Portable Document Format (PDF) files give you a great way to send documents that recipients can view exactly as you designed them. But how do you make PDFs that work best for your specific application?

With the variety of options in Adobe® Acrobat®, you can create PDFs that fit precisely what you need — from protected documents to interactive forms. Or you can easily get lost.

Read on to discover how to make better PDFs and get the most out of this versatile software.

Get the right Acrobat product

Adobe makes Acrobat in a variety of flavors, but the three primary versions are Reader, Standard and Professional.

• Reader — Free, but allows only viewing, searching and printing documents (but not creating PDFs). Most users have this version on their computers, so you can feel sure that those receiving your PDFs can view them. Download Acrobat Reader here for free.
• Standard — This basic version lets you create a PDF from any application that prints (Microsoft® Word, Excel, Internet Explorer, etc.). You can add pages to a PDF, merge two into one, leave comments, password protect the file and more.
• Professional — The top-of-the-line version allows you to do everything Standard does, plus create forms, use advanced editing and create workflows that automatically e-mail the document to your choice of recipients and let them attach comments.

Another version, called Elements, is geared toward large corporations with many users and offers features similar to Reader, plus PDF creation and password protection.

See the complete comparison chart of features in all Acrobat versions.

Decide how the PDF will be used

Before you touch the keyboard, you need to decide what the PDF will be used for. What function will it serve? Will it be printed or simply e-mailed? This will help you determine how to format and save it.

• Print — If the PDF will be printed, such as a final production sent to a printer or a design to be approved or marked up, Acrobat will let you retain the fonts and will reproduce graphics well.
• E-mail — If you’re simply creating a file to e-mail information, you can optimize it for the smallest file size possible. Graphics will be compressed (which may lower image quality) and fonts will not be embedded (which may make the text look different).
• Interactive (forms) — If you want to distribute forms, you can create a PDF that allows recipients to enter their information and send the form back to you.

Create PDFs

In order to create good-quality PDFs, you need at least the Standard version of Acrobat. Some applications can also create PDFs — for example, CorelDRAW® Graphics Suite, QuarkXPress® and any Macintosh OS X application that allows printing. However, the quality of PDFs created by these applications may be inferior to those created by Acrobat (i.e. fonts may not be embedded so type may not reproduce accurately, image quality may be poorer, etc.)

When creating your PDF on a system with Acrobat Standard or Professional installed, start by opening the document you want to convert into a PDF. Select Print from the File menu. In the place where you select your printer, select Adobe PDF. On a Mac, choose PDF Options in the Copies & Pages drop-down menu. Specify the quality of your PDF in the Adobe PDF Settings drop-down menu. In Windows, click the Preference or Properties button and then specify the quality of your PDF in the Default Settings drop-down menu.

The three most useful quality settings are:

• Press Quality – Use this for saving PDFs that will be printed. This will give you a high-resolution PDF with graphics and fonts that look exactly as you intend them to. File size may be large.
• Smallest File Size – Use this for files that need to be small because you intend to e-mail them. Many e-mail servers do not allow large files, and many PDFs of layouts will be very large and may cause problems for the people receiving them. This format will not embed the fonts, so use it only for those people you are sure already have the fonts you used in the file.
• Standard – Use this when you need a good overall PDF with reasonably good graphics and reasonable file size. This is the happy medium.

Set security options

If the content of the PDF is sensitive, you can add security options to the file that will prevent other users from doing things with it that you don’t want. Using the Standard and Professional versions, you can password-protect a variety of functions.

To set password protection, go to the File menu and select Document Properties. Select the Security tab. (Or you may have a Security button on your toolbar.) There you can assign passwords for allowing:

• Opening the PDF
• Editing text
• Printing
• Printing comments (see below)

You can assign different passwords for each function if you want to allow certain people specific functions but not allow others.

For more information, download Adobe’s PDF security guide.

