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If you are creating a brochure, make sure you follow these 9 steps to get best return on your investment:

1 Grab Attention
You need a hook that gets your audience interested. The headline or main text is your first chance to grab attention. Get the adrenaline pumping, tears flowing, or sides splitting. Spark their curiosity and they will keep reading.

2 Time and Convenience
Provide value by meeting time and convenience needs. Offer useful information that will be of immediate benefit to the reader, whether they buy or not. Provide welcome advice rather than untimely interruptions. Position yourself as the expert and build relationships before the sale.

3 Know Your Audience
It’s not about you. Your audience wants to know how they can increase their sales/efficiency. Find out what your audience needs, then offer it. Make sure you have a high You to I/We ratio.

4 Know Yourself
What is your product or service? Describe it in brief easy to understand language. Explain why you are a better choice than your competition. What is your advantage?

5 Make it Sparkle
Your brochure is a reflection of you- so make it shine. Unless you are a graphic designer- get help. A well designed brochure will get you more bang for your buck. A poorly designed brochure will waste money and actually drive people away.

6 What and How
Features tell you what is offered, benefits tell you how this is good news. Low fat is a feature, it won’t clog your life giving arteries is a benefit.

7 Be consistent
A brochure is one tool in your marketing tool box. All of your tools need to work together to reinforce the message- same look, same feel, colors, design and message.

8 Action!
Now what? Tell the reader what to do- call, visit website, buy today. Don’t you dare leave off any pertinent information like your phone number, address, website. Link your brochure to the next step in the relationship.

9 Copy Right
Your copy must grab attention, provide value, be audience centered, promote your advantage over the competition, be consistent, highlight features and benefits, have a call to action and be written in clear easy to understand language.

Michael Daehn is the founder of marketingenious consulting and author of the book The Seven Keys to Marketing Genius: The Complete Guide to Increasing Your Marketing IQ available at http://www.sevenkeysmarketing.com and http://www.borders.com. Visit his website at http://www.marketingenious.com or e-mail michael@daehntrain.com.

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They may be considered by many as trash, crap, rubbish but they can serve as business catalysts. You may not be aware of its essence but let me tell you that it can make a great change - a change so remarkable that it can make trash into something green.

When it comes to businesses and marketing strategy, tiny pieces of paper can standout from the rest - business cards, flyers and postcards for instance are essential ingredients of a not so expensive yet effectual marketing. Tiny pieces of paper like these make it easy for customers to buy your product or subscribe to your business. They are accessible, convenient and inexpensive. Thus, you can stretch your budget to your worthy advantage.

Business cards, flyers and postcards can be incorporated with other marketing tools like newsletters, magazines, periodicals, survey forms, coupons and other announcements and releases. To make them catchier, you can use photos and attractive colors that will match your primary goal. Might as well, use company photos or those that are directly related to the company. Hence, it will be easier for retention to take place. Colors, on the other hand, bring life to your tiny pieces of paper. They create the mood of enthusiasm and interest. You can also add in free gifts or souvenirs to entice potential customers. In fact, in times of holidays like Christmas, more and more companies are incorporating small gifts like candies, cookies, cheeses and the likes in order to be more personal and friendly. Moreover, do not forget to make obvious your call to action. Tell the readers what you want them to do next. If it is to purchase, subscribe - then, say it!

Business card, flyers and postcard printing and mailing will become easier if you choose a reliable printing company. Seek considerable amount of support from the latter in order to come up with a fabulous marketing presentations and tools. Generally, they have pools of printing experts to assist their customers to get full printing potentials. More often that not, they advice their clients to use full color printing for their customers marketing tools. This is due to its dominant visual cues that can easily grab anyone’s attention.

Without you noticing it, your business may already in the black because the response of your tiny pieces of paper is overwhelming and the sales just keep on coming!

Please visit Postcard Printing Company site at www.rushpostcardprinting.com/post-card-printing-and-mailing.html for comments and inquiries regarding this article.

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The practice of public relations is often misunderstood, thus overlooked by small business owners. There is an assumption among small businesses that PR exists only to serve corporate giants who are looking to dodge impending negative fall out of their reputation, following a catastrophic blunder on the part of their company. While public relations is the key to maintaining a company’s image and reputation, the bulk of work in this industry is dedicated to facilitating success rather than evading disaster. And now more than ever, a growing number of small businesses are seeing the benefits of well-run PR in the success of their overall marketing plan.

Public relations is the means by which your company becomes known and stays known among your target audience. Consistent exposure to your company through press releases, by-lined articles and special events (to name a few) can have an enormous long-term impact on the success of your business. Small businesses that implement effective PR campaigns have the ability to become known as a leader in their industry, as well as their community. While there is no price that you can put on that type of exposure, PR is also typically more affordable and cost-effective than many other widely used methods of public exposure.

