by: Mitchell Gooze

by: Janice Jenkins

Summer is just weeks away and if you plan on getting a big chunk of that summer sales, you should always print brochures with the proper design theme to exploit the season. If you do not know how to do summer brochure printing though, do not worry. I happen to have just the exact important tips that you need to develop great designs and concepts for summer brochure printing. Just read on below and see what you can learn in creating brochures that are fit for summer sales.

The sun and the sky. To create a great color brochure for the summer, it is important to know what the season is all about. In most cultures, summer is about the sun and the sky. It is about blue, yellow and warm colors like orange and sometimes red.

With that in mind, you should try to adopt energetic color schemes like this so that your color brochures can really be in with the summer spirit. People like seeing seasonal color brochures like this because they can partake into that feeling of summer if you design it right. No one wants cold and corporate in promotions when it is summer right? So try to make it a point to use summer colors in all your color brochures for the summer. Believe me, it will be worth it.

Light and easy to get. Also, with the spirit of summer as energetic and dynamic, it pays to print your color brochures in such a way as they are easy to get. You should try printing your color brochures with thinner paper and smaller brochure dimensions. This not only makes the brochure printing cheaper, people will also appreciate the fact that they can carry the color brochures much more easily with its light and small dimensions. With all the heat involved in summer, nobody really likes lugging around thick papers around. So make sure you downsize your brochures to make them light and more mobile.

An energetic image. Of course, it is also important that you use energetic or dynamic images when summer promotions come your way. This means that you should not print “static shots”. The best color brochure images for the summer market season are the ones that convey movement and dynamism.

For example, you can print people in action such as in sports, or you can insert images with implied movement such as windswept materials and blurred moving objects. All these add that feeling of energy, summer and light that can be perfect for the summer market season.

Hopefully these tips can help you a lot with your summer brochure printing. It is good to do this from time to time to improve your competitiveness in this very lucrative season.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit: http://www.printplace.com/printing/brochure-printing.aspx
Janice Jenkins is a writer for a marketing company in Chicago, IL. Mostly into marketing research, Janice started writing articles early 2007 to impart her knowledge to individuals new to the marketing industry.

The author invites you to visit: http://www.printplace.com

by: Daniel Sroda

There are many macro and micro environmental forces that effect Nokia’s ability to serve its customers. Over the next 1-5 years, the competitive landscape may be shaped by four major market drivers.

Growth in developing markets

China is the largest market by sales and India is predicted to become the second largest market by 2010 (BBC website, 2007). Africa, South America and Eastern Europe are also growth markets. Nokia’s experience in developing markets may provide a competitive advantage over competitors who are only just beginning to venture into what is relatively unknown territory. The fact that Nokia has existing distribution channels (Ewing & Lakshman, 2007) combined with competencies such as knowledge, understanding and experience of these markets (India, China and South America for example) will provide a competitive advantage over their competitors. Further, Nokia’s ability to keep costs down through economies of scale and effective operations means that high margins can be maintained even in the face of price competition. This is important for developing markets as the demand will be for low-cost entry-level handsets until the mobile industry has been established and customers upgrade a s they become more sophisticated (Virki, 2007). Nokia’s ability to cater for the demands of the market whilst maintaining profits provides a significant competitive advantage and acts as a barrier to potential entrants.

Changing technology and digital convergence

According to Nokia (2008) mobile communications, music, media and information technology are converging in to one industry. Ojo (2009) notes that the threat of substitutes from net-books and other computer based products is increasing as phones and PC’s become more homogenous. This rapid technological change increases customer sophistication and heralds the threat of companies such as Microsoft entering the market. These companies may have more experience and resources in areas of relative inexperience for Nokia which may mean that Nokia are at a competitive disadvantage. One means of reducing this threat is through merger and acquisitions (M&A). The economic climate may provide an opportunity for Nokia to take advantage of financially weak rivals (Ojo, 2009. This provides a route for Nokia to gain market share and experience in new industries. Acer who have an 11.9% share in the notebook market (Kwong, 2009) are a possible target and Nokia’s relative financial position may facilitate this, although there may be competition for the acquisition by companies such as Siemens and HP.

