tips:

Postcards – a favorite low-cost marketing vehicle that’s big on business building.

Turning Giveaways into Sales Tools – how holiday products may bring you profits now.

Selling on Consignment – is this the year to expand sales through other retailers?

Dec

24

Why Gift Baskets and Emotion Work Together

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A person who comes to the door to receive your carefully-made gift basket never pouts. You’ll always see a smile on her face, even if the occasion is not joyous.

It proves, without a doubt, that gift baskets and emotion are permanently connected, and this angle is critically important when planning your themes and marketing.

If you’re planning on an avalanche of sales in 2009, finish the following tasks before the New Year’s ball drops in New York’s Times Square.

1. List the phrases you remember hearing from customers or recipients when they see the gift basket for the first time or express satisfaction by phone when re-ordering.

These phrases provide clues on how to position your marketing messages.

2. Decide which customer sentences about your wonderful presentation, service, or delivery will be added to each page of your Web site. Then add it as quickly as possible.

Comments and feedback turn fence sitters into buyers.

3. Plan a series of literature, sent by Email and traditional mail, that keeps your name and product visible every month.

When customers frequently see your name, they finally get the connection and order from you every time an occasion calls for gifts and baskets.

Here are three investments that will put you on track.

101 Ways to Market Gift Baskets, book or Ebook

99 Marketing Ideas to Make More Money CD, January-June. You’ll save $15 when ordering the July-December CD with the first one.

Low-Cost Secrets for Landing Corporate Accounts CD

Every order that arrives in my office before December 31 will include a special gift worth a minimum $30 from our inventory.

The type of emotion you feel each time you receive an order is the same feeling customers enjoy every time you ring their doorbell. Commit to marketing today so that both you and customers smile all year long.

Aug

17

Business Relationships, How to Blog, Wrapping Up Ribbon

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HOW TO BUILD BUSINESS
Designers are beginning to write large holiday orders despite gloom and doom forecasts. What’s their secret? Wednesday’s newsletter centers on relationships that they build with clients all year long to ensure high-volume sales at year’s end and how you can do the same.

BLOGGING FOR DOLLARS
Is it time for you to create an online customer relationship with a blog? Some designers have one now, and others are just starting. Here are three reasons why gift basket makers blog and how this weekly project may benefit your sales.

READY TO RECEIVE RIBBON?
Fall and holiday ribbon you ordered at trade shows will be shipped to your office in the coming weeks. Is there room in your workspace to organize it? Read this blog article and learn what type of equipment designers install so that ribbon is right at their fingertips.

Jul

9

Quick and Easy Marketing Materials

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Your Web site is beautiful, filled with photographs of the best designs in town. However, there will always be a group of prospects who want to see more than your site. They want a catalog or flyer to remind them of your gift baskets.

Many of us resist the temptation to invest in full color brochures because the expense is too high for the low return. But the problem still exists. You want to have some type of print literature, aside from your business card, to distribute. What are the options?

1. Postcards make great sales tools. They’re easy to maintain for distribution, encouraging sales with a gorgeous design on one side and message on the other. Online printing companies make adding a digital photo to a postcard easy and affordable.

2. Flyers are a close second option, but they’re not as easy to make as postcards. Many designers use their own publishing software to arrange digital photos in a collage format. The flyers are either printed singly when needed or in quantity through an outside printer.

Remember to take photographs of completed designs before they’re shipped or hand delivered. This ensures that you have a bounty of pictures to choose from to create print literature that convinces prospects to become clients.

Learn more about pictures on the photography page, and see these flyer and catalog examples.

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