Get Promotional Ink and Gel Pens

Chris Shetler asked:

Festive season around the corner and you are confused as to what can be the best gift that would help boost your image with your clients. Relax; Promotional-Logo-Pens.com is here to help!

Promotional item pens are pens that are mightier than all other marketing tools. They can be the best gift that you can give your clients and customers giving your organization a profitable return as well. Customized promotional pens from Promotional Logo Pens are:

* A great gift idea

* Create brand awareness for your products, services, or organization

* Economical

* An easy way to increase visibility tremendously

* Helping your brand name be remembered

A pen is a universal tool. There are very few people who leave home without a pen in their bags or pockets. Even in the age of computers, people have to use a pen for writing work in their everyday activities.

In the competitive business world, pens have also been a great gift idea. Whether it is gifted to a large mass of people or a few selected ones, different kinds of pens have been the perfect gift for different occasions.

At Promotional Logo Pens, you will find pens for different occasions. For instance, we have a wide range of promotional classic engraved pens available. These elegant looking, stylish imprinted pens are germane for corporate gifts. To add a little fun to these pens, we have a collection of 3D mirror pens.

Though these promotional item pens look expensive, they are charged at a very reasonable rate. They would fit your marketing budget comfortably and create the impact you want on your target audience.

The promotional item pens are ideal promotional tools for smaller organizations as they do not have substantial advertising and promotion budgets. Thus, they find the logo pens an ideal way to not only create brand awareness, but also to motivate staff or thank customers at a reasonable cost.

Customized promotional pens are like miniature billboards in motion. They create big awareness on a small promotional item.

Promotional item pens are a superb way to cut through the clutter and get your message across to a huge percentage of your target audience. Just get your logo imprinted on a classy looking pen and watch your client take it everywhere!

Unique Fine Writing Pens & Gift Pens – An Excellent Promotional Product Listing

Mindbees asked:

There are various vendors on the Internet that offer customized promotional pens. The choice ranges from ballpoint to fountain, plastic to enamel, silver to gold pens. These online suppliers will take your message and print it onto your desired pens at a very reasonable cost. So for more information on printed promotional pens, marketing and advertising items and products check out the top suppliers online today.

Promotional pens act as a clever advertising tool. There are several types of promotional pens available in the market and almost all of them can be purchased in bulk for a very low amount. This is definitely their biggest advantage.  Most promotional gift pens are screen printed in one ink, though additional colors are also available. This reduces the cost naturally. Pens embossed with your company’s name and logo can be distributed in crowded places like malls and baseball games and with hours hundreds, perhaps thousands of people will know about your brands name.

Fine writing pens can be easily used as ‘added benefit’ along with other sales and advertising packages. Moreover, they can be freely distributed among the employees to increase their loyalty towards the firm. They can also be enclosed in shipping consignments to keep the name of your company always fresh in the minds of the clients. Promotional pens are often distributed at promotional shows, conferences and symposiums and are used as mass marketing tools.

There are various vendors on the Internet that offer customized promotional pens. The top quality listed pens are Pens-Twist Action, Pens-Transparent Barrel or Cap , Pens-With Grip Section,  Pens-With Highlighter , Pens-Lacquered Finish ,  Pens-Roller Ball , Pens-Multi-Color , Pens-With Light , Pens-Gel Ink , Pens-Ballpoint-Plunger Action ,   Pens-Ballpoint-Twist Action ,  Key Holders-With Pen , Pens-Clip Action and more.

Print4Half.Com works with the intention to bring high – quality, low-cost design printed writing pens to global market and to other customers. As a small business we know firsthand the importance of providing quality printed designs writing pens for all your personal & office needs. The goal is to provide an online supply of quality writing pens as promotional gift items to customers that are easy to use, high quality, with affordable price.

Does Your Nonprofit Have A Marketing Plan Or Marketing Mess?

Katie Sternberg asked:

Every dollar you spend on marketing means one less dollar dedicated to the awesome programs and services you provide. That means each precious marketing dollar put toward web sites, brochures, logos, DVD’s, development materials and other marketing tools better count! Unfortunately, planning for all that activity too often takes a back seat. Marketing plans are in short supply.

We bet you like the idea of a marketing plan – but you don’t have the time and energy for planning in the rush of managing time-consuming day-to-day operations. Too bad. The cold, hard truth is you can’t afford not to have a plan. The good news: strategic marketing planning can – and should – be straightforward, results-oriented and easy to manage.

What’s in a Plan

Your marketing plan determines how your clients and donors see you. It helps prioritize your target audiences (such as clients, donors and internal stakeholders). It details where your clients come from, how to get to the gate-keepers that refer your clients, how you describe your services, how you talk to donors and how you make critical budget decisions. It takes a look at your competition (and yes, you are competing for those hard-earned donor dollars.) A well-designed marketing plan provides a timeline of specific tactics, coordinated with other internal and external events (program launches, changing legal environments, etc.), to help your organization reach its overall objectives. If it’s a good plan, it also clearly outlines your budget and how those valuable marketing dollars will be allocated. If that sounds complicated, keep reading to learn how to break it down into manageable steps.

Any solid marketing plan needs to include a few key elements:

Situation Analysis

Start with a review of where your nonprofit organization is right now. These are things you likely already know, but putting them front and center in your plan serves a couple of purposes. First, it gives you a benchmark of where you are. Second, it lets you build a plan that addresses the basic organization and environmental realties you face.

• Nonprofit Organization Mission and Vision: What are the key values and goals of your organization?

• Product or Service Review: Describe your basic products and services

• Client/User Drivers: What factors affect the environment in which you operate?

