Create A Catalog for Your Website

Here's an idea to make your top-selling inventory available on the web to anyone who wants to buy. You don't need to have an online store and you don't need to pay a web developer thousands of dollars to build a complicated data base.

Instead, just create a catalog with all your merchandise on your own computer and then offer it as a pdf download from your website.

In many ways, a pdf catalog is better than an actual printed catalog. There are no printing or mailing costs, and customers can save it to their computer for future reference.

DO IT YOURSELF
It may take a little time, but a catalog is not that difficult to create. You can do it with Word as long as you are comfortable working with tables and graphics in Word. Find Word tutorials here: Word 2007 Courses

Lay out your complete catalog including a cover page, table of contents, product information, and ordering instructions. Be sure to include an order form that may be faxed or mailed to you. When creating your catalog, include as much color as you can and include as many product pictures as you can.

When you are finished with the creation of your catalog, proof read it carefully. Now you're ready to convert the entire catalog from Word into a pdf document. You may already have the pdf conversion software on your computer, or you may have pdf driver installed in your printing options. If so, try those first and examine the results.

If that's not working, use this free online pdf converter: doc2pdf (donations accepted). I've found it to be very quick and completely accurate.

Once you've created the pdf document of your catalog, save it to your computer. Then send the file to your web developer and add it to the website. Make sure you prominently promote the "New Colorful Catalog" now available online.

EXAMPLES
Here are a couple of examples of some catalogs (all pdf file links):
Huetter Mill & Cabinet Molding and Stair Parts
Classic Cuisine Catering Catalog
Schlueter Dairy Technologies Catalog

When you do finish your catalog, be sure to send me a link to jay-at-themarketingspot-dot-com. If you already have a catalog, please let me know so that I can link to it as an example.


For more information on our company: www.themarketingspot.com
Read our other blog on small business marketing: The Marketing Spot

May Your Christmas Be Blessed

May the Spirit of the season and the joy of our Savior enter your heart this Christmas.

The Idea Spot will be back after Christmas with new case studies and practical marketing ideas.

Merry Christmas!

Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah! 13 Questions to Ask Yourself to Get Unique

Ben Bernie was an orchestra leader in the 1930's, who used to sign off his radio program with "Yowsah, Yowsah, Yowsah." It was his trademark and he became famous for that saying. Why? Because it was unique.

If you are struggling to build perceived value in your business then it's time to look at your uniqueness. The larger the sale you have to make with your business, the more you need to build up your perceived value. The key is to find that one unique feature on which you can hang all of your marketing materials.

Here's How You Do It
Start asking yourself some questions and start with these:

1. Who are the customers or my audience?


2. What should people feel when they come in contact with my offering?


3. What are my top three business values, other than honesty and quality?


4. What unique resources do I have that my competitors don't?


5. What do I aspire to accomplish for my customers?


6. If the sky were the limit, what might be possible with my business?


7. Do I have a unique model, system or process by which I operate?


8. What's my biggest weakness and how could that be my biggest strength?


9. What could be the potential risks, costs, or consequences to my customers by not doing business with me?


10. What are the top 5 questions asked by my potential customers?


11. What do my customers think must be done in order for them to be totally satisfied?


12. How does my offering give my customers momentum?


13. What is it my customers think I cannot do?

After asking these questions, you will most assuredly have jotted a list of multiple unique features about your business. Now compare that list with what your competitors are saying. Eliminate anything that sounds anything close to what they are saying.

Of the remaining items on the list, which one inspires you and would inspire your customers? There's your uniqueness. Now put that on all your marketing materials and never lead with anything else. This is what you are going to use to build perceived value in your business.

Note:
Thanks to Gerald Haman of Solution People for the inspiration of these questions. Gerald has created a truly unique pocket innovation tool call the KnowBrainer, which I use to help my clients devise unique solutions.

For more help on finding your uniqueness, see Connect the Dots: Building a True Brand, on our other blog: The Marketing Spot.

Related Posts:

1. Word of Mouth for a Realtor
2. Make the First Visit Count

For more information on our company: www.themarketingspot.com

Surprise Your Customers

Rick Spence, at the Financial Post tells us how he got pleasantly surprised by a hotel and the marketing lightbulb came on.






From the article:

"People get jaded fast," he says. "People have seen it all, and they expect it all. They expect that product quality, service and the experience will all be right. And the only way to please people who expect it all is to give them something they don't expect."

Are you surprising your customers? For more ideas, read the article here: Rick Spence: Surprise marketing tactics endear.

For more marketing advice and lessons, see our other blog: The Marketing Spot.
Our company website is: http://www.themarketingspot.com/

Branding an Office Space

Case Study: New Haven Legal Centre

Idea Wanted: Re-brand an existing office space business.

Challenge: Take an existing local office space business national, and at the same time, change the vision of the business.

