QRCodes are you using them?

Many people are talking about QR codes, what are they and how can you use them? Well these funny shaped boxes have been around a little while but are starting to become more and more prevelant.

Where you may ask? Direct mail, is one. As a professional who helps our clients promote their businesses, it is my duty to review direct mail that comes addressed to me or my family for trends ideas that I can share with YOU. On a number of direct mail pieces people have printed these codes on the envelopes. Why you may ask.

They wanted me to scan the QR code which will take me to their website, a video about what their product, promotion or cause it. This will get me to their website faster, give them tracking ability.

Next lets go to manufacturing or retail as they can cross over. My local best buy had QR codes printed on their displays next to many of their products. Again the manufacturer wants me to use my smart phone for accessing their information to become more informed creating a consumer that is more engaged with the brand.

So let us say you are a retailer, and you want your customer to engage why not put QR codes on your POS, with a promotion scan our QC code for a chance to win.

If you are a manufacturer scan our QC code to register your product purchase online.

The younger demographic who is using their smart phones as a computer is going to demand immediate access to information and QC codes give you a great way to do it.

I have enclosed the QR code for www.proprintersonline.com

Good luck with the QR codes and let us show you how they can be used most effectively.

Happy Thanksgiving

Today's message on Thanksgiving Eve, is that I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving. This is one of our country's true holidays, where everyone can celebrate, regardless of religon, race etc.

We all have something to be thankful for, our health, our families, we have enough food to eat, we have a job etc.

So whether you are traveling, hosting your own Thanksgiving Dinner and cooking, going out to eat, like to watch football or not, it does not matter. It matters that we have fun with our loved ones.

So as we all sit down and enjoy a great weekend with our loved ones, let us give thanks for the blessings we have.

Be safe in your travels, and enjoy.

Derek

Offer Great Prizes with low risk

Let's face it people love big prizes, whether it is cash, trips or cars. How many of us play the lottery, contests or sweepstakes, for that "chance" to win. We all know the odds are stacked against us but we do it anyway.

Well, your company can accomplish the same goal of attracting customers to your store, website or facebook page by using large incentives or prizes to help you grow your business. How you may ask can McDonalds offer 1 million dollars if somebody wins their Monopoly game? Well of course they can pay it, but they won't. AN INSURANCE COMPANY WILL! It is called prize insurance. Most of us have been involved in a charity golf outing and if you got a hole in one there was a car awarded. Well some insurance company secured that prize with insurance and the company running the program paid a premium, based upon the odds of somebody getting a hole in one.

Well this concept can be used in many ways. Some ideas are if the Dow Jones hits 20,000, or if we get a certain amount of snow, or simply other odds based games of chance from scratch off cards to online games.

Well recently Callway ran a promotion if you bought a Callaway Driver and Phil Mickelson won the Masters your driver is free. Well the insurance company had to pay off on this one as, he did win.



Callaway and it's retail partners made off great through the sales lift and the increased buzz surrounding this program. They are running it again!

So the next time you want to run a promotion, think about offering some great prizes, and asking us how we can help you accomplish this and use the power of great prizes to achieve goals for you.

Thanks again.

Derek

Customer and Employee Gifts and Recognition

Everyone wants to be thanked and appreciated. Most of us probably don't tell people thank you, you did a great job, I appreciate you as an employee or, we value your business very much.

Well employee and customer recognition are more important today than EVER before. Why you may ask?

1. When there is a difficult economy YOUR CUSTOMERS are getting called on by more and more of your competitors looking to offset lost business. And if ever your customers start to feel that their business is being taken for granted or not appreciated, then they are susceptible to the competition.

2. The same thing happens with your employees. They may not be able to leave and get a new job today in a difficult labor market, but when it turns, and if they don't feel appreciated then watch out.