Economic climate

Nokia’s large market share in developing markets such as India, which have been insulated against the full extent global economic recession (Parker, 2008), has provided Nokia with a financial advantage over its competitors. However, according to Nokia (2008) 37% of sales originate from the European market which is heavily affected by the global economic crisis. This has affected the ability of customers to purchase reduced profits and has lead to reduced R&D budget (Wearden, 2009; Ojo, 2009). This may lead to a loss of competitive advantage for Nokia as technological innovation is a core competence (Prahalad and Hamel, 1990) and may signal a move from differentiation – a key outcome of Nokia’s R&D activity – to cost leadership. Porter (2004;35) describes cost leadership as yielding “above average returns despite the presence of strong competitive forces” and it could be argued that Nokia has enjoyed the benefits of being the cost leader whilst also having a strongly differen tiated brand and product. Porter (2004) notes that these two strategies are usually incompatible as differentiation is capital intensive and trade offs with cost savings may be inevitable. Increased competition via the introduction of the Iphone, flip phones, RAZR etc has diminished Nokia’s product differentiation and, when combined with the effects of the economic climate, may precipitate a revised strategy.

Increasing competition in developed markets

Increasing price competition in domestic markets (Laurent, 2008) and the maturing industry (Nokia, 2008) has eroded profits (Ojo, 2009). Further, Apple has entered the market and Microsoft is on the competitive horizon, both of whom have huge budgets and perhaps more importantly, greater competence in computing technology. Therefore, to remain competitive in traditional markets may require increased spending on marketing and R&D and an effort to develop competencies in these new technologies before market share, profits and ultimately shareholder value is eroded. However, with R&D cuts announced, there may be a dichotomy. Increased spending on R&D is needed to maintain market share but fewer funds are available. Nokia need to find a way to develop the competencies in new technology that will fend off competition from Microsoft and Apple. R&D may not provide the best return on investment (ROI) in the current climate and M&A may be a more prudent strategy.

References

BBC website. 2007. India now Nokia’s second market. [Online] Available from http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6960520.stm. Accessed 4th March 2009.

Ewing, J. and Lakshman, N. 2007. NOKIA LESSON LEARNED, REWARD REAPED; Offering products for every corner of he market is paying off for the mobile-phone maker. Business Week. p32.[Online] Available from http://find.galegroup.com/ips/start.do?prodId=IPS (Gale Document Number:A173253571) Accessed 23rd February 2009.

Kwong, R. 2009. Acer unveils cheapest ultra-thin notebook. Financial Times. [Online] Available from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/a97c892e-244b-11de-9a01-00144feabdc0,dwp_uuid=aece9792-aa13-11da-96ea-0000779e2340.html Accessed 10th April 2009.

Laurent, L. 2008. Nokia Losing Price Wars. Forbes website. [Online] Available from http://www.forbes.com/2008/10/16/nokia-apple-technology-markets-equity-cx_ll_1016markets09.html. Accessed 4th March 2009.

Nokia. Form 20-F. 2008.

Ojo, B. 2009. Analysis: Nokia vulnerable to maturing mobile market. Electronic Engineering Times. 23 March, 2009. p8

Parker, A. 2009. Nokia vows to exact revenge on rivals. Financial Times. [Online] Available from http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1c7540a4-d831-11dd-bcc0-000077b07658,Authorised=false.html?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fhttp://www.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F1c7540a4-d831-11dd-bcc0-000077b07658.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.ft.com%2Fsearch%3FqueryText%3Dnokia%2Bvows%2Bto%2Bexact%2B Accessed 7th February 2009.

Porter, M.E, 2004, Competitive advantage: Creating and sustaining superior performance, Free press, USA.

Prahalad, C. K. and Hamel, G, 1990. The Core Competence of the Corporation, Harvard Business Review. Vol. 68, No 3, pp 79-91.

