Paul Whitney's Articles http://www.financealley.com en-us editorial@financealley.com B2B Direct Marketing Tip - Pop-up pen holders grab the attention AND add life to your promotion When you consider what type of product can provide the most attention-grabbing impact for your direct marketing campaigns it is quite likely that your vote would go to an automatic pop-up product such as a <a href="http://www.popupmailers.co.uk/cube_pen_h... http://www.financealley.com/article_695069_64.html 26th November 2008 B2B Direct Marketing - How to pass the 3:33 rule and add longevity to your Campaign Here’s a snippet from Pat Friesen writing for Target Marketing Magazine in November 2007 The 3:33 Rule Are you familiar with direct mail’s three minute and 33 second (3:33) rule? It’s important when you talk about openability. The 3:33 rule... http://www.financealley.com/article_695053_64.html 26th November 2008 Public Information Direct Mail should be Informative, Interactive and User-Friendly Public information produced on leaflets by national government, local authorities and county councils can easily become a waste of money, particularly if the message is important an needs to hit home. No matter how important the information might be, if t... http://www.financealley.com/article_689017_15.html 18th November 2008 New Marketing Ideas in the In-store Niche of Bottle Promotions Walk into your local supermarket and whether you know it or not, you are slap bang in the middle of an advertising and marketing bombardment. In-store advertising and marketing covers just about everything that is in the supermarket including the design o... http://www.financealley.com/article_682155_64.html 04th November 2008 Marketing Ideas – Interactive Marketing Products and B2B Direct Marketing Response rates generated by promotional pop-up mailers are known to be far in excess of those created by bog-standard leaflets and flyers but what is it about pop-up mailers that make th... http://www.financealley.com/article_681750_64.html 04th November 2008 Marketing Ideas – Innovative Marketing Products with Interactive Movement Coming up with new advertising and marketing ideas can be difficult. Creative professionals might go to many different sources of reference for inspiration. Inspiration for many campaigns is to be found in movement and my suggestion is to start your searc... http://www.financealley.com/article_681697_64.html 04th November 2008 Bottle Hanger and Pocket Media Combo Equals Successful Bottle Promotion How much information do we get from advertisers and marketing professionals that we never look at? We know that it’s there. We know that there might be something for us to read but we treat it like junk mail and confine it straight to the waste bin. ... http://www.financealley.com/article_681340_64.html 03rd November 2008 New Bottle Media Improves In-Store Display for Bottle Promotions I have a thing about in-store promotions, marketing and advertising. Sometimes I am really impressed by the efforts of certain companies and think “Wow, that’s really clever”. At other times I think “What a waste of an opportunity”. One little n... http://www.financealley.com/article_681129_64.html 03rd November 2008 Bottle Promotions Boosted by New Bottle Media What makes one bottle promotion stand out from the others on your supermarket shelves? Is it the actual offer or promotion or is it the design of the promotional product? Having searched long and hard to find something new in this niche area of in-store a... http://www.financealley.com/article_681063_64.html 03rd November 2008 Bottle Promotions, Bottle Collars, Bottle Hangers and Neck Tags - Time for a Boost When you walk down the wines and spirits aisle in your local supermarket you will occasionally see a bottle with a promotional product hanging from the bottleneck or maybe the bottle has something wrapped around its neck like a collar. These <a href="http... http://www.financealley.com/article_680938_64.html 03rd November 2008 Size Does Matter and Small is Best – Especially for an Exhibition Giveaway How many times have you heard the expression “Size Does Matter”? It always seems to refer to large items. However, whilst it’s not often that small wins out over large it does in some instances, and in the case of <a href="http://www.popupmailers.co... http://www.financealley.com/article_679174_64.html 30th October 2008 Event Success Depends on Making the Most of Marketing and Publicity Materials When you are organizing an event you can book the very best of everything - the best venue, the most entertaining speakers, the most successful sports personalities, the funniest comedians, the most famous celebrities, the finest caterers, the blue chip e... http://www.financealley.com/article_679123_64.html 30th October 2008 Interesting, Interactive Products should be used to present Practical Information Most businesses need to present information on their products or services to their clients and invariably they want their clients to read and take notice of this information. However, presenting the information by way of lists on leaflets or in pamphlets ... http://www.financealley.com/article_679054_64.html 30th October 2008 Don’t let your giveaway become a throwaway – Choose the right Events Marketing Products Discarded leaflets in litter bins and all around the floor near those bins. Discarded leaflets on coffee tables alongside empty cardboard cups and plastic cutlery. Discarded leaflets in the toilets on the counter top by the sinks. Discarded leaflets on se... http://www.financealley.com/article_672551_64.html 21st October 2008 How to Make a Product Interesting for Events and Exhibitions Marketing and Promotion One of the most difficult tasks for events management companies is how to make a success of what might seem like a non-event to most of the