In defense of the handwritten note
Over the past few years, email has become the delivery method of choice for many business correspondence. As smartphones and social media continue to rise, text messages and tweets are also gaining popularity. Yet, with all that technology, there are still times when a handwritten note makes sense. Here are a few examples to keep in mind:

Sales call follow-ups. Send your prospect a three to four-sentence note, thanking them for their time and reinforcing what you discussed in your meeting. People appreciate the personal touch a handwritten note provides.

Client thank yous. Mark each client’s anniversary with you — or any particularly large or meaningful orders they place — with a quick, handwritten thank you card. For even more goodwill, include a handwritten thank you with each completed order or invoice.

Employee thank yous. When someone goes above and beyond the call of duty, recognize them with a handwritten thank you card. Your employee will appreciate the gesture just as much as your clients do when you send them a handwritten note.

Special recognition. If you see a customer or prospect featured in the newspaper, send them a quick congratulatory note, along with a copy of the clip. Send birthday and holiday greetings, and look for ways to let your customers know you’re thinking of them on their special days.
Contributed By: Carl Thress

Personalizing your Facebook news feed settings
Do you feel like you’re missing out on Facebook updates from friends, family, and organizations you “like” on the social networking giant? You’re not alone. Recently, Facebook updated its news feed options to allow users to choose between viewing updates from “Friends and pages you interact with most” or “All of your friends and pages.” Unfortunately, it didn’t bother telling people about the change. What’s worse, rather than default to showing everything, the site chose to make the default “Friends and pages you interact with most” for many of its “500 million friends.”

Luckily, changing the setting to view content from all friends and pages is fairly simple. To get started, scroll all the way to the bottom of your news feed, and click the Edit Options link. This will bring up a box titled “Edit Your News Feed Settings.” In it, you’ll find a dropdown list to change your settings. The box also lists any applications, users, or pages that you’ve manually hidden from view. Click the “x” next to any of these to resume getting updates from those sources.

Once you’ve tweaked your overall settings, hiding updates from specific sources is fairly easy, too. Just hover your mouse over one of the updates you’ve received from the user/application/company page you no longer want in your news feed, and click the floating “x” that appears on the right-hand side of the screen. A popup will appear, allowing you to hide just that specific post or all posts by that source. If you decide later that you want to resume receiving updates from that user/application/company page, follow the instructions detailed in the previous paragraph.

For more great Facebook tips, visit http://www.insidefacebook.com.
Contributed By: Carl Thress

Completing a challenging assignment. Closing a tough sale. Making a big presentation. All of these can leave a person feeling on top of the world. But when that elation subsides, many people are left wondering, “What now?” The anticipation that drove them to push harder and find success is now replaced by an emptiness and longing for something more.

After investing so much time and energy into achieving a goal, it’s only natural to feel some sense of letdown once that objective is achieved. Sports teams, for example, have to struggle sometimes to maintain focus after beating a big rival, so they don’t let the next game slip by.

Commentators refer to these as “trap games” because it’s so easy (and natural) for teams to let down their guard and not try as hard in the game immediately following a big, emotional win. The result, of course, can be a disappointing loss against a seemingly easier foe.

To lessen any feelings of letdown after big wins in your own business and personal life, experts suggest jumping into the next project right away. Give yourself a little time to recoup, of course, and to celebrate a well-earned win, but then start pushing yourself forward again. As tennis great Arthur Ashe once said: “Success is a journey, not a destination.” Enjoy the ride.

I ran across an interesting quote recently that I thought I’d share. “Times are tough. In times like these, clients tend to focus on the value proposition. ‘Throw it at the wall and see if it sticks’ is not a phrase you hear a lot in recessions. Instead, your customers will tend to have their eyes transfixed on your value proposition. ‘How does this spend make me better off?’”

I saw that on a site about something entirely un-print related, but it is so true for so many industries that it cried out to be quoted. Printing hasn’t been about “seeing what sticks” for years. I bet your industry hasn’t either. I know that we have been focusing on making you better off for an awfully long time. But even so, it bears repeating.

