Paso Robles Marketing

In an increasingly digital world, and a still unsure economic climate, many businesses are asking themselves if print ads are still pulling their weight. The answer is: that depends on what kind of a print ad.

You Get What You Pay For

It’s the classic quantity-versus-quality, you-get-what-you-pay-for argument when it comes to print advertisement.

For instance, local newspapers often offer to design your ad for free—what a deal, right? Maybe not. Consider the fact that the designers making your newspaper ad know little about your company or its marketing objectives.  With newspaper deadlines and a handful of other ads like yours to throw together, these designers have their own time and aesthetic constraints in mind. The result?  We’ve all seen one. An ad that is so terrible it actually becomes an eyesore on the page. Not the look you are going for. That free ad could just end up costing you due to the negative impact it has on your brand image.

Design Department Tips

Even a good free ad is not that valuable to a company. Why? Because it is not your property. Say the ad is doing great in the Gazette, so now you want to put one in the Herald too. Too bad. You are going to have to start from square one in the Herald’s design department.

Prime Ad Real Estate is Available

This is not to say that print advertisement is a losing battle. A well-played print ad—backed by a solid marketing plan—still packs a punch. In fact, a print ad strategy could be especially effective now, when other companies feeling the financial pressure are pulling their ads out. More and better ad real estate is opening up, meaning better visibility for your ad, less competition, and the likelihood of holding on to long-lasting preferred placement.

Choose a Marketing Agency to Help

But with your ad front and center, it’s also more important than ever to make the greatest impression possible with that ad. This is image-development 101—no shortcuts. Work with an agency that understands ad strategy and design. A good marketing team will take into account messaging, timing and placement and make recommendations according to their years of collective experience and knowledge.

With all of the t’s crossed and i’s dotted, the well-planned ad will recoup its cost through the impact it has on the consumer.

For more tips on advertising, or to get started on a fully conceptualized, locked and loaded ad campaign strategy, call the “A-Team” today!

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While it would be great for almost any business to make it into the Wall Street Journal or some other national media outlet, there is still much to be said for the power of the little local community newspaper, magazine, radio or television news.  Whether your company targets local consumers or not, getting some lime light in the local news is a great way to develop hometown support, acknowledgment and patronage.

Here are 5 Easy Steps to getting your company’s next benchmark a bit of local media attention:

1. Look for News. Hire someone new? Offering a new product? Celebrating an anniversary? Donating to a charity? All of these and more constitute newsworthy material that a local outlet might be inclined to include in the business, calendar, or other relevant section.
2. Write Down the Facts. Press releases are fairly straightforward. Just remember what they taught you in school: The 5 W’s – Who, What, Where, When, Why. Start with answering just these questions about your newsworthy item, writing as clearly and concisely as possible. Then fill in with any other pertinent details and perhaps a quote from yourself or the business owner. You should be able to get the gist of the press release in a quick glance. Use spell check. Double-check name spellings and dates. Be sure to include at the top: a headline; contact information for the public as well as for the media; the location and date; and the company logo.
3. Snap a Photo. If you have an event or promote a manager, take a picture. Be sure to use a digital camera capable of high resolution images, as these will be required from any media outlet unless it is online. When you send out a press release, however, send only low-resolution images so as to avoid being blocked by spam filters.
4. Do Your Research. Know your local media and familiarize yourself with the sections or segments to which your company’s news would pertain. If you are a new restaurant, for instance, read the local food columnist’s page. Most local papers will offer a way for you to access this individual columnist or at least the section editor. Also, keep in mind what is called “lead-time.” If your event is tomorrow and you are sending information to the calendar editor tonight—good luck! Most community magazines work anywhere from one to 3 or 4 months in advance of publication. Research and plan ahead to send your press release to the right person, the right section, and at the right time for the best chances of obtaining coverage.
5. Follow up.  In today’s world of junk mail and touchy spam filters, everyone gets more emails and calls than they read. Just because you sent your news to the right person, doesn’t mean that person ever saw it. In a week or so, email (or if you’re bold, call) to see if the journalist had any questions or requests with regard to the news you sent them on X date. The squeaky wheel gets the grease…but remember to be respectful. Do not nag or follow up relentlessly.