Virki, T. 2007. Nokia leads race for next billion mobile users. Reuters. [Online] Available from http://uk.reuters.com/article/technologyNews/idUKL228063620070625 Accessed 23rd February 2009.

Wearden, G. 2009. Nokia to shed another 1,700 jobs. The Guardian website. [Online] Available from http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/mar/17/nokia-mobiles-telecoms-recession. Accessed 25th March 2009.

Daniel Sroda is a personal development and management trainer and owner of Coloursave Printer Cartridges.

The author invites you to visit: http://www.coloursave.com

by: Brent M Durell

If you have not yet considered table tents as a legitimate business tool for your restaurant or bar, then you really need to wake up. There are a lot of amazing rewards when one invests in table tent printing for their business. Luckily, I am here to tell you about these benefits. Hopefully, you will also consider printing table tents for yourself. So without further ado, let me convince you with four important points about table tent printing.

1. Bonus product sales – One of the most obvious rewards in table tent printing is extra or bonus product sales. Color table tents have been proven to increase sales of a certain product when they are featured in its medium. This is true, especially for optional or side items such as appetizers and desserts. Many restaurants use table tents to feature these side items, and most get amazing results with increased sales on these side items.

2. Product emphasis – Another great benefit in using color table tents is a chance to emphasize certain products. If you have been in business for a long time, you should know of course that it pays to emphasize some of your main flagship products from time to time. They might be seasonal products, or you might have a new seasonal promotional campaign with these specific products in mind. Table tents help you put emphasis in these products by featuring them right at the table. So if you want to add a little emphasis on a few important products that you have, table tent printing is the best solution to do so.

3. Business public relations – Table tents also give you an opportunity to promote your business or company itself. Besides your products, you can also add some public relations content in your table tents. These things can help you uplift your business image and develop a good reputation in your market. You can tell people about your business awards, the state of the art methods and tools you use, or a unique business philosophy. All this can easily and successfully be communicated with subtle adjustments to your table tent messages.

4. Simple decorations – Finally, table tents also can serve as a nice decorative element to your tables. Since table tents can have great and decorative images, you can integrate them into the overall theme or scheme of your restaurant, bar or other service. This can be the icing on the cake so to speak of your tables, developing a great aesthetically pleasing atmosphere for your customers.

Great! So as you can see, there are many benefits in investing in table tent printing. Why not try it out for yourself?
Brent Durell writes articles about advertising and marketing strategies such as using table tents. More details about table tent printing.

The author invites you to visit: http://www.printplace.com

by: Kenji Tay

Affiliate Marketing is and has always been the easiest and fastest way to help one start up in Internet Marketing. Not only is it powerful when it comes to profit generation, it acts and helps as a training ground before one is able to run an online marketing campaign successfully when they finally kick start their own product creation business in the internet world.

The advantages of being in an affiliating marketing business is that you can do away with the hassle of producing a website, creating an all powerful product, hire a good sales copywriter etc. In one way or the other, you can say that the cost of the business itself is very much being “cut”, which in perfect sense, is good for someone who wants a low start up cost and yet successful online business. This is especially so for newbies trying out or starting in an online business.

While there is so much promise and good things to say about affiliating marketing, it has always been a concern to affiliates on how to run a successful affiliate marketing business. To put it in a more blunt way, how can one generate more and more profits from affiliating marketing.

Let me share with you 5 powerful strategies which can you can use to increase your profit and be successful no matter what affiliate products or program you are promoting:

#1 PPC Marketing: You can almost start promoting any affiliate products in less than 10 minutes with PPC (pay per click) advertising. That is to say, advertising in major search engine such as Google and Yahoo. Google comes with Google AdWords while Yahoo! comes with their own Yahoo Search Marketing.

In the past, people used to advertise through PPC by directly sending the customers straight to the merchants site. Since 2005, there had been some changes to Google’s policies in directly linking to a merchants site in regards to PPC advertising.

However, you can still advertise through PPC by using your own landing page which is customized to your affiliate products. This can come in 2 fold because first, you are driving targeted traffic using PPC advertising and second, this is where you can put in your own opt in list to build your list of future potential customers.