You need marketing. Why? Because you want customers. But you don’t want to waste your marketing dollars. As printers, we recognize that and have continued to adapt our product and service line to remain in line with our customers’ needs as they evolve.

Of course, the same is true of your customers and the products and services you provide to them. Your customers don’t want to spend money just for the sake of the next new thing. Make sure your value proposition makes sense to your customers, too.

Social media sites are eager to answer your questions
Gotta question? Or maybe an answer? It seems more and more social media sites are listening. LinkedIn has long had a LinkedIn Answers feature, where people can ask business-related questions and get answers from experts in the community. Facebook added Facebook Questions late last year, and Quora, a relatively new kid on the block, is based entirely on questions and answers from members of its growing community.

Question and answer features provide an excellent opportunity for finding information and for setting yourself apart as an expert in your field. On Quora, for example, members can view questions based on topic, follow specific topics that interest them to see what others are asking, follow specific questions to see new answers as they appear, and rate answers, so the best answers work their way to the top of the heap. The Quora website is built on a structure similar to Wikipedia and uses moderators to ensure content is appropriate.

Starting out on any new social site can be a bit daunting. Before asking a new question on Quora, Facebook Questions, or a similar website, look for similar questions that have already been posted. With thousands of questions in place on virtually every topic under the sun, don’t be surprised if your question has already been asked and answered. As you become more familiar with the site, start answering questions that fit your area of expertise. Engage with other users who share your interests, and stay involved.

For more information about Quora, visit http://www.quora.com. To learn more about Facebook Questions, visit http://www.facebook.com/questions/. And to join the conversation at LinkedIn, go to http://www.LinkedIn.com/answers/.
Contributed By: Carl Thress

Social media marketing is becoming an important cog in the wheel of many companies’ overall marketing plans. According to HubSpot.com, U.S. advertisers spent $1.7 billion (that’s billion with a “b”) in 2010 on social media marketing. Of that, 53% was spent advertising on Facebook. Globally, companies spent $3.4 billion on social media marketing in 2010.

Pepsi — a staple of Super Bowl ads for decades — has announced that it will not run any ads in this year’s game. Instead, the company will invest more heavily in social media campaigns.

So what are the most popular social media channels for large companies? HubSpot reports that 65% of Fortune Global 100 companies maintain a corporate Twitter account, 54% host a Facebook page, 50% have a company YouTube channel, and 33% run a company blog.

Having a Facebook page, Twitter account, or blog is one thing. Keeping it active is something else entirely. Of the companies cited earlier who use Twitter, 82% post multiple tweets per week. Among corporate YouTube users, 68% upload at least one new video per month. On Facebook, 59% post at least once per week. And 36% of corporations with blogs update those blogs at least once every month.

While HubSpot focused its research on larger corporations, social media marketing is ideally suited for small businesses, too. The cost of getting started is minimal, and commitment can grow and scale over time.

If you aren’t using social media marketing, I recommend you start. If you can’t commit too much time, that’s ok. Start small, and build your efforts as time allows. Begin with a Facebook page for your company, a blog (like this one), or a Twitter account. Make a plan for adding new content regularly. And engage with customers who engage with you online.

Once you’re started, include the address for each of your social media channels on your website. Add your Twitter name to your business cards. And begin to engage with your customers and prospective customers through social media. You’ll be glad you did.

If you’d like to see more from the HubSpot study referenced in this post, visit:

http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/8594/Social-Media-Marketing-By-The-Numbers-Infographic.aspx

Starbucks has decided to rid itself of the bothersome words “Starbucks Coffee” in its logo and leave behind only their green mermaid. The company says it’s making the change because it sells more than coffee.

This is a pretty familiar issue to printers who debate changing their name from SomeName Printing Company to SomeName Marketing Company, in order to emphasize the diversity of products and services they provide. It’s equally familiar to any company that is thinking about rebranding.

