107: Rethinking the Company Brochure

Business owners often understand the golden rule when it comes to customer service. It’s interesting to me, though, how often we overlook that guiding principle in marketing and don’t design advertising that we’d want to read, if the roles were reversed. Give advertising unto others that you’d want given unto you; and see what happens to your company brochure—and your bottom line.

106: 4 Things Every Business Proposal Should Say

Empathy is huge for trust. That means letting people know that we realize that this is their treasured collection, lifetime achievement, or financial security that’s at stake. Each situation will determine what is professionally appropriate to say; and this doesn’t have to be a verbose section of a proposal, but intentionally moving into this perspective for even one sentence can be enough to separate ourselves from the competition.

105: Working With a Changing Newspaper Landscape

All media is adapting to technological advancements and changing audience habits, but the newspaper industry seems to have the toughest road to relevance. An observant eye will help us as advertisers take advantage of the deals and restrictions that stem from this newspaper landscape to best serve our customers.

104: Natural Disaster Advertising?

I don’t know if it’s appropriate to compare what my clients and I do for a living to a deadly, expensive natural disaster. That said, if the advertising we generate could engulf our buying community like Derecho 2012 has my physical community, we’d all have the job security of an American Electric Power lineman.

103: 5 Advertising Lessons From the Interstate

Good advertising is more often a result of subtraction than addition. Consider an advertisement as a collection of shares of impression. The fewer the shares, the more each share is worth—and the more likely they’ll be remembered.

102: Competing For (And Against?) Potential Clients

I’ll let other people debate whether Proxibid’s move was harmful or advantageous to the auction industry and whether or not their expansion happened in good faith. That’s not my fight.

What is my fight is making auction advertising so attractive and effective that people keep hiring auctioneers to sell their assets.

101: The USPS Program That Could Save You Thousands

For auctioneers, who often have limited budgets and even more limited time, Every Door Direct Mail may prove itself a long-overdue solution. And if your proposed budget can gain dollars on the postage line, you can spend those saved dollars on more marketing in places your competition can’t.