Creating a Brand with Public Relations
Public relations should be the first component of any small business’ marketing plan. It is the catalyst that will draw your audience’s attention to you and all of your other marketing efforts. PR is the seed that establishes your brand within the minds of your potential customers. Once they have an image to attach to your company, that image will resurface every time they come into contact with you. Successful implementation of PR should be the precursor to any ad campaign, web marketing or product promotion that your small business performs. By first creating a brand, you are producing a captive audience for future messages of all sorts.

PR establishes you as an innovator and expert in your field by exposing your audience to the information via a third party. Americans get their information from the media and there is simply no substitute for having your company appear among the top stories of the day that are of interest to your audience.

There are basically two types of information in the media: news and advertising. For a price, you can have your company appear in the paper or on TV and radio every single day if you desire, through advertisements. But at the end of the day, it is a message that you created and paid for, and your customer knows it. And who is going to believe a message that says “I’m the best. Just ask me!” Because ads come directly from the company and are so self-serving in nature, they lack the most important influencing factor on brand building: credibility. Advertising there is little credibility to an ad because the message comes directly from the company and is clearly self-serving in nature. The other way to gain exposure through the media is to be featured in the news. Unfortunately, reporters and writers aren’t just following you around town, waiting for you to do something great that they can write about. But they are constantly looking for new and interesting concepts to pique and hold the interest of their readers. That is where PR comes in.

Why Do You Stand Out in a Crowd?

Establishing yourself in your industry comes down to a single question. What makes you different? After all, if you are the same as everyone else, there is no motivation for the media to cover your story, or for your audience pay attention to it. If you are having a difficult time identifying your unique characteristics, then develop a component of your business that nobody else is offering.

Using your unique, industry-specific insight, educate the public on things that affect their daily life. Become the only accountant in your city who offers free monthly tax seminars to the public. Establish yourself as the first manufacturing company in your area to implement a new technology that increases efficiency or cuts down on pollution. Create an internal environment that interests the external world, and you will have developed the starting point of your PR process.

Implementing a Successful PR Plan

Public Relations, like any other facet of your business, is a very focused discipline that requires the skills of a professional for the best results. Small businesses often don’t have the financial means, or the need, to staff a full-time PR or Marketing professional. But that doesn’t mean that PR tasks should be delegated to people in-house with absolutely no experience in the field. There are many firms all over the country that specialize in managing the entire marketing mix for small business clients for considerably less cost than a full-time employee. Implementing your PR plan with one of these firms gives you a tremendous leg up on your competitors and provides a greater probability of success for your PR and marketing efforts.

Once you have established the distinguishing characteristics of your company, your marketing firm brings insight to the process of determining who the target audience is for your message. Who are your past, present and potential customers, and what would be of interest to them? Once they have helped you determine your audience, you are able to tailor your message and the presentation of it to suit their needs.

By nature, stories that appear in print and in radio and television are required to be newsworthy. Sometimes, from an insider’s prospective, the line between newsworthy and blatantly self-promotional is extremely difficult to detect and adjust for. There isn’t a newspaper in the country that will print a press release that simply states all that you have to offer to customers, even if you think it is important. But that’s not the goal of a press release anyway. That’s what ads are for. Press Releases should focus on news, and outline you as the primary credible source for the topic of the story. Establishing credibility is the primary goal of public relations efforts. That will pave the way for the placement of additional marketing pieces down the road.

Working with an outside firm also offers several other advantages to your small business. PR professionals are in constant contact with media outlets of all kinds. Once your press release, article or special event has been created, a Public Relations expert knows how to get it into the hands and on the pages and airwaves of the key publications and broadcast outlets that your audience is getting its news from. Working with a firm also brings the advantage of an outsider’s perspective of your company and your industry as a whole. They can help you identify and accentuate positive perceptions of your company in your audience’s mind. They also know how the message can be tailored to shed negative perceptions that may exist among your target audience.

Perhaps the most beneficial aspect of using an outside firm to establish your public relations is their understanding of PR as a crucial part of the entire marketing mix. Many firms that cater to small business promotion do so through a variety of methods. Most wear the hats of Public Relations Manager, Marketing Manager and Advertising Manager for their clients. PR is a vital aspect of your company’s promotion because of what it does for the other components of your marketing plan. Variety is the key to creating a lasting brand for your company. A well written, well distributed press release will get your name in the paper. But a few strong press releases, combined with advertisements, publicized special events, and a state of the art website will get customers in your door and build a lasting impression of your business in their minds.

The Keys to Small Business PR

Companies of all sizes have identified the benefits of public relations in their marketing system. Perhaps your company has tried implementing PR into your mix as well. There are a few things to keep in mind that will make a huge difference in the success of your PR activities. By differentiating yourself among your competitors and in your location, PR will help you to shape a brand and create a lasting image in the minds of your audience. However, the best way to yield success from your public relations efforts is to work with a professional that brings experience to the table and knows how to get results. Finally, Public Relations is component of the process of marketing. A single press release alone will get you little or no attention from your key audience. But through consistent implementation of a marketing plan, PR is able to establish you as a leader in your field and your community. Patience in the process is what separates the success stories from the failures in public relations implementation.