population. Let’s create an example, say, the <a href="http://www.popupmailers.co.uk/product_launch_marketing.htm... http://www.financealley.com/article_671247_64.html 21st October 2008 How to Grab Attention - Events and Exhibition Marketing Products As an events organizer you can book the best of everything for certain events – the best venue, the finest caterers, the most popular entertainers and so on – but not every event is a glitzy affair with fine food and free-flowing bubbly. When you cann... http://www.financealley.com/article_671085_64.html 21st October 2008 How to Attract Visitors and Exhibitors – a Pop-Up Desk Tidy could hold the Key for Events Organize Every branch of the advertising and marketing industry has been hit hard by the effects of the credit crunch and the subsequent events. Account executives are working like crazy to keep client companies on board and to encourage marketing directors to sta... http://www.financealley.com/article_669429_64.html 20th October 2008 Events Organizers want Eye-Catching Events Marketing Products to Pull in Visitors The credit crunch is developing into a full-on recession and that means that advertising budgets are shrinking. The events and exhibitions industry is feeling the pressure just like the rest of the advertising and marketing industry and is desperately thi... http://www.financealley.com/article_669394_64.html 20th October 2008 Pop-Up House Proves a Hit as Events Publicity Material Sophisticated cardboard engineering techniques were put to good use when the first pop-up house was designed as the eye-catching product has grown in popularity over the years to become ... http://www.financealley.com/article_669308_64.html 20th October 2008 Pop-up Cubes offer Success in Events Marketing and Publicity In order to be considered for inclusion in an events or exhibition marketing campaign a product must have proved its value as a successful piece of events or exhibition marketing material. O... http://www.financealley.com/article_669219_64.html 20th October 2008 Online Video of a Christmas Card Attracts 60,000 Viewers in Only 4 Weeks If you want this year’s company Christmas card to be a real winner then you could do a lot worse than consider a product that you really can’t forget - the Fl... http://www.financealley.com/article_648204_64.html 25th September 2008 Corporate Event Invitation, Pop Up Christmas Decoration or Pentagonal Dipyramid? What's in a Name? Just imagine that you had seen a promotional product on the market but you don’t know what to call it. You know what it looks like and you know that it has a pop-up action and the only way to describe it is as a polyhedron. Do you think that you would ... http://www.financealley.com/article_646749_64.html 23rd September 2008 The WOW Factor for Company Christmas Cards can be provided by Eyeletting and Pop-Ups Sending a custom printed Christmas card is a must for many companies each December but the choice of card is proving to be more and more difficult each year. Once upon a day it was regarded as sufficient to send a greeting of goodwill to say “Thank-you ... http://www.financealley.com/article_645526_64.html 23rd September 2008 Looking for a company Christmas card with a difference? Send a Pop Up Gift Box What’s the best thing about Christmas? To many people it is receiving presents and gifts. To others it is the pleasure of giving. Many others simply love the business of shopping for and selecting Christmas gifts. No matter how a person gets enjoyment f... http://www.financealley.com/article_644355_64.html 22nd September 2008 Alternative Company Christmas Card Idea – send a Pop-up Calendar Instead! Choosing your corporate Christmas Card can be a tricky business. For one thing, there are so many people in your own organisation that will want a say in the matter. On top of that you have to be careful that the greeting satisfies today’s version of be... http://www.financealley.com/article_644352_64.html 22nd September 2008 Creative Use of Paper Engineering Cuts and Folds can Produce New Promotional Pocket Media It’s surprising what you can do with a little imagination. Simple ideas are often the solution to a major problem. Take the example of a major airline company back in the nineties. The company was spending a fortune on promotional literature, handing ou... http://www.financealley.com/article_638371_64.html 15th September 2008 Increased Direct Mail Response Rates Can Be Achieved Using Custom Mailing Packs My research tells me something that is fairly obvious. If a nice shiny pack arrives in your business mail it will grab your attention more than any of the flat white envelopes. With that in mind, if you are planning a Business to Business direct marketing... http://www.financealley.com/article_638357_64.html 15th September 2008 Christmas Event Invitations - Ideas and Suggestions If you think of an official invitation to any event in the month of December and you could be forgiven for thinking that the event must be a corporate Christmas party. However, that isn't necessarily the case as December is one of the UK's busiest months ... http://www.financealley.com/article_637935_64.html 15th September 2008 B2B Direct Marketing – Is it the end of the road for white envelopes? Unless you work in accounts and you are looking for payment cheques there is absolutely no joy to be had from receiving mail in a soulless white envelope; particularly one with a black “cheapmail” frank. You just know that it is likely to be some poin... http://www.financealley.com/article_636750_64.html 12th September 2008 UK Heads for recession but Wilf Entwistle has grown a turnip shaped like his knob. “Good evening and welcome to local radio news. And tonight - another set of economists predicts that the UK is heading for recession; another European Body says that things won't start