#2 Your Own List: You need to have your own opt in list. It has always been a misconception that you need to have your own product to have a list. However, if you have given so much time and effort to promote a particular product, after a sale is made, you would have probably lost the customer forever. When you need to promote your next product, do you want to go through building your traffic again?

I doubt you would want to do that. Moreover, the customers whom, because of you, have went into the sales page is in fact a targeted customer for that particular niche you are promoting regardless if a sale has been or not been made. Therefore, it makes it easier should you wish to promote the product of the same niche in the future.

By doing so, you are in fact, leveraging on any part of your past effort in promoting that particular product. It also helps when you finally have your own product in the future.

When you have a list, one of the ways in which you can entice your subscribers to buy from your affiliate link is to provide them with some time-sensitive bonuses. For example; A good bonus to go along with a weight loss program could be a work out regime program or even a food intake diet formula etc.

It has and will always continue to work.

#3 Web Pages: This is a no brainer and a straight forward way of advertising your affiliate products. You can place banners or recommend products in relevant pages of your existing web pages or even your blog.

Note that this works best on relevant pages of your blog or website. let’s say that you writing a blog on a special dog show event. You can ultimately place a banner of the dog training niche at the end or by the side or your blog. this would generate in turn help generate interest from readers who has been following your website on “caring for your puppy” and could again, result in an affiliate sale.

The other way is to link or custom your error page as a marketing tool. An error page occurs when a wrong URL is entered. This usually display a “Page Not found” status and instead of wasting this space, you can instead redirect it back to your affiliate link.

#4 Articles: This is one medium you got to invest in because it is one of the most powerful methods around today in this information age.

Over the years, this has proven to be one of the key strategy and methods online marketers use to either promote their products, or to get traffic.

Through articles, Not only are you able to build up your credibility, you are also building your endless stream of potential customers in the long run. The article you wrote today will still be around in 3 years, 5 years or even 10. The same old article still points back to your affiliate link which ultimately helps generate a new sale or build your list for you without any extra effort or cost from your side.

However, you have to take note that that when you are writing a review of a product, it should not sound like an outright sales pitch. People do not like to be sold!

So, how should your article be written then?

The secret to running a successful article marketing campaign is to provide real, useful content that people can use. Your main reason for writing an article is to benefit the readers so that in the long run, you build up trust and credibility, which is the part of the reason why customers will buy your recommended products.

#5 Capturing Exit Traffic: One of the ways to make an affiliate sale is by using a “pop up window” to promote your products.

While there are popup blockers, not everyone is using it and you’ll be surprised at just how many percent of people using the internet actually uses them.

I know that pop up window can be annoying at times but if what you are offering is of true value, i believe you will want your customers to benefit from it. If they are going to leave the site anyway, why not give them another chance to re-consider the offer.

You can do so by introducing an intriguing pop-up, targeted at your visitors. If they have been half-sold by your merchants sales copy, that pop-up window could ultimately be the reason or trigger that gives you your affiliate commission.

If you’re interested, you can read more about Affiliate Marketing from my blog or download the Affiliate Money Machine from the resource Box below.

Lets step out and soar your affiliate marketing business today!

Discover How To Make Money Online TODAY
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http://www.Internet-ProfitSecrets.com

Kenji Tay is a business owner and has been helping people to grow their wealth in several different mediums. He is an expert in Internet Marketing and also has extensive knowledge in Real Estates Investments and Network Marketing. He is also the Author of The Book “The Leader’s Core

by: Jean Fritz

by: Kenneth Nickless

I asked a very reputable marketer recently “Which is more important in a campaign, traffic or sales copy?”

His answer was emphatic, “Sales Copy.”

So we can get traffic, either paid or free, we can write press releases or articles to try and drive visitors to our site, but without compelling sales copy we will never convert those hungry buyers into sales for our products.

How can we learn to write the sort of sales letter or web page that will convert into sales?