Recognition programs help organizations in three ways:
• Recognition programs help companies make more money
• Recognition programs keep employees engaged in their work
• Recognition programs improve employee performance

Recognition makes your company more profitable because employees who are recognized are more engaged in their work. Engaged employees perform at a higher level and give better service. As a result, customers are more satisfied and will continue to do business with your organization.

Additionally, recognition builds a stronger relationship between the manager and the employee. As this relationship grows, employees develop a loyalty to the manager and the organization.
Recognition Programs Help Companies Make Money

Most importantly, recognition programs help companies make more money. According to John Knotter, author of Culture and Performance, companies that pay attention to employees enjoy exceptional increases to the bottom line when compared to companies that only pay attention to the bottom line.


So what can do? Offer small tokens of appreciation to your customers and employees for the holidays. We find the best products are food based, gifts. They can be shared and enjoyed at home and in the office as well. They come in many price points with low minimums and can be dropped shipped to your clients location as well.




For example these great custom imprinted cookies have a price point of under $8.00 and we have products that start there and go as far as your budge allows.

The point here is to remember to thank your customers, thank your employees it is a good investment.

Please feel free to call me at 609 844 0088, with any questions you may have about this or other ideas to promote your business.

Thanks for reading

Why brand FedEx, UPS, or USPS?

Okay we are all guilty of it building somebody else's brand instead of ours. Most people use either FedEx or UPS or USPS for their fast delivery services from point A to point B. Most of those same people will help build those companies brand by mailing those letters in packaging that supports those companies. Why? Why are you not using a branded product that can act in the same manner as those others?

Why can't you use a branded tabbed envelope and ship with UPS, or FedEx or USPS? YOU CAN, so the next time you have to start sending critical documents to customers, or colleagues, think twice about using somebody else's marketing materials, and not yours.
Features
"The envelope that becomes a file folder!"

•Easy Open "Zip Strip"
•Fully Customizable including the Tab
•High-Gloss Laminate
•15pt C1S Stock
•Entire Envelope Imprint Area
•Four Color Process
•Made in U.S.A
Dimensions: 11 ¾" x 9"



If you have any questions about this product, or would like to see some samples, please feel free to give me a call at 1 877 614 7746.

Thank you for your readership.

Derek

Referrals. Make them work for you.

"43% of all new business comes from referrals"- Source: Marketing Best Practices Online Survey of Business Owners.

Referrals deliver a critical "IN" to opening the door that no other source of marketing can provide.

According to Business Network International (BNI), the business and professional networking organization, BNI members reap approximately $1 billion a year in referral sales. That means a seat in a BNI group is worth, on average, $45,000 in sales annually. Not bad!
Mark Grinblatt, UCLA Anderson School of Management, says that when people become serious about buying a car, they switch from paying attention to ads on television, magazines, newspapers and the Internet—and begin looking for referrals instead, asking for opinions from their colleagues and friends.
John Jantsch, author of the book “Referral Flood,” calls referrals “the most important business marketing secret in the world.”
David Frey, author of the book “The Small Business Marketing Bible,” says the key to making referral systems run by themselves is to “institutionalize them into your business.”
Joe Giard is listed in the “Guinness Book of World Records” as a record-holder for selling the most automobiles for 12 consecutive years. How did he do it? According to Joe, it was through referr

Merchandise that MOTIVATES!

Are you looking to create an incentive for your internal sales people, tellers, or other employees to reach higher than their specified goals and take your business to the next level?

Would you like to lock in your customers with a merchandise based program so robust that they can't afford to leave? Well here is one that will do just that.