For help drumming up news about your company, call or email AR & Co. PR & Marketing and speak to one of our PR specialists today.

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Remember your days on the school yard when the ultimate game changer was the final word of an authority? Teacher says so! Mom said so! The principal said so! One reference to such a leader figure meant winning or losing an argument, a place in line or a handball competition.

Business works the same way.

You can cite the strengths of your business until you are blue in the face, but your customer is always going to respond with one question: Says who?

The difference is that the authority figures influencing your market are not parents and teachers; they’re journalists. The media—whether Oprah, a local news reporter, a blogger or the host of an NPR show—casts the tiebreaking vote when it comes to consumer opinions.

And the best way to get backed by these opinion-leaders is through a little thing called PR.

Public Relations, when executed wisely, puts your message in the hands of the ultimate messengers, giving your selling points that essential third-party endorsement that means the difference between winning or losing the hundreds and thousands of customers who tune in or subscribe.

In a nut shell, media has the final word. Let their word go to work for you with a smart PR campaign.

AR & Co. PR & Marketing knows their way around the PR playground. Contact one of our PR specialists today, and make your way to being the big company on campus.

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When it comes to hiring a marketing agency, there are many considerations to weigh. Some agencies specialize in particular industries, such as technology, or in particular media, such as online ads or television ads. But for most businesses looking for a broad spectrum marketing campaign, it really comes down to two choices: big or small.

Obviously a BIG agency carries with it prestige and allure that can woo a young business or a company looking to make a splash with a new campaign. And indeed BIG agencies offer experience, strong track records, impressive clientele, a large staff and, often, versatile skills and more resources than a small agency.

However, all of this comes with a BIG price tag, as well.

And when it comes down to it, none of these items guarantees a successful campaign or even satisfactory service. Often a larger agency will treat new, small accounts according to their size and status; meaning that even if you decide to go BIG, the small size of your account may not merit the attention and resources that the agency gives to its larger accounts.

The dilemma is similar to one I faced my first year on my High School water polo team: I could either move up to the BIG varsity team, and get all of the attendant recognition, but be a little out of my league; OR I could stay in the “small” pool with the Junior Varsity team, where, though I would forfeit some clout and bragging rights, I would also benefit from being a star player and leader, getting more playing time, and honing my skills before facing tougher competition. The latter would develop me as an athlete; the former would build up my ego.

Similarly, a smaller agency can often offer more to building a brand, since it is sure to give new clients the time and attention they deserve. For a small agency, each account is crucial, so your business would never be relegated to lower-level service. A small agency can also react more quickly to urgent needs; cater their services to the client; and provide the personal, attentive service that makes businesses feel they are being taken care of.

In the end, JV may not sound as glitzy, but, to mix metaphors a bit, being the smallest fish in the big pond may not be the brightest move for your brand, either.

To learn more about the benefits of being a big fish in a smaller, personalized marketing agency, check out AR & Co. PR & Marketing.

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I recently had the luck to be stuck in traffic on Highway 101 North, toward San Francisco. Strange as it may seem, I do not say “luck” in a tone of sarcasm. The bumper-to-bumper delay under the hot Saturday sun gave me the opportunity to contemplate a perhaps under-appreciated form of marketing in today’s digital world: The Billboard.

In an age of online banner ads and constant and instantaneous Twitter; in a world where the drivers all around me had headsets and smart phones and GPS systems, I was suddenly struck by the strange contrast of the billboard. Like the last dinosaur, these giant and simplistic forms of advertisement remain, forming a static 2-D marketing backdrop behind the stage of our digital daily lives.

It occurred to me that it is precisely because of this stark contrast that the billboard is still relevant in the modern world. It optimizes one of the only remaining spaces and times in which consumers can not be completely dialed in. Legally, they must keep their hands and eyes on the road, and thus the road is the one frontier where touch pads and social networking and pay-per-click ads have no power.