• Core Competencies: What do you do well? What do your clients /users rely on you for? Why do donors contribute to your cause?

• Competitive Review: Who are your key competitors? How is the competitive landscape changing?

Measurable Objectives or Outcomes

What do you want to accomplish this year? And how will you measure the results? Measurable goals allow you to formulate strategies and tactics that will get you there. Basic, but many people don’t think through a set of realistic objectives.

We can’t tell you how many times we have heard from nonprofit executives that their number one goal is to “raise awareness of our cause in the general community.” Sorry, that’s not a measurable objective. So let’s make it work: Launch a comprehensive communications campaign within service area in order to increase number of clients we serve by 35% over the course of the next three years (2009). Wow! Now you know what you need to accomplish, where, in what time frame and by how much! What a difference.

Audiences

Make a list of your key audiences. You have more target audiences than you think – the people you serve day in and day out, your volunteers, your stakeholders (board of directors), staff members, donors and major donors – and we bet there are more! When defining your target audiences, consider demographics as well as psychographics. That is not only where they live and how old they are, but also how each audience thinks and feels.

For example, we know that our average planned giving donor is male, 65 years of age – or older, is married, is a home owner, has a house hold income of more than $200,000 per year, is married, has grown children, is registered as a Republican, is concerned about the war, healthcare and education. We also know that he has a connection to cancer; either he or someone in his family has been affected by cancer.

The goal here is to really understand the people you are talking to. One tip: once you know your demographics and psychographics, write stories around them. It will help you better identify you audiences’ needs. So take those same demographics and psychographics, but this time let’s tell a story.

Dan Kennedy is 65 years old. He is a successful entrepreneur. He and his wife Tess have consistently contributed to Cancer Services campaign since 1995. Mr. Kennedy’s mother died of cancer and in 1995 Tess underwent surgery and radiation following a diagnosis of ****** cancer. Mr. Kennedy and his family have never needed our services, but he is passionate about the idea that all people deserve quality care and the education to make decisions related to their health.

Now imagine this organization is ready to kick off an endowment campaign. They have a powerful tool they can use to train the development staff and volunteers, perfect donor pitches and fine-tune marketing efforts.

How do you get to know your audience members mindsets, hopes and fears? Research! It doesn’t need to be complicated. Simple surveys provide a tremendous amount of good data. You can also take a look back at your database and review current donors, volunteers and other stakeholders. And you probably already know a lot about each of your audiences from your experience working with them.

Messages

What is the core of what you need to say? In their brilliant book, Made to Stick, Chip Heath and Dan Heath write “The more we reduce the amount of information in an idea, the stickier it will be.” In other words, pare down your messages to the absolute core so yor your audience will remember them.

Example: Project Sunshine is a successful nonprofit organization which offers free social, educational and recreational programming for children and families with medical challenges. Their mission: We bring sunshine to a cloudy day.sm That’s brilliant! Why? Because you, and Project Sunshine’s employees, donors and clients, know exactly what that means; sunshine physically makes us feel better, conjures images of kids, sprinklers, swimming pools and health and overall makes us feel happy and healthy.

Channels and Tools

How will you send your message to your target audiences? Channels are groups/people through whom and places where you will distribute your message; tools are the materials you employ.

Examples:

Channels: Regional hospitals, social workers, oncology offices

Tools: t shirts, informational dvd, website

Strategy

Strategies are broad approaches to communicating that are linked to your measurable objectives. These are the big-picture approaches you take to communication and positioning your organization. You should look at each objective and come up with the strategies you need to accomplish it.

Examples:

• Recruit and hire a Chief Development Officer who will oversee all development activities including campaigns and events.

• Hire an advertising agency to oversee and manage all organization advertising and creative. Agency should have experience in nonprofit sector and be willing to donate a percentage of their time.

Tactics

The tactics are the specific tasks and activities needed to accomplish your strategies. These should be very specific.

Example:

• Develop comprehensive job description for Chief Development Officer

Timeline by Tactic

Prioritize your tactics, and then develop specific deadlines for each one. You’ll also want to note which staff members or outside resources will be used to complete the tactics.

Here’s an Example:

Develop comprehensive job for Chief Development Officer

Responsibility Katie Sternberg

Due 3/5/2007

Status

Evaluation

Your evaluation methods may be formal, like a research study or survey. But they might also be more informal, like reports on funding increases, feedback from clients or input from staff. The most important idea here is to do some kind of measurement so you know if your strategies are working. Your objectives and strategies should be so specific that you should be able to measure each and every one.

Examples:

• Percent increase in referrals from clinics over last year for the months May – August.

• Percent increase in number of hits on web site increased since re-launch

Budget

The marketing budget shouldn’t be whatever is left over at the end of the month or quarter. And it shouldn’t be unlimited, either. Go back through your strategies and tactics and assign some general budget amounts to each one. Is the number you come up with realistic? If not, go back and review your tactics and determine where you can make changes. You need to allocate money to achieve your key objectives. If you spend too much on one strategy, you won’t have enough to accomplish the others.

Still Skeptical About Planning?

You may be getting short-term results with a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants approach. But there is a downside. This kind of makeshift marketing often does nothing to further the strategic goals of the company and frequently fails to look to the future. And that is a very dangerous place to be. Even a little planning can help you decrease your marketing risk and improve your results.

Tips on How to Save Money When Shopping. Useful Things to Consider …

Needless to say that shopping is extremely addictive and everyone knows this. As a matter of fact most of the time, the household budget is sacrificed when.

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Tips on How to Save Money When Shopping. Useful Things to Consider …