Robert Blaise

5 Different Ways To Use T-Shirts as a Marketing Tool

T-shirts are more than just a fashion trend they have become political statements, quick comic relief from the random person passing you by and now increasingly have become great inexpensive marketing tools for your business. Here are 5 different ways you can effectively use T-shirts as a Marketing tool:

1. Charity events- Nothing spreads your message faster than a group of college kids outdoors doing some manual labor over the weekend with your companies name/logo plastered on their backs.

2. Print T-shirts for specific sales event- recently I went to one of the big box retail establishment and I saw most of the employees wearing a T-shirt that said “ask me about zero percent financing for the next 18 months. Without a doubt this marketing campaign worked because I can clearly remember what the T-shirt said and the offer that they were promoting.

3. Giveaways’- Lets face it we all enjoy getting something of value for free, so in exchange we don’t mind becoming a walking billboard for someone’s business. Personally speaking, I would estimate that 70% of my daily wardrobe consists of T-shirts and of that number 20% of them were acquired from some form of promotional events. So if we did the math I am promoting “company X” at least once per week! Not a bad trade off I would say.

4. Long lasting impressions. People just don’t throw away T-shirts. They might give them away, but they won’t take a t-shirt and just throw it in the trash like a flyer or business card. So with that in mind why not use T-shirts more effectively. Think of your message and then say it with a T-Shirt. It’s that simple.

5. Co-Branding- is still one of the best bangs for your buck marketing strategies. More and more companies are using Co-branding in traditional print, radio or TV. The same technique can be used with a T-shirt, printing up a few hundred T-Shirts while working in conjunction with another product or service can easily turn into a win-win situation for both brands in addition it is still very cost effective and an efficient means of viral marketing in today’s marketplace.

So if your in South Florida and your in the market for some tee-shirts to help promote your business check out the crew over at www.EnticinTees.com they provide great service, excellent value for the money and fast.

Tags: Marketing

How To: E-mail Mailing Lists 101

Helen Bradley has put together a great article here on the best practices for Mailing list 101. This article takes you from setting up your system to the legalities of sending unsolicited emails (SPAM) to building an effective marketing campaign.
Read the full post here

American with swine flu dies! …

American with swine flu dies! Texas woman 33-year-old schoolteacher who had just given birth to a healthy baby girl http://tiny.cc/uxUjl

Tags: tweets

Online Shopping Up In Uncertain Economic Times

By Frank Reed

A recent study from Forrester Research and Shop.org that said that online shopping was up 11% for Q1 of this year. A very good number considering the economic climate.

Even a cursory glance at the numbers, however, showed a disturbing development of sorts if you are an online only retailer. 60% of online only retailers that took part in this study reported their sales were either flat or down. Quite contrary to the overall trend that shows the increase in online shopping. Why is this happening? I think it’s the economy and there may be a fundamental shift that may be occurring that will be a source of concern for the online only retailer if it pans out.

This economic climate and the fear that it has created has moved consumers to be more conservative in their spending but also who they spend with. Here are my thoughts on why.

Comfort level People want security and some level of control in this world that is rapidly spinning out of control. One way they can do that is not leave their house to shop but still shop at a place they trust.

Fear This is directly related to comfort level as all things are. Online only retailers, regardless of how well they present themselves or what savings they can generate are still an unknown quantity to most consumers. They never know exactly where they are getting product from and they often feel a twinge of “Will I actually get what I ordered?” even though it looks great. I know I do and I work in the industry. There is a level of fear of the unknown that can be alleviated by buying from the biggest brands without leaving the house.

Convenience of returns Everyone hypes convenience of shopping online but rarely discusses the nightmares of returns. If someone buys from a big box store and knows that if there is an issue they can go to the store to make a return they are comforted and thus more likely to do it.

Shopper’s Experience It’s not as easy as it used to be to look big on the Internet without being exposed as small in reality. Social media and just more time to learn about what is real and what isn’t has made the online consumer more savvy and thus more wary. Good for the big brands and bad for the little guy. Many will pay more knowing that they will be more likely to have a good experience overall than go through the potential hassle of dealing with someone with no infrastructure etc.

There are always more reasons but I can understand this shift. I ran a very small ecommerce site for a while and while it looked like there was a lot of infrastructure when you were at the site, the reality was it was just me for the most part doing everything. As a result, the experience of my ‘customers’ was spotty at best. While I have no desire to ever do that again there are many who do especially in light of layoffs and other things that have stopped people’s incomes dead in their tracks.

So beware if you are an online shopper. What looks impressive online may just be a shell and yes you could have problems.

For you online only retailers it will be more important than ever to be fully engaged with your customers in ways that will gain and keep their trust so they won’t be tempted to go to the same stores online that they can drive to offline.

Do you know how much it costs to acquire each new customer via your website?

Websites are often a significant cost to companies and yet their performance is rarely measured. Your website provides you with an opportunity to acquire new customers in a measurable and cost effective way.

To achieve this, you first need to know what it costs you to acquire each new customer via the website today. Once you know this you will then know whether these new customers are profitable. Obviously if it costs $100 to acquire a customer to your website who only spends $40 during their lifetime then you are losing money.

In order to ensure that the website is positively contributing to the company’s bottom line it is recommended that you examine the cost of customer acquisition as a key performance indicator of your website.

To calculate your cost you need to know:

New customers per month

These are the new customers who have either purchased directly from your website or who became a qualified sales lead via your website or who visited your website and then purchased products or services from your physical outlets.

Website Development Costs

This is the total cost to develop your website as well as major modifications since it was implemented.

Estimated life of the website

How long do you think that this website will be useful to your company before it requires a major overhaul. This figure should be in months.

Monthly Promotion Costs

How much does your company spend on promotions or advertisements that include the website address. Make sure that you include all your online and offline advertisements and promotions.

Monthly Maintenance Costs

How much does your company spend running and maintaining the website including:

* Staffing costs to maintain the website, handle enquiries, etc.
* Hosting costs, ISP fees, bandwidth, etc
* Other fixed costs

Panalysis has put together a nice calculator where you can just plugin your numbers and see the results without doing the math be sure to check it out.