Add comments

Commenting allows users to leave notes and other items to flag specific parts of your document. They are allowed by default, but you can disable them in your security settings. Users will need Standard or Professional versions to use commenting features; comments do not change the PDF content or layout.

Recipients use the Comments & Markups button, which includes:

• Notes to type their messages
• Drawing Markup Tools such as arrows, shapes and text boxes
• Commenting Tools that allow users to highlight text and use stamps such as Approved, Received, Sign Here, Void, Confidential, Draft and more

Create forms

Another useful feature of PDFs is the ability to create forms that users can fill out electronically, such as vacation requests, expense reports, etc. Users will need Standard or Professional to save a form with their information; users with Reader can print filled-out forms but not save them.

To create forms, use Adobe Designer (Windows only), a separate application that comes with Professional. Or you can go to the Tools menu, select Advanced Editing and select Show Forms Toolbar. Using the toolbar you can create text fields, list boxes (drop-down menus), programmable buttons, checkboxes and more.

Learn more

See these useful links for more information on Acrobat features and products:

Adobe Acrobat main page
More on Adobe Acrobat PDF features
Acrobat FAQ page

PDFs give you a wide variety of ways to send layouts, forms and any other documents that nearly any recipient can use. Master the basics and you’re on your way to trouble-free PDFs.

Need better results? Creating and using PDFs is just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your audience, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you’re really looking for … measurable results.
We call it Communication with insight.^sm

Having a proactive sales program doesn’t just mean mailings, PR and advertising. To succeed at in today’s hotly competitive marketplace, someone at your company must “cold call” prospects.

Cold calling needs to be intelligent and “nugget-based,” calling to a list of prime prospects with whom you want to arrange a meeting. These nugget calls are not simply calls suggesting capabilities meetings, but are calls aligning your company with prospects’ issues immediately.

Take a look at our 10 tips to heat up your cold calls and put your income on the rise.

#1 Make an appointment with yourself.

Prospecting requires discipline. It’s too easy to put off — a customer calls, deadlines have to be met, etc. Schedule yourself to prospect for one hour each day.

#2 Work without interruption.

Like any repetitive task, the more you prospect, the better you’ll become at it. After you get into the groove, take advantage of your momentum. You’ll find that each succeeding call will go better.

#3 Work from a very good list of highly qualified potential prospects.

Have three lists in your company. One list is an A list of the prospects you would do business with today if they said yes. These are prospects who fit your criteria of great potential customers. They do outstanding work, they pay their bills on time, they are located close by, you have experience in their industry, etc. — whatever factors make them high-quality to you.

The second list is your B list. These are companies who, for one reason or another, don’t fit your prime prospects criteria; they’re too big, too far away, etc., to be prime, although you would do business with them if specific factors changed.

The last list is “influencers”, people of potential value to you — politicians, chamber of commerce leaders, professors — anyone who could influence others to do business with your company.

#4 Research before you call.

Never call off the cuff. Find out something about the prospect’s industry, distribution channel, customers — anything about their company that might give your conversation parity. Nugget research is the most important thing you can do to make a new business call successful.

#5 Have an objective.

If you don’t have a goal to reach by the end of the call, you could wander aimlessly or allow the prospect to determine the action you take. Your objective could be to schedule a meeting, send them more information about you or get more information about them. Whatever it is, make sure you know before you call.

#6 Call during off-peak hours.

Conventional wisdom says to call between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. But you know that voice mail has taken over regular work hours. Try calling between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m. or between 5 p.m. and 6 p.m.

#7 Put your deal on voice mail if necessary.

If you have done your homework, you can leave a bit of nugget research on the prospect’s voice mail. If the prospect is interested, they will call back or answer your call next time.

#8 Use a reference name if possible.

Calls get answered if there is a common link between your company’s new-business person and the prospect. Work hard for this human linkage.

#9 Be organized.

