Matchbook Notebook Promo Cards

I love it when businesses use visuals or hand-held things for advertising. I'm not talking business cards or coupons, but nifty little creative things really get my attention.

A couple of weeks ago I was cruising through my blog reader and clicked a link to Aurora's Garden, where she re-posted a link to Bluegrass Etsy where Etsy seller Kellibeans posted a tutorial slideshow. Ok, that was kind of a sister's friends' third cousin's aunt's best friend's mother kind of story, but I wanted to give credits where they're due.

Nevertheless, Kellibeans posted a GREAT tutorial. You could make these while watching tv, waiting in the car to pick up the kiddos from school, on public transportation, over your lunch break, or pretty much anywhere. Prep the materials ahead of time and keep them in your purse or bag and assemble them whenever you have a spare 10 minutes.

And how can you use these? Put some of those 151 Guerrilla Marketing techniques to use on your Matchbooks!

Here's the tutorial: Matchbook Notebook Promo Cards

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25 Places to get Promotional Products

Today I was reading this article about how to market a business effectively by using promotional products.

Have you used promotional products to market your business? If you're wondering where to find them, here's a big list of places where you can order promotional products. I have used the first two myself, but there are a ton of them out there.

1. http://www.vistaprint.com/
2. Oriental Trading Company
3. http://www.promopeddler.com/
4. http://ocs.landsend.com/corpsales
5. http://www.herodecks.com/
6. http://www.top-brands.com/
7. http://www.zagwear.com/
8. http://www.e-corporategifts.com/
9. http://www.branders.com/
10. http://www.pensrus.com/?s=gaw&kw=promotional+pen
11. 4imprint
12. Empire Promotional Products
13. Silver Star Promotions
14. Superior Promos Inc
15. http://www.logosoftwear.com/
16. http://www.gimmees.com/
17. http://sweetpromos.com/
18. http://www.compleat.com/category.i?catid=1
19. http://www.promogeek.com/
20. http://www.companycasuals.com/cs/CustomBrowser?customer=adco
21. http://www.epromos.com/browse/Ne1-N11618.html
22. http://www.embroiderysuperstore.com/designs/stock_design_search.aspx
23. http://www.apromotionaloutlet.com/apparel.html
24. http://www.empirepromos.com/
25. http://www.rushimprint.com/

Don't forget your own creative efforts! If you can create a cost-effective promo item for yourself that ties into your business and fits your brand, go for it!

I'd love to see what interesting promo ideas you have come up with for your own business!

Will you comment here with your ideas or links to a blog post about what you've done?














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Marketing Tips from the Etsy Forums

Have you had enough great marketing ideas to set your business on fire?

No?

Ok. Today I'd like to take a little break from the huge list of ideas and share a few links with you to check out:

Etsy's ChristianHaylie created this post:
25 Marketing tips to get your products moving!
and also
More Marketing tips to get your products moving!

FluffyFlowers shares:
1 little tiny Marketing tip

soapdeli says:
Are you new to selling online? Marketing tips to get you started.

mrsdstahl tells a great story about her advertising experience to help you understand where to focus your marketing energy and advertising dollars:
More Great Marketing Tips Revealed

FlyingButtons make a very good point with this forum post:
Just hit my 100th sale in 8 weeks, thought I'd pass on my key marketing tip

You have to check this one out... so easy.
contrariwise says:
Marketing Tip: how to drive more people to your Etsy shop from your blog
Here's a link to the blog post she mentions in the forum. Great tutorial.
And please observe how she has her blog laid out. She doesn't mention it, but basically her blog posts are nestled between two columns of her own creations so you can't help but be amazed at her items. And yes - they're all clickable links to the Etsy listing.
Smart.

Designsbyreese says:
BLOG LOCAL!

DBlankPrints brings up the topic of URL tagging:
(Don't overlook this simple trick.)
Have a simple marketing tip? I'll suggest the first one...

saratams gets into the nuts and bolts of creating and establishing an online presence:
Marketing Tips

Because outdoor market season is upon us, Neogami talks about her experience:
First time selling at market ends in 100's...want tips?


On Monday 5/25/09 I'll post the next category from the huge list of marketing ideas...