The billboard rules the road. And a well-made billboard can go a long way for business brand.

For example, picture yourself stuck in traffic, as I was. You are in view of a particular billboard for a good ten to twenty minutes. It is the only ad in sight and the only real visual entertainment to break the monotony. You had better believe that billboard has a great chance of being noticed and leaving an impression on the thousands who cross its path every day.

Now, imagine that it is a great billboard: well-designed, clever, eye-catching. That is an ad that will move consumers.  For example, the billboard I read was for Wells Fargo. It said something like, “Your ‘Check Retirement’ Light is Blinking.” I half-smiled to myself at their clever use of car-related metaphor. That was all it took: a small moment of recognition that has turned into lasting awareness and respect for a brand. I haven’t changed banks yet; but when I do, I’ll be thinking of that billboard that I stared at for twenty minutes one hot Saturday in San Francisco. You might say the writing was on the wall for my current bank since that moment.

If you’re ready to think big and take your business brand on the road, consult a company with experience designing signs that leave a lasting impression. AR & Co. graphic designers match the billboard’s size with creativity on a large scale. Email us or—in the spirit of strategies that never go out of style—do the old-fashioned thing, and give us a call.

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Back in the good ol’ days, self-respecting business people would wake up and scan over the newspaper in the mornings to read the latest “status updates” and the opinions of influential leaders.  In the time so wonderfully glorified in the popular show Mad Men, print and television advertisements were the path to success. A jingle and a billboard were the currency of capitalism.

Times have changed.

But old-school ways are yet to be found in the modern business world.

Lurking behind a veil of new-fangled technology called “social media,” there lie the same old, tried-and-true tenets of marketing. And the big-time, long-standing, Fortune 500 companies that have been around since long before television—let alone internet—have recognized that common thread.

Case in point: Procter & Gamble recently announced a switch from 77 years of doing TV ads and soap operas to going full-steam ahead with Facebook, Youtube and Twitter.

Social media solutions to marketing are dynamic and undeniably changing the way people shop, and the wisest brands are taking advantage of the versatile new media possibilities. Where does your business stand? If it’s time to join the old-school of thought on new media, you can find out more about how to turn 140 characters or a 30-second video into free, effective advertising here.  Or, you could wait for the next commercial break…Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from “Social Media: Old-School Business in Shiny New Packaging” in your print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph:
Reprinted from “Paso Robles Marketing,” a blog featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity written by AR & Co PR & Marketing. Subscribe at http://www.pasoroblesmarketing.com/ and receive Blog updates by email.If you like these tips, please pass them on to your friends, clients and colleagues.Follow us on Facebook!

I have a favorite bottle opener. I’ve had it for years. There’s nothing in particular about the look of it—it simply works well and has not gotten lost yet. When there is another option in the drawer, I always go for my favorite. It sits out on the table at dinner parties and comes on picnics and barbecues with me.

For this reason, and perhaps this reason only, I will never forget the name of the local business whose logo stretches down the side of the opener.

There is marketing power in minutiae. Little gimmicks, promotional items, and other branded personal items and accessories can go a long way in creating brand awareness. Not only can items like tee-shirts, tote bags and mugs have the luck of becoming your target customer’s favorite—these items also communicate brand strength, sophistication, and success to anyone who sees them. Little by little, hats, business cards, uniforms, and other personal marketing items can build a big picture that your customers will remember and trust.

Of course, you can go wrong with promotional items. Since products like pens and envelope openers often stick around a long time and pass from person to person, you want to be sure that the item presents your company in the best light possible. One typo on a hat or sticker will go on to haunt you. And though it may seem simple enough to create a pint glass or a golf shirt with your company name on it, that does not mean you should skimp on the graphic design or handle the ordering yourself.