Background: 25 year old President Jonathan Arabolos has a passion to reinvent office space. Jon and his mother operate the New Haven Legal Centre in New Haven, Connecticut, an office building where over 90% of the clients are legal associated practices. But Jon has an enthusiasm to serve new businesses and entrepreneurs and he want to combine that enthusiasm with his passion and into a new office space concept. He also wants to expand his reach and take the concept national.

Advice: Branding is about being different in the mind of the consumer. But it's not just about saying your different, it's also about being different. Jon needs to take his values, his passion, and his vision and turn it into a business that's real. When you have a real business that's different, you can have a brand that stands out from the crowd. We are going to advise Jon to focus on being a different kind of office space for small businesses.

Ideas:

1. The Mission. The first step to branding is to identify your mission, based on your values. Jon's top three business values are flexibility, optimism and passion*. Now those values need to be turned into a mission that will have merit with the target client: small businesses, startups and entrepreneurs. The mission we identified in working with Jon is to "To be a fertilizing ground where businesses grow."

   *For the record: We do not allow clients to give us the value of honesty when going through the branding process. Honesty is assumed as a starting point for doing business long term. This rule also applies to quality. Never use honesty or quality in your marketing materials.

2. The Brand Promise. After a mission statement is developed, the next step is to develop a brand promise based on the vision Jon has for the company. Jon's big hairy vision is to brand office space nationwide. He wants to set up a network of entrepreneurs and be a hub for small businesses through office space. To accomplish this vision potential clients will have to see Jon as a resource. Our recommended Brand Promise for the re-branded company is for Jon to "Be the resource you need to make your office space successful."
   
   
3. Proving the Brand. Branding is not about constructing a make believe image. Real branding that lasts cannot be done with smoke, mirrors and pretty words. Sooner or later you have to prove your promise. Jon wants to be a resource. We believe the best way to do this is to assemble a hub of services that most small businesses need but don't necessarily know how to get.
   
   These essential services can include: Bookkeeping, legal help, office supplies, printing, computer repair. Jon would have approved company providers for each of these services and more. He could check references and negotiate rates up front. Then when a tenant needs some printing work, rather than wasting time calling around and getting bids, they just call the "company printer" and order what they want.
   
   Another value-added service he could offer is a free logo when you sign a lease for a designated term. New businesses rarely have a logo when they start, so they can get a logo and an office in one transaction. There are logo shops that provide logos for as little as $250.
   
   
4. New Name. Obviously New Haven Legal Centre is not going to cut it as a name for the newly re-branded national business. There are a million business naming theories out there, but my favorite is probably Seth Godin's Naming a Business. We did a little creative thinking to come up with a couple of different names:
   
   Maple Office Centers - We got the inspiration from Jon's name, Arabolos, which is close to the Spanish word for trees. A maple tree is a fast-growing strong tree with a good visual presence. It's easy to spell and pronounce and we think it has nice ring.
   Harvest Business Centers - This name has an obvious relationship to Jon's mission of being a 'fertilizing ground' for small businesses. It also has a positive connotation, is easy to spell and pronounce.
   


5. Get a Signature. With a Brand Promise and a new name, we need a signature. Most people call this a tag line or a slogan. But signatures have meaning and they are personal. A slogan is a clever saying, but a signature is personal. Good signatures should tie in nicely with the name of the business and give a clear indication of what a business offers.
   
   We think the signature here is obvious: 'The Fertilizing Ground for Businesses,' taken from Jon's mission. Now we connect the business name with the signature and we get:
   Maple Office Center - The Fertilizing Ground for Businesses
   


6. Key Visual. To put the finishing touch on this brand we need a key visual. Not talking about a logo here, you can learn more about that chore here: The Importance of a Logo in Branding.
   
   Key visuals provide a consistent theme throughout all your marketing materials. The key visual is the continuity of your communication with the customer. We think the new brand's key visual needs to revolve around a hub. John wants to build a network of entrepreneurs and be a hub for them so the hub visual seems natural.
   
   If name of the business is Maple Office Center, use a maple tree as the center of the hub and extend spokes out to icons that reference the different resources. You can visualize what it might look like by applying your imagination to the this computer network graphic (sorry, we're not going to show you the graphic we would do).

The Lesson: Why go through the whole mission, vision, brand promise exercise? Lasting brands are built on values and passion, they are what we call 'True Brands.' You can see the process we went through for Jonathan Arabolos and his quest for a new brand. When we identified his values, mission, vision and brand promise up front, the rest of the process really became quite easy. That's because we didn't have to make things up. We were building a true brand.

To learn more about this process and branding your small business, we highly recommend Microbranding: Build a Powerful Personal Brand and Beat Your Competition, by Scott Gross.


For more small business marketing lessons and advice, see our other blog: The Marketing Spot
To learn more about our company, see our website: www.themarketingspot.com