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Got a Brilliant Idea? Here Are 3 Things You Need To Do First

Last month, one of my dear online friends introduced a new design idea that she plans to develop and market. While I'm not going to spill the beans here, I thought you might be interested in learning a little about what to do if you come up with a new product idea or concept.

1. Protect your idea.
Is your idea patentable? Some things can be patented, some things cannot. Figure out if yours can be, then take the initial steps toward a patent. At the early stages, you can do some of the legwork on your own. Visit http://www.uspto.gov/ and learn about patents. If you are in Canada, replace my references to the USPTO with CIPO at http://cipo.gc.ca/. If you are in another country, you should be able to Google the words "Patent office" and your country name to find the appropriate link for your location.

I also recently discovered Google can provide some help in this department. (Maybe just USPTO?) Go to http://www.google.com/ and in the upper left corner you will see:

Images Maps News Shopping Gmail More

Click More and at the bottom of the list click Even More.

Holy smokes! Did you know all this information was packed away in Google? About 2/3 of the way down the left side of the list is a link to search for patents. As I told my friend, if patent searching has been "Googlesized," it's probably been made a lot easier to use than the gov website. (Sorry, Uncle Sam!)

One caveat: Doing a patent search does not replace professional assistance when you are ready to move forward and apply for a patent. Read through (or have someone help you read through) the information at http://www.uspto.gov/ to find out how to apply and to learn the US Patent Office's recommendation regarding hiring a patent lawyer.

Oh, and if you think your idea can't be patented and don't want to take the time to look into it, check out this patent. Now you see why it's at least worth a look?

2. Name your idea.
If you create it, it's an entity. If it's an entity, it has to have a name. This isn't a law, but a piece of savvy marketing advice. Name all products, designs, concepts, sales, programs, etc.

When coming up with names for your creations, make sure they can be trademarked. This means, make sure you can trademark the name(s) that you come up with. From a marketing standpoint, your trademarks can help build your brand, develop name recognition, and do all kinds of other good things for your business.

I won't go into too much more detail here about trademarks, but if you want more info, please read my earlier blog post on the subject: Do you have a ™ ?

3. Copyright your process.
Write up, in as much detail as possible, your idea, concept, or product. Include drawings or photographs if possible. Explain how it's made, what it's made from, and any process or technique used to make your item. Describe its use, features, benefits, accessories, and care/maintenance.

Copyright this very thorough description (see the USPTO "copyright refresher" for details), then store it in a secure location. This will not only flesh out your idea and help you figure out some of the details, but can be the document to which you refer when you're writing up your product description, use and care guide, and marketing materials. This will also serve as a back up to your idea as you work though the other steps.

You can also visit http://creativecommons.org/ for more info on copyrights. Creative Commons is a nonprofit organization that (as this is written) covers 50 jurisdictions around the globe.

Tip: While an official copyright is recommended, there is another method you can do in the interim to establish a beginning date for your idea. Name this document you just created, and include a serial number with the name. You can make up anything you want for the serial number. For example, "Three Speed Hair Curlers, serial # 52648912"

Take this document to a Notary Public, have them notarize it with the current date, and in their ledger, write the name and serial number of the notarized document. (In my ficticious case, I'd write "Three Speed Hair Curlers, serial # 52648912") Make sure the serial number is included in the Notary's ledger.

Why? If someone takes your exact idea and uses it as their own, your notarized copy can help to establish when the idea originated, what the idea entails, and who came up with the idea. The serial number in the title links the notarized copy to the same exact copy you hold, which can help to identify your copy as the original, and not a different version of the same idea.

Hope that helps you get started. Any additional tips or suggestions? Have you had any experience with this process? Please share!

(And remember, all comments are do-follow, so your comment left here supports YOU.)

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The identity crisis is over

There's nothing else to do with a restlessly creative brain while moving and unpacking and painting (and painting and painting - 6 rooms and half an office so far,) so I spent all that idle brain time musing and planning.

During that time, I think I have solved this blog's identity crisis. My focus will be to help Etsy stores and local crafters, as well as local farm market vendors, and other independent small businesses do the following:

• Come up with creative, inexpensive ways to get their business recognized
• Bring in new customers
• Increase sales and profits
• And establish themselves as an expert in what they do

I also offer one-on-one planning sessions to help you figure out how to solve a certain marketing challenge, find a new approach to marketing your business, or help you change something that is holding your business back from finding its full potential.