In Today’s competitive and stress-filled workplace, employees want to know that their employer values their contribution… ValuesMe.com was designed for companies who want their employees to know they are valued
Your program domain name could be… www.ABCCO.ValuesMe.com
The name itself drives home the message that you value your employees
This industry-leading technology allows you to administer and communicate a comprehensive Employee Rewards & Recognition program in a very cost-effective, secure web-based environment
Service awards, sales incentives, recognition awards, unique/custom award programs

The ValuesMe.com platform is loaded with great features to help you implement and maintain a successful program, some key features include…
Multi-Program Management
Now you can easily administer multiple programs on a single platform and allow your employees to accumulate all of their points, from all of the various programs, in one online account.This makes the program administration much easier and less time-consuming while giving your employees the tremendous benefit of greater earning potential.
Comprehensive Communications Tools:

Now you can communicate with every employee with the touch of a button, through our comprehensive e-marketing tools, message boards, the Integrated Document Library and customizable site content including banner ads
This makes on-going program communication simple and FREE.
Industry-First Award Catalog:

Now you can offer your employees the true freedom of choice through our Industry-First Award Catalog offering literally millions of great award options all at Real-Time Pricing. This gives you a true value-offering for your program that will engage and motivate your employees and be far more cost-effective than the traditional merchandise platforms offered today.You can also ship all of the awards to the corporate office or a manager, to present the awards to the recipient, in front of his/her peers – further building employee loyalty and engagement at all levels.

Comprehensive Reporting Tools:

Now you have complete control and management of your program budgets and activity right at your fingertips, including tax reporting so you know exactly who got what at the end of the year. This gives you the peace of mind that you’re on budget, that your employees are motivated and that you won’t be digging for a lot of extra information when it comes to tax season.

Your employees or CUSTOMERS will feel valued and be highly motivated by the opportunity to shop online with their points, for literally millions of great award options like…
Merchandise Store:

Millions of rewards in categories like Electronics, Music (CD’s, MP3 Downloads, MP3 players, etc.), Apparel, Sporting Goods, Books, Movies, Jewelry, Home & Garden, Computers, Video Games and many others
Build-Your-Own Travel Store
Book airline flights, cruises and travel packages
Redeem points for tickets – not miles
No blackout dates or restrictions like the airline mile programs.

Event Tickets Store:

Sporting Event Tickets, Concert/Theatre Tickets, and much more
Experiential Activities Store
Millions of unique experiences and activities from shopping trips and tours to theme parks and adventures in all parts of the world
This industry-leading technology brings unprecedented value to any rewards program.



Special Features of the Primary Award Catalog
Millions of great reward options all featured at real-time prices and real-time availability.When the price of an item drops at retail, it also drops in the rewards catalog when new items become available at retail, they also become available in the rewards catalog.

Rapid Fulfillment capabilities:
Most awards arrive to the participant within 2-5 business days providing instant gratification for their efforts. Optional ability to allow program participants to use their own personal credit card at time of checkout to buy additional points and redeem for items worth more points than they have accumulated.



Redeem points for millions of different experiences from spa treatments to shopping trips, sightseeing tours to parks and attractions in places all around the world.

Be in your customers office for pennies a day.

Traditional Advertising Media has its place in your advertising budget. Whether it is radio, television or internet these media reach your clients in different ways, at different times and can be effective. This is also good for an overall brand awareness campaign to get the word out that your company is in existence etc.

I want to talk you about a way to take a small portion of your adverstising budget and allocating it to a different media.

What if the media I wanted to talk you about was used by 98% of all US homes, and 100% of all US Businesses?

What if I told you that this advertising medium STANDS ALONE? Your message will not be competing with others.

What if I told you this medium got you exposure everyday and multiple times per day by your customers?

What if depending on your industry you can get some of your program paid for with co-op dollars by your manufacturing partners?

Let us say you could get your brand in your customer and prospects hands where they would see it and use it everyday for 12 months and it only cost you a penny a day, would you be interested?

Where else can you get your brand in somebody's home or office used for 12 months for a penny a day. Well the answer is....

A CALENDAR! Yes, people use IPODs, Blackberrys, Outlook at Google but we still all of us have calendars on our desk, in our homes etc for quick planning and it is still the most cost effective medium available to you as a business. Why? A calendar is used everyday looked at many times during the course of the day seeing your brand and NOT YOUR COMPETITORS BRAND. In some cases you can get your manufacturing partners to help you with co-op dollars to help pay fo your calendars.