Even better, take your entire list and input it into a sales program such as ACT. These programs allow you to build your list, print personalized letters or e-mails and keep a contact history for each of your prospects.

#10 Don’t stop.

Persistence is one of the key skills shared by all successful new business people. Remember, most appointments are closed after the fifth call. Most new business people quit after one or two calls.

Need better results? Reaching potential customers is just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your audience, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you’re really looking for … measurable results. We call it Communication with insight.^sm

Your company creates unique products that are protected by trademarks. But are you using your marks correctly? What’s the difference between a registered and unregistered trademark? And what the heck is a service mark?

If you know how to properly apply and use your marks, you’ll not only make a better impression with your customers, but you’ll also guard against losing your special position in the market.

Keep it all straight by reviewing our trademark tips, and keep your marks working hard for you.

Understand trademarks and service marks

A trademark is a word, phrase, symbol, design — or even a sound, smell or color — or some combination of these, that helps consumers identify the source of a product and distinguishes it from other sources or products. A service mark, on the other hand, identifies and distinguishes the source of a service rather than a physical product.

In addition to what they identify, marks can also develop a “secondary meaning,” indicating a level of quality the product or service has. Some well-known marks have acquired so much recognition and associated quality that they have become extremely valuable to the companies that own them. For example, McDonald’s® Corporation’s trademarks are worth far more than all of their restaurants combined because of the recognition and quality that the marks carry with consumers.

Beyond these two marks are trade dress, which refers to the overall look and feel of a product, and trade name, a word, name, term, symbol or combination that identifies a company itself rather than its products. For now, we’ll stick to explaining how to use the two most common — trademarks and service marks.

Use it or lose it

You can establish rights to a trademark simply by using the mark. You can use “TM” for trademarks and “SM” for service marks any time you want to claim rights to a mark. You may use the “circle-R” registered trademark designation, however, only after you have registered your mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office. (You can also use the words, “Registered, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office”). Registration lasts for 10 years (registrations granted prior to Nov. 16, 1989, have a 20-year term) and can be renewed at 10-year intervals (renewals granted before Nov. 16, 1989, last 20 years) for as long as the mark is in use.

Registering your mark with the USPTO provides extra advantages, including the ability to defend your mark in federal court in matters of interstate commerce, obtain registration in foreign countries and prevent importation of infringing products.

To make your trademark effective, you must “affix” it to a product, either directly or to a package, label or tag. Service marks must be affixed by using them in places such as signs, advertisements, letterhead and invoices. For registered trademarks, you must actually sell the product before you can register your mark with the USPTO.

If you don’t use your marks properly, you could lose your exclusive rights to them. In some cases, consumers have used the trademark names to refer to a type of product often enough that the trademark has become “generic” — describing a category, or species, of goods or services. For example, the makers of aspirin, cellophane and the escalator have lost these once-trademarked terms, which are now simply generic names for a type of product.

Mark it properly

Follow these guidelines to ensure you use your trademarks properly and retain your rights to them. These guidelines apply to service marks and to print as well as online text.

• Always distinguish marks from surrounding text with at least an initial capital letter.
• Always use your mark as an adjective followed by a noun that it modifies. The noun is generic for the type of product. You may also use the word “brand” after your mark to further guard against improper use. (Examples: Kleenex® facial tissue, Rollerblade® brand inline skates, Captiol One® No Hassle Cashsm credit card)
• Never use a mark as a noun. (Example: You ride a Harley-Davidson® motorcycle, you don’t ride a Harley®.)
• Never use a mark as a verb. (Example: You make photocopies on a Xerox® copier, you don’t Xerox® something.)
• Never make the mark plural. Instead, change the generic noun from singular to plural. (Example: Oreo® cookies, not Oreos®)
• Never make the mark possessive, or change it from its possessive form. (Example: Altoid® mints’ new flavor, not Altoid’s® new flavor; Jack Daniel’s® whiskey, not Jack Daniels® whiskey)

As a test, remove the mark term from the sentence and see if it still makes sense. If it doesn’t, you’ve probably used the trademark as a descriptive term or as a verb and not as an adjective followed by a generic noun.