Just contact me at pam [at] passitonplates.com or call me at 503-569-2665 (9am-9pm PST, any day but Sunday) and we'll talk.

To kick off my new identity (my brand), I found this new Blogger template at Simply Fabulous Blogger Templates. The colors and style fit my personality to a T. Hopefully it'll set the mood here and you can get to know me and my style a little better as you read my blog posts.

(It's very "Pamish" and if you know me in person you're probably nodding your head right about now. If you don't really know me yet - stay tuned. You'll see...)

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Favicon Tutorial -Making a little tiny picture thingy

A couple weeks ago, I posted here on this blog, and here on my other blog, a little tutorial on how to find hex codes when you're tweaking the color of your blog template.

In the screen shots used for the tutorial, you can see the Firefox various tabs I had open at the time. I was careful to make sure that the visible items were suitable for world-wide viewing, and didn't think much beyond "Is that private information or not?"

I had a good chuckle when Brad from BradBlogging.com left this comment on the post:
LOL. It's pretty cool seeing your favicon in a tab on a screenshot..
Thanks for visiting Bradblogging.com!

Yeah Brad, that actually is pretty cool. I guess the secret's out about what I read when I post. (I haven't heard from Chris Brogan, yet. Score one for Brad for picking this up first - of course Brad, you have two tabs to Chris' one.)

To my dear readers, if you are wondering what the heck Brad is talking about, the favicon is the little picture thingy that you see on the left side of each tab in the picture below. There's also a favicon in the address bar on the browser in the picture. (Brad's favicon is a bold, dark letter "B")

If you look up at the address bar at the top of your screen right now, you probably see a favicon, too. It could be the orange Blogger "B" or my pink zinnia that I use as my avatar everywhere I go.

Would you like to make one for yourself? It's pretty easy. You can do this.

There are a lot of good tutorials out there, so instead of repeating what other folks have said, I'll just point you toward two that are well-written and not too tech-y.

Clickfire.com
Short and sweet. Easy if you already have a website or hosting to which you can upload your favicon image.

bluejar.com
Here, Sarah mentions using Flickr to host your favicon image.

When you get yours installed, leave a comment here and share your link so we can see your favicon masterpiece.

PS: Hey Brad, when you leave a comment here, would you mind sharing how you found this post? Technorati, Google Alerts, etc? I'd like to use it as an example for a future post.
Thanks!
:o)

Do you have a ™ ?

Last week I discussed how to create and start using a logo as part of your branding process. Part of the discussion included a bit on searching the USPTO (United States Patent and Trademark Office) to make sure nobody else was using your design. (Read that post here.)

Let’s expand on this a little and go into trademarks and service marks. (A trade mark is for goods and a service mark is for services.) These are often words or phrases that uniquely identify you, your business, or your products. I’m paraphrasing here, and for a complete description, visit the USPTO page on Trademarks or check out CIPO, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office.

According to the USPTO and CIPO, registration of your trademark is not required. All you need to do is start using it to establish that it is yours*. You can, of course, register your mark, which among other things will help you in the case you may need legal protection or if you plan to register your mark in countries outside the US.

* I should clarify that first you must make sure nobody else is using the mark you intend to use. Thank you Stacy for pointing this out!

Once you establish that a mark is yours, you can place the ™ behind it. (Or the ^SM symbol, if you are using a service mark instead of a trademark.)

Some of our own trade marks are:

• Pass It On Plates ™
• PlateWrap™
• Flying Plate™

Things you may be able to trademark or service mark could be:

• Your blog title
• Your Etsy store name
• Unique products you design - an example of this could be "Tina's Tiny Tiles" "MorningSun Farms Goat Milk Soap" or "Shoobidybop!"
• Your product names
• Your product attributes like color, scent, sizes...
• A DIY kit you create and package
• A regular promotion you have at your store
  (remember, though, the term needs to be unique to you)
• A specific online community that you manage

One note: in the USA, the ® symbol indicates a registered trademark or service mark and unregistered use of the symbol is illegal.

The USPTO and CIPO websites are well-written and easy to read. If you are interested in incorporating a trademark, service mark, or want more information about copyrights, check them out. If you live outside North America, you should be able to find your own country's trademark information by doing an internet search for the word "trademark" and your country name.