A sales letter is completely different to writing a report or an e-book. These tend to be written from the heart, written because we thoroughly understand the subject about which we are writing, but when it comes to writing sales copy it’s a completely different kettle of fish.

In writing sales copy we’ve basically only got one chance of keeping our reader interested or amused enough to keep reading until the reader fells compelled to either sign up for more information or press the “Buy Now” button to conclude the sale. I don’t know whether you agree but the top selling affiliate marketing sites seem to go on and on forever, yet we find it extremely hard to stop reading and even harder to not sign up to see just how great their offer really is. (And if you’re like me you buy it anyway in the knowledge that it must be worth the investment.) Hey, just look at the amount of people who have written glowing testimonials as to its worth and how much it has changed their lives!

Why, and how do these copy-writers make it so easy for us to make the decision to buy?

It’s all based on a formula and every good copy-writer uses it for predictable results.

The first absolute MUST in any ad campaign is to persuade the reader to believe ‘WIFM?’. “What’s In It For ME?” There must be a clear message that convinces the reader that in fact there is something in it for them, whether the product is so unique, whether there are significant reasons for the reader to purchase, whether the perceived dollar value of the bonuses let’s the reader think that they cannot miss such a great offer, and so on.

Good copy has to be personal, it has to be relevant and it has to be specific.

When someone reads your ad or opens your web page you have between three and five seconds for them to make a decision whether to continue or not. It’s not much time is it? So if your headline fails to grab the attention of your reader then you’ve lost a potential sale. There are two main things that motivate people to action:

1. Fear of Loss.

2. Promise of Gain.

Either or both of these should form the bulk of your headline. And if you can create an air of curiosity at the same time your on your way to a great headline. A great way to start is by reading newspaper ads, classified ads and competition web sites. Look at their headlines, copy them down and save them in a file. The more you get the better. Now see if you can slightly modify any of them to suit your particular product, whether it be for a web page headline,a pay per click headline or an article headline. I certainly don’t recommend copying them word for word but if you can change a few words and still get a ‘killer’ headline then go for it!

The body of your copy should first tell the reader of the benefits of your product. To outsell your competition you must have a USP.

A Unique Selling Proposition

Keep asking yourself “How is my product better than the rest?” “What does my product have that no-one else has?” “Why should the reader buy MY product and not from my competition?”

When you have the answer then you have a unique selling proposition and that’s what you need to convey to your reader.

Put your major benefits at the top of your body copy using bullet points and then follow up with four or five other outstanding benefits even if they aren’t unique.

Add testimonials if you can. How can you get them? If you belong to any affiliate programs send a copy to the owner and kindly ask for a testimonial. Let you friends and relatives read it and supply you with testimonials. Just a few can add credibility to your product. Also in your sales letter if you have any other creditable things you can use, (Reports or articles you may have written, special mentions anywhere) let the reader know and give them links where they can check your credibility.

Your copy MUST contain a “Call to Action.” The best way of doing this is to restate your USP using your main benefit to spur the reader to the next step.

For example let’s say you were selling a golf tuition e-book and your USP was that you gave a money back guarantee if the reader didn’t lose two strokes from his handicap within one month of reading your book, then your call to action might be:

“To Knock Two Strokes Off your Handicap…….Or Your Money Back, enter your full name and email address and I’ll send you the details immediately!

ALWAYS make your copy as personal as possible. Use the words “YOU” and “YOUR” and write in simple language without long, boring words.

Make sure that you thoroughly check your advert or web copy, use a spell checker and read through your ad a few times to make sure your punctuation is correct.

This article is an extract from my ebook “How To Create a Product, Market It and Make A Profit.”

To get a free copy visit: http://www.nickmarketing.com there’s a link on the front page.

Ken Nickless is a 64 years retired businessman and entrepreneur now living in Brisbane Australia. Having spent over forty years in the manufacturing arena specializing in MIS systems introduction, Quality Control implementation and Operations Management Ken now spends his time with website development and internet marketing. In his spare time Ken enjoys golf and spending more time with family and friends.