Service marks are often used alone, since they are frequently statements rather than words. (Example: A.G. Edwards^sm Fully invested in our clients^sm.)

When placing the “TM” or “circle-R”, you don’t need to use it next to your mark every place the mark is used. Placing it in the heading or the first or most prominent place on the page is enough.

Add trademark symbols in your documents

You can easily add “TM” and “circle-R” symbols to your text. For example, Microsoft Word features several keyboard shortcuts for adding these symbols to your document.

On a PC:

• Registered trademark symbol (®) – Ctrl+Alt+R
• Trademark symbol (™) – Ctrl+Alt+T
• Your Autocorrect function may also convert certain characters to the correct symbol. Type “(r)” for ® and “(tm)” for ™ and Word should automatically change the text to the symbol.
• Unfortunately, there is no shortcut for a service mark. You’ll have to type “sm” and manually superscript it.

On a Mac:

• Registered trademark symbol (®) – Option+R
• Trademark symbol (™) – Option+2
• The Autocorrect and service mark instructions are the same as for a PC.

Finally, remember to keep your customer in mind. After all, trademark law isn’t intended to protect you and allow you to use your mark however you want. It’s designed to protect consumers from confusion about the source of products and services.

Need better results? Trademark issues are just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your audience, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you’re really looking for … measurable results. We call it Communication with insight.^sm

Exciting things are happening at your company, and you think everyone should know. But is anyone outside of your company interested in your new products, recent awards or current accomplishments?

Deciding what story to pitch to the media — and how to pitch it — can go a long way toward gaining publicity for your company. But first you need to understand what makes something newsworthy, and why people will care.

In determining news, reporters and editors often decide based on a traditional set of news elements. Read all about them in our checklist of what makes news, and attract the attention you deserve.

Timeliness

Something that just happened is usually more newsworthy than something that happened a long time ago. That’s why it’s called “news.” This is especially true in today’s environment of up-to-the-minute news coverage on TV, radio and the Web. Did you just release a new product? Did you recently make a technological breakthrough? Did your company just land a new important client or contract? All these things are more newsworthy because they happened NOW.

Impact

How many people does the story affect? The more the better. You might also ask, “Who cares?” Your company’s anniversary, though important to you and maybe to your employees, is not newsworthy to anyone outside. If you decide to give away free products to the public as part of your anniversary celebration, or if you donate money to build a new youth center named after your founder, then you’ve affected many people and have bigger impact. The greater the impact, even if it is an old story, the more likely that it is newsworthy.

Prominence

We all complain when celebrity breakups or trials dominate the news. But the simple fact is that prominent people make more news. People care because they recognize these newsmakers. If your father had open-heart surgery, no one beyond your family and friends would care because no one else knows him. But if former President Bill Clinton goes under the knife, you have an international news story. If the subject of your story is well known, such as your company president, even the most common event can make the story newsworthy.

Proximity

The closer to home a story takes place, the more newsworthy it is. If your new product affects only customers far away, that’s not as newsworthy to your local media as if it affects everyone in the surrounding community. But even if the story takes place far away, you can find a local angle. Journalists call this “localizing” the story. Say you’re a hospital and a new strain of the flu breaks out on the other side of the country. A physician or expert from your organization could offer the media your evaluation of whether or not the strain might affect people locally, as well as tips on how to avoid getting sick.

Conflict

As much as people complain about negative news stories, bad news is often more newsworthy than good news. If city residents turn on their faucets and water comes out, no one cares because it’s routine and expected. If the water plant breaks down and townspeople have to boil their water, that’s newsworthy because it’s a break in that routine. Of course, you don’t want to promote bad news about your company. Instead, look for conflict to which your company has developed a solution.