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Branding part V - Putting it to use

Once you have a logo designed, and you know you can start using it to identify your products or services, the fun begins. Go nuts with your logo! Here are some places you can use it:

Duh:

1. Business cards and other stationery products
2. Avatars
3. Websites, blogs, e-commerce store fronts
4. Product packaging

Aha:

1. Have a vinyl cling or magnetic sign made up and stick it to your vehicle.
2. Make bumper stickers.
3. Work your logo into decopauge, decorative items.
4. Sew your logo into a quilted or fiber art design.

Genius:

1. Go to http://www.cafepress.com/ or http://www.spreadshirt.com/ and print your logo along with your phone # or website address on shirts, caps, aprons, etc. Use these items for yourself, as gifts, and as promotional giveaways to promote your business. (Seriously. How many people do you see walking around wearing the logos of Tommy Hilfiger, Element Skateboards, or Dale Earnhardt's number?)

2. At craft fairs, print your logo on bright colored, re-useable tote bags and use them instead of shopping bags for big sales so your logo will walk around the fair for all to see.

3. Encourage people (customers, blog readers, etc) to send in pictures of themselves with your logos. Post them all on your website or blog and have visitors vote for the best one. Award prizes for different categories.

4. Have a rubber stamp made of your logo. Stamp the image all over solid color wrapping paper and use it on gift items purchased from your e-store.

5. Try an Andy Warhol-inspired approach and turn your logo into artwork.

6. Use a permanent ceramic paint pen to draw your logo and website on a coffee mug and give it away.


Any other ideas? Post your comments!
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Branding part IV - Putting it to use

This next step requires a little research, but it's critical to look into before you plan to start using your logo: make sure nobody else is already using your logo.

In our case, with the flying plate logo, we needed to make sure nobody else was using a logo that looked like ours. A visit to the USPTO, the United States Patent and Trademark Office, got me started on a logo/trademark search.

I did a search to find out my design codes, which are:
11.03.09 Plates (empty)
03.17.01 Wings
and 24.03.25 (other emblems and insignia) when a wing design comprises an emblem or insignia.

Then I went to search for logos using those codes at the USPTO search site. A search for PLATE and WING and got a lot of hits including one for something called Violent Vegetables (?!) After a little tinkering, poking around, and some help from our local business development office, we got our flying plate logo off the ground, so to speak.

For help with this step, you can contact your local Small Business Administration, or SBA. You can also find information online at http://www.sba.gov/. For specific information regarding this post, you can check out the SBA's information regarding copyrights.

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Branding part II - Developing a Logo

The first step we took in establishing the Pass It On Plates brand was to create a logo.

Wait - Before telling you about creating the logo, I should explain why sometimes I use the term "Me" or "I" and sometimes I use the term "Us" or "We. Even though I'm the chief cook and bottle washer here at Pass It On Plates, and I'm pretty much "it" when it comes to producing plates and PlateWraps and things in the Oregon studio, I've got a crew helping to develop this business in our Wisconsin studio. The reference to "We" and "Us" includes the whole group of talent at Pass It On Plates.

The head of our Wisconsin studio is my smart and clever mother, Donna. Yes, this is a mother-daugher project, 1,763 miles wide. She not only creates plates and works with making PlateWraps and Pretty Little Doo Dads, but she works tirelessly on our marketing, sells plates at local art shows and at the Hayward Flea Market, and works with local business development experts to put Pass It On Plates on the map, so to speak. Donna also found some local talent to help make PlateWraps and help out with other related creativity.

Back to the logo:
Our first step was to decide on a logo to use. Since this logo would be plastered on everything sent out of our studios, it had to be simple, easy to recognize (not some obscure shape or random photograph,) easy to put on our plates - which means it has to be easy to draw by hand, and unique. We did a little brainstorming and Donna came up with this:

Logos 1, originally uploaded by passitonplates.
Sketches from the first brainstorming session to figure out a logo for Pass It On Plates.

Logos 2, originally uploaded by passitonplates.
More logo sketches. The idea is starting to come together. Donna got several friends involved to see if they could figure it out.

Logos 3, originally uploaded by passitonplates.
Still playing with the concept of the plates and working out some kind of visual graphic for a logo. Even if they don't fit our criteria to be simple and easy to duplicate by hand, it was important to sketch out every single idea. You never know which idea will lead you to the one that ultimately gets used.