Well we are running an early bird special on all calendars. Order by August 31st and I will pay the shipping cost

So click on the link at : http://www.proprintersonline.com/item_choose.cfm?&CatalogGUID=855f0dca-7e9c-466b-8c63-4fbf64f100a8 and you will be able to see many of our calendar products there.

Thank you again for reading our blog.

New Rewards Program

So now we are offering rewards cash that can be used for the following which meet the customers wants in life. These programs can be used to initiate a trial offer for your company.

Apply for a new loan and receive $25 in music cash, or electronics cash, and these can be used at most big box theatres, retailers etc so your clients will be completely satisfied with your program. These rewards can be in some fashion fully customized with your feel and logo on them keeping your brand in their wallets or purses.

These programs have a breakage model to keep the cost down. Similar to buy a cell phone and it is "x" dollars after $50 rebate. Well the cell phone companies know that a good percentage won't rebate it and that is called breakage. So perhaps a $11.00 movie ticket program costs you ONLY $2 per say, but you are offering a nice reward.

We also have programs that address your clients needs such as grocery cash, gas cash, home heating cash, utility cash etc, so you know that your reward will be put to good you by your clients.

These rewards come in different payment methods depending on the application. They can be in the form of a check, which can be used to buy groceries, pay a utlility bill, cell phone bill etc.

Here is an example of a check rewards program:



They can come in the form of a plastic card, with Visa, MasterCard or Discover Logo on it which can be used at gas stations, restraunts, online purchases for items such as book, or dvd cash.

Here are what some of the plastic card rewards programs look like:



Then we have electronic delivery of rewards that can be used for online purchases similar to a gift card for Itunes for movies, music etc. This would allow you to take a simple code either printed on your receipt, a seriel number on a product, freshness code, and once the customer has that they can go to our website register the codes, and receive an immediate reward, which can be used to purchase online from online vendors.

All of these programs are once again a part of our overall product offering to help you grow your business in your marketplace.

So the next time you are looking for that creative offer to get your customers to try your product or service look no further than ProPrinters.

This idea might not be for you, but we might have the next great idea in our tool box that together will help you grow your business.

For more information or a demonstation or more case studies on how others in your industry have used this program please feel free to give me a call at 609 844 0088.

If you signup for a qualified demonstration of our cash rewards program we will bring you a free gift, an IPOD just for listening to our presentation.

Thank you,

Derek



As always thank you for reading our blog and your continued interest in what we have to offer you.

Using Text Promotions to Grow Your Business!

Are you embracing "texting" as a medium to help engage customers to your brand retail location or simply to interact with your clients? Over 90% off all text messages are read, so why not embrace this technology to grow your business.

The video shows you how you can use this in its simplist form

Well there are two ways to do this.

1. Inbound text, where you say text the word "pool" to a short code and receive a coupon on your phone for a free pool cleaning or 10% off your next order of cleaning supplies when you bring the coupon into the retail store.

2. The second would be when you send an outbound text to your group stating. The next 100 clients who receive this text message and bring it into our retail locations gets 10% off.

You can send out coupons, specials or other promotions via text.

If you do media advertising you can use different codes on different media. Use text "pool" on all radio spots, text "swim" on newspaper, and text "clean" on billboards, and then you can see which of the media is giving you the greatest ROI.

So in your overall promotion program consider texting and how it can work for you. If you have any more questions, please feel free to give us a call.

As always you can visit our website if you are looking for high quality premiums as another way to deliver your message.

Using a beach ball for Direct mail

Here I demonstrate how a simple everyday promotional product can be used to make an impactful direct mail piece. If you can explain to me how you can for the cost of beach ball printed with your logo on it that you can get at www.proprintersonline.com plus $1.60 postage you can get a great reaction, I would be willing to listen.