Think of promo items as small but important brand ambassadors. They should be outfitted in the company’s finest: a well-designed, four-color logo that leaves a lasting impression, as well as additional contact information and website, as appropriate. Other written materials, such as tag lines and company selling points, should be crafted and scrutinized by a reliable copy writer to avoid errors, off-messages, and missed opportunities. Furthermore, a marketing professional should consider options like size and placement of logo, print quality, and paper or material selection, as these will impact the overall effectiveness of the item in the long run.

But don’t take it too seriously. Promotional items, merchandise and company marketing materials are the fun and light-hearted part of marketing. With a solid marketing strategy to back it up, a promotional item like my bottle opener can be the quickest, easiest, least expensive way to get your brand into your customers’ hands. And, when done right, you can bet it will stay in their hands–and minds–for a long time to come.

Get started on dispatching your brand messengers—in the form of business cards, complimentary tasting cards, stationary, envelopes, letterhead, rack card, and more—by searching the easy-to-use library of over 850,000 promotional items at http://www.arandcompany.com/promo_items/, orcontact a marketing maven to learn more about how easy it is to give your branding a boost.

Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from “Micro-Marketing and the Shelf Life of Promo Items” in your print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph:

Reprinted from “Paso Robles Marketing,” a blog featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity written by AR & Co PR & Marketing. Subscribe at http://www.pasoroblesmarketing.com/ and receive Blog updates by email.

If you like these tips, please pass them on to your friends, clients and colleagues.

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If your business has access to a list of email addresses for past and/or current clients, don’t miss out on one of the easiest and most powerful marketing tools the modern world offers: Email Marketing.

With the click of a mouse, your messaging reaches hundreds or even thousands of potential customers where most of them probably prefer to be contacted. Thanks to the digital age, these emails are checked regularly, allowing businesses the opportunity to stay on the top of the mind of their target consumers, and the effects of email marketing campaigns are highly trackable (unlike print media marketing), allowing businesses to hone their strategies according to the most successful tactics and proven results.

The key, however, to email marketing campaigns parallels that of print media campaigns in that high quality design, copywriting, and well-thought-out execution are crucial to distinguishing your crafted material from the rest of the cyberspace junk ignored by your target readers.

Set Yourself Apart from Junk Mail
Successful email marketing, much like successful print marketing, is all about the packaging. If your email looks like junk and reads like junk, then guess where it will end up? It takes just one misdirected, unappealing, or typo-laden email to lose your recipient’s interest and be banished to the junk box for good.

On the other hand, clean, strategic design combined with concise, attention-demanding writing, directed at the appropriate audience for your message will build trust among consumers. With this trust, your business gets the golden window of opportunity to capitalize on low-cost, highly effective marketing via email.

The Golden Opportunities of Email Marketing

Name Recognition
Once you’ve earned a spot in the non-junk section of your readers’ inboxes, you’re in, whether they read your email or not. The reason is that even if they do not read your carefully crafted message, they will see your regularly appearing mail and be reminded of your business, if only by the subject line. This consistent repetition is one of the golden tickets to name recognition and brand loyalty.

Trackability and Message Tailoring
Another advantage of email marketing is the incredible wealth of information that can be gathered with the click of a button. It’s the cyber-stalker-version of advertising, where you can find out who opened your email, who didn’t, how many people read your email at least long enough to click on the link to your website, and then, what happened from there. Email marketing provides the transparency you’ve always looked for in advertising. With this clear view of your marketing successes and failures, you can more easily tailor your messages to increase their productivity and focus on the proper targets.

Search Engine Optimization
Email promotional material is built to bring people to your online marketplace, your website. Not only does a monthly email serve to direct readers to your site through embedded links, but the material can also be archived on your site (in an appropriate “news” section) to add valuable, keyword-rich content—the key to boosting your rank in search engine results. For that reason, archiving email newsletters and eblasts is like doubling your marketing money, for nothing.

Ready to hit send on email marketing? Read more helpful hints or schedule an appointment with email marketing experts at www.arandcompany.com.

Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from “Hitting Send on Strategic Email Marketing” in your print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph:

Reprinted from “Paso Robles Marketing,” a blog featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity written by AR & Co PR & Marketing. Subscribe at http://www.pasoroblesmarketing.com/ and receive Blog updates by email.

If you like these tips, please pass them on to your friends, clients and colleagues.

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The old adage “Don’t judge a book by its cover” may work well as a metaphor for gauging the character of a person, but it has no place in the cut-throat modern business world. Anyone in publishing—book, magazine or newspaper—will tell you the truth: it’s all about the cover.

The “cover” of any business (meaning packaging, design, logo, signage) should be the strongest possible appeal to its market, signaling to consumers that this is a product they want and a company they can trust. Just like the peacock woos the hen with its flashy feathers, a company’s branding should dazzle the consumer’s eyes with high resolution imagery and crafted, strategically mesmerizing design. It’s not shallow. It’s survival of the fittest.

True, the contents should live up to the fancy façade; but when it comes down to making money, appearance matters. That’s because modern consumers, and humans in general, are visual creatures living in a fast-paced visual world of tv, magazines, and fashion. In spite of the superficiality involved, they have learned to survive by correctly and quickly sizing up their surroundings—making them exceedingly astute in the art of efficiently judging “covers.” Small distinctions like image quality, font, and aesthetic appeal speak volumes.

As such, sophisticated graphic design is to a business what a license is to a lawyer or doctor: instant and undeniable proof. Strong design puts the consumer’s mind at ease. It validates a business as not only legitimate, but as pertaining to the upper-class of quality services and products.

This distinction is just as–and possibly even more—important in an economic climate where people are looking to save. Consumers do not want to pay top-dollar, but they also do not want to waste money on poor-quality items. Top-notch design points consumers to dependable, optimum options.

There is perhaps no better example currently at work in the marketplace than wine label design. As the democratization of wine continues to draw all classes of consumers in to the alcohol & spirits aisles of grocery stores, wineries are learning that it is no longer enough to make a superb wine. With so many competitors vying for a spot in the grocery basket, even the best wines must be distinguished by stellar, eye-catching design in order to stand out to a shopper—a shopper who may not be versed in the jargon of enology, but who is certainly adept in reading the language of graphic design.

This shopper learns all that they need to know in a split-second survey of a wine label: mediocre, cheap, unsophisticated, forgettable, outstanding, well-made, high-quality, elite—these are the qualities shoppers read in a wine label. A less-expensive wine, for instance, must look expensive and unique, yet accessible, telling the buyer that this bottle will please palates without causing headaches, but is also not taking itself too seriously. It’s a fun, no-regrets, no-shame purchase they can feel good about. On the other hand, a label of equal value that is neither attractive nor sophisticated will collect dust because it tells the consumer nothing of the experience they will have with that wine; it makes no visual promises and is therefore not a promising investment.

Wine is not a singular example. There are plenty of specialized products and services that relatively uninformed consumers make cover-judgment calls on everyday, such as cars, computers, phones, and, yes, books. For instance, a consumer who knows little about cars still needs a tune-up. When looking for a local mechanic they can trust, they may glance in the yellow pages or scan Google results, and those options without a logo will instantly pale in comparison to the branded alternatives. The service may be truly above-average at “Bob’s Auto Shop,” but to the graphically-literate consumer, its plain, black-and-white sign really says “cheap but questionable service,” while a four-color artistically-rendered logo reads “better and more reliable.”

In the end, a bad sign is, well… a bad sign.

Brush up on your sign survival instincts at www.arandcompany.com, or call 805-239-4443 to make an appointment with a graphic designer who knows how to make your logo turn heads.

Permission to Reprint: You may reprint any items from “Design to Survive” in your print or electronic newsletter. But please include the following paragraph:

Reprinted from “Paso Robles Marketing,” a blog featuring tips, tricks and tools for generating free publicity written by AR & Co PR & Marketing. Subscribe at http://www.pasoroblesmarketing.com/ and receive Blog updates by email.

If you like these tips, please pass them on to your friends, clients and colleagues.

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