PIOP+Logo1, originally uploaded by passitonplates.
Here is the very first incarnation of our Flying Plate logo.

From here we tweaked it and made minor adjustments. We showed it to friends and business developers and asked for their opinion, then we made a few more adjustments. In the end, our logo developed into this:

The Pass It On Plates logo, originally uploaded by passitonplates..

Branding part I - An Introduction

Lately, I've been thinking about how to establish the Pass It On Plates brand. I expect several artists and/or moms out there reading this may wonder,

"Why the heck would Pam care about that?"

Branding is critical for any small business working toward establishing itself and standing out from the competition. While Pass It On Plates may not have a lot of obvious competition in the field of interactive traveling plates, we still compete with everyone else selling gifts.

If you are new to this "Branding" concept, it's simple to grasp. Think about who says "Snap crackle pop!", imagine a certain fast food restaurant's golden arches, or envision the shape associated with the phrase "Just Do It."

Branding is an image and/or phrase
that your customer identifies as "you."

At this writing, there is not a lot of branding going on here at the Pass It On Plates blog. Or website for that matter. We put our flying plate logo on the plates and we show it off in pictures. It's on some promotional materials that we give away, such as mugs and tote bags, but that's about it. How many times do you see it as part of our web presence? Let's count: Blog? none.Plate diaries? none. Website? none again. Etsy store? consistently, none.

Grand total: Zilch. That's not good.

At the top of this summer's To Do list is: Establish the Pass It On Plates brand. Branding is new to me and I am learning as I go. Throughout this process I will share what I have learned and I'll offer ideas on how to make this work for you, whether you have a creative business, a Mommy blog, or some other home-based business that you wish to grow.

Next: Developing a Logo

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The Secret really is in the Sauce

Have you seen this button here and there in the blogosphere? If you have, good for you! It's brand-spankin' new. If not, listen up and pay attention: This is big.

Two very smart ladies with way more sass, energy, and caffeine in their blood than I've ever had have started up a new blog called The Secret is in the Sauce, or SITS. This new blog promotes other blogs.
Yah yah yah, sounds boring, lots of blog try to do this, whoop-de-do.
...but wait - this one is different.

Yes, they promote other blogs. They feature one blog per day with about three posts from the featured blog. They have contests. They are forming a bond within their network of readers and featured bloggers. That's all very good. But read on...

They started their blog on June 1, 2008 and on their VERY FIRST blog post they got 329 Comments. Yep, that's right. I'll spell it out for you in case you think you read that wrong.
Three hundred twenty nine comments.
They have a legion of regular readers called "SITS sistahs" and "SITSTAS" right off the bat and growing.

Anyone with a blog, or something to sell and a blog to promote it knows that readership is silver and comments are gold. So how did they do it? I haven't asked them personally, yet, but it's obvious that the bottom line is comments. They are self-professed comment junkies, and from what I can see when I visit the blogs of some of their first-post-commenters, is that they promoted the heck out of their new blog before they officially launched and they invited all their bloggy contacts and friends and email contacts to stop by and leave a comment.

Smart.

Oh, and they have invested a lot of their own money into some pretty huge contests like their first contest to generate a lot of excitement and rocket their readership - and "commentership" - to unbelievable numbers as fast as possible. They are having more contests that are still also pretty darn huge. Can you believe those prizes??

Now for the tie-in between comments and contests: in order to enter the contests, you need to visit the (very entertaining and inspiring) blogs they promote. and LEAVE COMMENTS. That's the whole point of SITS. Comments.

Brilliant move, Heather and Tiffany. A blogging gal could learn a lot from watching you two. As I type this up most of your daily posts have over 100 comments on each one. With your keen marketing and branding techniques, I bet you'll hit a thousand regular daily readers within no time.

So why am I bringing this up? First, duh, is to tell everyone to go over there and check out the contests. Second, another duh, is to tell you to comment comment comment.

Third is more subtle, but if you look at how they're doing it and why they're doing it tis will become obvious. If you find a hobby that you love, think outside the box to figure out ways to make it more than just a hobby. I think Heather and Tiffany have created a new career.

Like they say at the end of every blog post:

And, remember, when you see this:

LEAVE A COMMENT

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