If not try it. Is your competition sending beach balls? NO they are sending brochures, how boring is that. It is a snooze fest that is how boring.

Let your personality show up.

ProPrinters- A different kind of agency

Advertising agencies are a very valuable resource to many of my clients. They help come up with branding concepts, do media buys for television, radio, and handle trade and consumer magazine print ads, all of which we choose not to pursue. For those of you who use advertising agencies in this respect I applaud you and suggest that you keep the course.

Where there is a divide, when it comes to print collateral, promotions, contests, sweepstakes, and direct mail ProPrinters can do many of these items at a fraction of the cost of your advertising agency.

First, printing is not something that an agency does so it becomes outsourced to a broker in many cases who will get the work done for the agency on behalf of the client. If this is the case our company who does this just as an agency does the end client, you perhaps will get caught up in the double markup game, costing you valuable dollars.

We have access to many more printing companies than agencies do, companies who specifically work on one type of printing, whether it is variable print, 4 color process, digital print. We don't try to fit a round peg in a square hole. We match your print projects with the proper print production facility to get you the best product and save you valuable dollars.

Consumer promotions- our company has exclusive agreements with some of the largest companies who provide consumer promotions. They have given us license to sell these products in specific geographys and specific accounts. So we have access to programs that will truly help our clients, you grow your business.

In some of these cases, end user clients have suggested that we work with their agencies on "consumer promotions" which will once again lead to the double margin affect costing you the client valuable resource dollars.

Turnkey Solution-we have access to the entire project from concept to completion. This includes the theme, graphic design, copywriting, prize insurance and rules writing and review by some of the finest promotions attorneys there are to make sure your promotion goes off without a hitch. We handle all prize procurement and prize fulfillment.

Once the promotion is in the works that leaves you to focus on other tasks at hand.

Lastly, we don't charge any fees for work that we don't do. Many agencies of record charge retainer or agency fees for you to have them work for you, even if their ideas are not some that are adopted. We do not. We will work with you to come up with concepts and ideas to help you, without any up front or monthly fees. We feel like if you like our idea then we become partners on that project, and if goes well, then we become partners on another project and grow our relationship together, with no contractual agreement. Our agreement is we do good work, and we stay partners.

So as some of you who do have "agencies of record" are looking at what work you send to them I ask that you consider your options, and consider ProPrinters.

In addition we have over 500,000 high quality branded products for your next promotion giveaway, company picnic. Items to fit all budgets.

Visit our website at http://www.proprintersonline.com/, register and you will receive a free gift for registering, while supplies last.

Personalized URLS (PURLS) not the same old email marketing

The average person gets 300 emails a week. 300!

You are likely on both ends of that spectrum, having sent someone one of those 300 or a recipient of one of those 300. Ask yourself the following questions:

1. How many did you read?

2. How many of the mass emails that your company sends out gets read?

Now lets take a walk to your snail mail box for a moment. You gather the mail and sort it out. You open the familiar pieces the mortgage the electric bill, all of the familiar faces.

Which leads to why we don't read more than half of our emails and in turn more than half of the stuff our company sends out doesn't GET READ. It is because most direct mail and email that is sent to us is MASS produced, and shows no personalized or personal relevancy to the recipient. The days of boxholder, occupant direct mail and email are long gone. People want to work with companies that connect with them, relate to them and make them feel like "Wow, this email was written for me!", and looking like one email or direct mail piece at a time, not just some PDF or generic put together email.

As you can see from the above example of an email with a PURL the creative way that you can drive the personalized message home and help the recipient take ownership of the email and your product or service therefore increasing response.

Personalization is Good!

"John, at Avis we try harder for xyz corporation"

Relevance is much better.

John is in charge of the preferred rental car company choices for a manufacturing company:

John, manfacturing companies like xyz spend an average

of 1.3 million dollars a year on rental car companies.