KolbeCo Marketing Resources is a St. Charles MO (St. Louis) based marketing and public relations firm. Scott Kolbe has over 10 years experince in the sales, marketing and public relations world.

Scott Kolbe
KolbeCo Marketing Resources
http://www.kolbeco.net

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Funny, poignant, painful and joyous - That’s the Jessica Fischer’s story as presented on the DVD “What’s So Funny? A transformation of epic proportions.” Jessica was a successful stand up comic who at the young age of 23 looked obesity square in the face and laughed on stage in New York City. She captured audiences with her self-deprecating fat humor.

Then she underwent gastric bypass surgery, lost half of her body weight and suddenly she wasn’t so funny. It turns out former fatty just isn’t as funny as the 300 pound girl making fun of her own obese self. Jessica found herself reinventing her act and herself, while at the same time trying to hold on to who she was before surgery. Can’t we all relate to that?

The film not only features Jessica, but also her support network: parents, brother, sister, friends, and even surgeon Dr. Shaw. Jessica’s sister is course and skeptical, openly criticizing the “easy way out”. She says, “You’re 23! What are you doing? Get off you ass and do something - walk around the block.” But her sister later concedes how hard Jessica worked for her weight loss and that WLS was, in fact, the only option for her. “It was not an easy fix,” she states, “she needed the help. I don’t think she knew how to get out of her own way.”

Dr. Shaw calls Jessie a model patient. He said what weight loss surgery does is open a window to make it possible to change a lifetime of eating behaviors and misconceptions. He said the physical changes from gastric bypass are predictable, “What is more profound than the physical change is the psychological and social changes. Weight loss surgery corrects a medical problem that comes with a lot of social and psychological baggage.”

The best part of this film is that it is real. Weight loss surgery is tough and the road is bumpy and twisted and challenging. It’s tough being fat and it’s tough losing weight. Not just for the comedienne on stage - but for every person brave enough to “take the easy way out.” A definite must-see film for the LivingAfterWLS audience and the people they love.

“WHAT’S SO FUNNY?” follows Jessica’s journey after her surgery. Not only does she lose the weight, but also her drive and ability to perform comedy, which she perceived as her “ticket” into the world of entertainment. While her physical transformation is remarkable, it is the emotional turmoil she experiences afterwards, which is truly life changing and proves to be more than she bargained for.

The DVD “What’s So Funny?” may be purchased directly from Chrysalis Productions, http://www.chrysalisproductions.com/home.html. Chrysalis Productions is a New Jersey based non-profit organization dedicated to the production of human interest, educational, historical and/or socially relevant documentary films designed to inform and enlighten the general public.

Jessica Fischer is a native of Georgetown, MA, Jessica has been performing in New York since 2001. Some favorite roles include the third witch inLady McBroth as part of the La MAMA reading series and LuLu Reilly with the Peterborough Players. She was also seen in the independent film RF. Jessica has performed her stand-up act at venues such as Stand Up New York, New York Comedy Club, Caroline’s on Broadway and The Duplex. She’s also performed regularly at both the Tribal Comedy Hour and The Poole Party at Don’t Tell Mama’s. A theatre arts graduate of Bridgewater State College in MA, Jess is now in rehearsals for a new play by Boston playwright William Donnelly entitled, Host.

Sandra Longo, Producer/Director

Sandra Longo makes her directorial debut with the documentary feature, What’s So Funny? After over a decade in the corporate world, Sandra worked for several years as a personal coach whose specialty was helping others to pursue their life’s dreams. As a result, she felt compelled to pursue her own dream of becoming a filmmaker. A native of the Midwest, Sandra has lived throughout the United States and Bermuda. She and her husband now reside near the Jersey Shore and are parents to two five-year olds adopted from Guatemala. She is currently in production on her second feature documentary, as well as co-producing a television pilot.

Kaye Bailey © 2005 - All Rights Reserved

An award winning journalist and former newspaper editor Kaye Bailey brings expertise in writing and personal experience with gastric bypass surgery to EzineArticles.com. Having spent most of her life overweight Ms. Bailey is strongly empathetic toward the obese, particularly overweight children. This compassion compelled her to found the website http://www.livingafterwls.com, a fast-growing resource of information, understanding and support for the weight loss surgery community.

The LivingAfterWLS.com site is complimented with daily blog. The blog, http://livingafterwls.blogspot.com offers readers the chance to comment or leave feedback about fresh content added daily. This site contains success stories and recipes, general information and WLS inspired topics. Complementing the site is a monthly newsletter titled “You Have Arrived” available exclusively to people who subscribe through the website or the blog.

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