to get better for at least 18 months and is the United States on the... http://www.financealley.com/article_636111_15.html 12th September 2008 Before and After -Wild and crazy ads from the past and today’s direct marketing solutions Today’s advertisers are governed by regulatory bodies such as Ofcom and the Advertising Standards authority but in the early days of advertising it seems that the advertiser gave free rein to his own creativity! Let’s take a look at one of the oldest ... http://www.financealley.com/article_633991_64.html 10th September 2008 Wheel charts, calculators, information discs, spinners – what DO you call these things? Have you ever thought about the difficulties of manufacturing and marketing a product that doesn’t have a name? I don’t mean a totally new product for which you can invent a name and market the product from scratch. I mean a product that has been arou... http://www.financealley.com/article_633078_64.html 09th September 2008 A Company Christmas Card Presents a Great Advertising and Marketing Opportunity - Don't Waste It! "I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry. Christmas? Bah, Humbug!" Who said that? The Charles Dickens character of Ebenezer Scrooge in the famous classic tale of "A Christmas Carol". Is the current economic dow... http://www.financealley.com/article_631086_64.html 09th September 2008 Cardboard Engineering and Promotional Pop-Up Mailers What is cardboard engineering? The term doesn’t exist on Wikipedia. Web searches for “definition of cardboard engineering” and other similar questions find no results. You will no... http://www.financealley.com/article_611120_15.html 28th August 2008 Marketing Idea for Local Government Authorities - Sell Advertising Space on Parking Discs Local Government Authorities are by no means immune from budget cuts but one way to make the budget stretch further would be to sell advertising space on parking discs. Many local gove... http://www.financealley.com/article_610307_15.html 27th August 2008 Events Management Ideas - Attention Grabbing Event Invitations are a Must Recent figures from industry sources such as the Bellwether Report tell us that marketing budgets have taken a pummelling in the first half of 2008 with Events and Direct Marketing being two of the worst hit areas. That is all the more reason why we must ... http://www.financealley.com/article_610306_15.html 27th August 2008 Events Management Idea - Folding Pocket Media Ideal as Calendar of Events Events management companies often organize a whole series of related events covering, say, race meetings, rock concerts, celebrity dinners and corporate road shows. One important piece of publicity which deserves special attention is the <a href="http://w... http://www.financealley.com/article_610305_15.html 27th August 2008 Summer is not too early to start planning a bespoke Christmas greeting card How many weeks does it take for an agency to develop a good campaign? At busy times UK manufacturers of promotional interactive mailers can take 3 weeks to produce a run of, say, 5000 pop-up marketing products so it's always a good idea to plan things as ... http://www.financealley.com/article_610304_15.html 27th August 2008 Direct Marketing Idea - Bespoke Promotional Pieces Demand Bespoke Mailing Packs. In your efforts to make your next direct marketing piece into a product that cannot be ignored, then you need to consider the very first impression that it makes on your customer - and t... http://www.financealley.com/article_610303_15.html 27th August 2008 Ad Agencies Urged to Strive for Original and Innovative Solutions The Bellwether Report contains detailed analysis of the UK's marketing economy, based on a survey of 250 companies, representing all key business sectors. According to the most recent report, produced on behalf of the IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Ad... http://www.financealley.com/article_610302_15.html 27th August 2008 Christmas Marketing Idea - Promotional Christmas Cracker There is a rubber band powered promotional product known in the UK as an auto extender and it is most often used as an everyday promotional mailer where the message is growth or speed. But what about its potential as a seasonal mailer - or even a fun <a h... http://www.financealley.com/article_610299_15.html 27th August 2008 Marketing Budget Increases - Internet Marketing Expected to Rise Two headlines that The Guardian didn't write but they did report both facts... Anthony Wreford, the deputy chairman for US marketing services company Omnicom Europe, said he expected internet marketing to rise. "Internet spending will continue to grow as... http://www.financealley.com/article_610298_15.html 27th August 2008 Events Management Tip – Exhibition handouts and giveaways – make them work for you Event managers know that an important part of any event is to make sure that your guests remember you but just how memorable are tradeshow giveaways? Everyone who has either worked an exhibition stand or even attended a major trade show will know that ma... http://www.financealley.com/article_579745_64.html 18th July 2008 Interest in Promotional Pop-Up Cards Soars After Recent Spate of TV Ads In recent weeks TV ads have been aired in the UK which show characters appearing from pop-up cards and pop-up books and this has created a surge of interest in cardboard engineering for ... http://www.financealley.com/article_579265_64.html 17th July 2008 Direct Mail must be made to work harder to Generate Response The UK seems to be desperate to talk itself into recession. Newspapers are aware that bad news sells papers and so headlines shout that profits are down, we are in the midst of a credit crunch and retail spending is down. The more exposure that the media ... http://www.financealley.com/article_575513_64.html 14th July 2008