In less than 3 minutes when you visit your personal website you

will learn the 5 ways Avis's new program for manufacturing companies can

cut xyz's rental car costs by 20% annually.

When you add relevant text with relevant photos such as Mr. &Mrs. Prettyman's boat, you engage the customer because everyone likes to see their name in lights their name in print, and they will respond much more than emails to dear occupant with a stagnant link, or PDF attachment.

You could take any information you have about your clients in your database and feed it back to them in a PURL.

If you are a credit card company and want to send a PURL, Dear Mr. Smith you have earned 5000 reward points this month this is what you could buy with those points.

If you are a manufacturer, you could send an email out to your dealer network, letting them know that perhaps some of their customers who purchased product and registered it, have models that are near warranty expiration.

If you are a bank, and you have age demographics, you could send out PURLS, based upon age, and target product that meet their needs. Those with banking balances over "X" get message "A" and those with banking balances below "x" get a different PURL.

I hope this gives you some good ideas on how PURLS can help you drive results.

Stay tuned for the next BRAINSTORMER!

Motive captive sales, channel or agent sales

So you want to motive your sales team? You want to offer a rewards program that will motivate and reward the best? Well we can help.

Through US Motivation we are offering a state of the art electronic rewards catalog that contains merchandise, travel and extreme rewards. Nobody else comes close.

1. Over 6 million skus in the product offering, the most of anybody in our industry.

2. Along with merchandise the catalog contains travel and experiential rewards. Custom travel includes flights, hotel rooms, attraction concert and sporting event tickets, as well as adventure programs such as NASCAR, and fighter pilot simulator.

3. Savings on discounted items are passed on to your participants, so if it is on sale for us it is on sale for you!

4. The newest products on the market are available as soon as they are released. This includes video games, music, mp3 players, cameras. Many popular books, CDs, and DVDs have pre-order capabilities.

5. Real-time inventory. No more backorders or placing an order and getting substituted a "like item" that you don't "like". If it is no longer available it comes off the website.

6. Merchandise ships within 3 days and arrives within two weeks.

7. No shipping charges on any orders over $25 including flat screen televisions.

So if you are looking for a way to treat the top performers in your organization now is the time. With this rewards program you don't have to guess what your members want, they have the flexibility to choose.

With the array of prizes at all levels, it also gives your participants the ability to get rewards that they would not otherwise spend their money but since it is a reward they will get it, now that is MOTIVATION.

Motivate your sales people!

Introducing a New and Creative Incentive Program.

VARIABLE RATIO SCRATCH OFF CARDS!

These are a powerful tool to motive your sales people, agents to help sell your products and services for you.

Every card is a winner, and there is a JACKPOT on every card, i.e a cruise, big screen television etc. You pay a fixed amount, no matter what the winning prize is, as we absorb the risk.

There are 20 gray boxes, and each time your participant, receives a card they scratch off 5 spaces to uncover their prize. The number of "win" spaces uncovered determins their prizes.

The points earned on the cards are then redeemed for top quality name brand merchandise, or participants can continue to save their cards, and their points for bigger prizes.

We can create this program to fit any budget, to help you grow your business.

This is just one of the great programs we have to offer to help you.

ProPrinters

1 877 614 7746

Direct mail-retail traffic driver

Our unique direct mail program, called the "Traffic Ticket" is a great technique that has been used to promote events, such as grand openings, open houses etc.



500,000 tickets were mailed to everyone on the Hawaiian Islands. They were shocked when over 100,00 people showed up at one of their 18 stores in 9 days to partake in this promotion. Event was sponsored by Frito-Lay, and received a 34% response rate.

This program has been used by Safeway, Circle-K, Leslie Pools, and Green Giant to grow their respective businesses.

We handle the graphics, copywriting, rules, printing & mailing and prize fulfillment. You just reap the benefits.


Ask us how this program can be used for your next event, such as trade show, open house etc and we can explain why this unique program works.