Some people think such a name change is a silly move. “I think it’s nuts,” said James Gregory, chief executive of brand consulting firm CoreBrand, in a Reuters article. “What’s it going to be — the coffee formerly known as Starbucks?”

On the other hand, there are companies for which their logo is so universal they don’t need anything else. Apple comes to mind. For their part, Starbucks says, “Our new evolution liberates the siren from the outer ring, making her the true, welcoming face of Starbucks.”

So I guess the question is — what do you think? Will you buy more stuff from Starbucks, sans the “coffee”? And would you ever consider a similar move for your own company?

For reference, here’s a link to the Reuters’ piece quoted above:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7045YF20110106

One aspect of being environmentally responsible with print is to order the appropriate quantity of printed material. With any print order, the more you order, the bigger discounts you see. Remember to take environmental factors in account when determining a quantity for your letterheads, envelopes and more.

As a guideline for how much to order, we recommend that you maintain between a three and six month supply. More than a six month supply means that you risk having to discard marketing material that becomes out-of-date; less than a three-month supply and you may be giving up the huge cost savings associated with a longer print run.

In the past it was more difficult to manage print inventory, and a mistake could be costly. Today, however, our digital printing equipment allows us to offer print-on-demand – the ability to print marketing materials in full color as you need them a few times a year.

Social Media Basics 1: For small business, entrepreneurs, startups, and non-profit organizations.
Anytime you’re online you will notice little blue f’s and t’s scattered over most websites, even large businesses. You know what they mean; you know your business should be on Facebook, Twitter, etc, but how?

Jumping into the social media world can be difficult for some business owners. For years marketing and advertising had stayed away from social networks on a personal level, but now consumers welcome their favorite brands and products into their list of close friends. The social networking real estate for marketing is invaluable, with access to key data about your customers’ average age, gender, usage and more.

There are literally thousands of different social media sites that you join and become active in. You can’t spend time on them all, so it’s best to start with a couple the most popular sites and start building your “fan base” from there. The social media standards are always evolving, so keep in mind that a site that’s popular today may be gone tomorrow. But one thing is for sure; social media is here to stay.

Suggested sites to start with:

Facebook: Businesses on Facebook have what is called a “Facebook Page”. Facebook pages are different than a regular personal profile. Anyone with a personal profile on Facebook can create a page, update it, and also permit other people’s accounts to update that same page as well.

For example, a company’s president can log on his or her personal Facebook account, create a page for the company, and assign permission to specific employees to update the page from their personal profiles as well. You must log in through a personal account to create a page for a business. http://www.facebook.com/FacebookPages

Twitter: All Twitter accounts are the same. Create one for your business and don’t forget to keep the password written down in a safe place. All Twitter accounts have a unique username that is displayed on every tweet you post, and is part of your twitter URL (website address). Millions of Twitter accounts have already been created, so finding a username that fits your business exactly may be a little tricky. Remember to keep it simple (even if you have to add a one or two digit number at the end of a word). https://twitter.com/signup

Linkedin: Linked in is geared more for the individual employee as opposed to the company as a whole. However, they have just launched the new “Companies” feature on the site that will allow a business or organization to create a specific “company profile”. Like Facebook, this company page is created and maintained using your own personal profile. Company profiles must be created by an owner or employee of that company, and has a company email linked in their personal profile. The creator of the company page can then give other LinkedIn users that are in his or her company, access to edit and update the company profile page. http://www.linkedin.com/company/add/show

Start by gathering logos and company photos, information and other tidbits to fill out your profiles and create your accounts. Remember, just creating an account and filling out a profile isn’t enough to get a large following. Start by adding close friends and family, and create some content for others to want to follow/subscribe to you. More information to help you in this quest will be found in articles to come, so keep posted!

Is you business on yelp? bing? google places? Even if you don’t have a retail front, listing your business and linking your website lets others know you’re local, and might sway them to go with you over your competitor.