The Unusual

“Dog bites man” is not news. “Man bites dog” is. Something that is out of the ordinary is news, which is why so many of us love to read unusual factoids and about strange happenings. In fact, some news programs devote part of their time to these oddball stories. We are obsessed with records, too, that indicate the biggest, longest, shortest, smallest, tallest, etc. something. There are thousands of news stories in the Guinness Book of World Records because of our obsession. Did your company invent the biggest, fastest or longest-lasting something? Did an employee accomplish something unusual and interesting?

Hook your readers

Whichever of these news elements your story has, it must have a news “hook” or “peg.” This is the most important element, the one your story “hangs” on, the one that really makes people interested in hearing about it.

Adding it all up

So how many of these elements does your story need to be considered newsworthy? Two? Three? More?

In short, there’s no easy answer. A newsworthy story may have only one of these elements if that element is sufficiently important enough. Or it may have several and not be particularly newsworthy. A story could be local and timely, but not impact enough people. A story could impact a lot of readers, but be passed over because it is too commonplace.

If you don’t have a journalism or public relations background, the best way to get a feel for the importance of these elements is to read news publications to see what kinds of stories they publish. Even better, talk with editors to see what kinds of stories they’re interested in.

No matter your company or industry, knowing these elements allows you to make better decisions about what makes a good story. And about what makes your company newsworthy.

Need better results? Gaining publicity is just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your audience, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you’re really looking for … measurable results. We call it Communication with insight.^sm

Your site is beautifully designed, thoroughly optimized and exhaustively submitted to all the major search engines. So why are so few people dropping by? And why aren’t the Web hits you’re getting spurring sales?

Using a pay-per-click service will not only bring more people to your site, but it can also increase the chances that they’re exactly the type of visitors you want. Check out our rundown on pay-per-click options and turn those visitors into customers.

Drive toward traffic

The world of Internet advertising is an ever-expanding universe of revenue. A 2005 report by Borrell Associates estimates that online ad spending will hit $3.9 billion this year. That’s more than a 40 percent increase from the previous year, which is reason enough to stop you in your budget-planning tracks and think twice about how you’re spending your advertising money.

Your goal is traffic. If you can get 30 more visitors to your Web site a week by using online advertising, that’s 30 more chances you have to sell your product or promote your service. It’s a numbers game that, if you play it right, can work wonders for your bottom line.

Harness the power of pay-per-click

Contributing to the eye-opening numbers of Internet revenue, pay-per-click is an online advertising payment system in which you agree to pay a certain price in return for traffic to your Web site. At first, this might sound like a con — “You mean it’s not enough to have a great Web site … I need to actually PAY to have people visit?” Yes, you will have to spend money to attract people to your site, whether optimizing your site through site-integrated features such as keywords, site description and site submission (sometimes referred to as “organic” optimization) or through online advertising (or most effectively, both). Google, the Web’s biggest search engine, has more than 8 billion pages indexed, so your Web site (no matter how big) is still just a needle in the Internet haystack.

Not to worry, though. Gaining attention is easier than it sounds, and pay-per-click is one of the surest ways to get return on your investment. The beauty of this technique is that you pay only when someone actually goes to your site. And by someone, we mean a legitimate prospect. In non-Internet advertising terms, this would be like paying for a billboard based on how many people saw it and gave you a call or dropped by your offices for more information — not just how many people passed by it.

See how it’s done

Pay-per-click companies run things differently but in general, the theory of pay-per-click runs something like this:

You sell widgets, so you set up an account with a pay-per-click company we’ll call “ClickMe.com.” You tell them that you’re willing to pay 5 cents for the word “widgets.” ClickMe.com, in turn, puts a link and a summary of your Web site in a special section on a search engine’s results page anytime someone searches using the word “widgets.” Anytime someone clicks your Web site’s link, you pay 5 cents.

The trick is what keyword you pay for. If you’re too general, the chances increase that someone clicks on your site only to find out that it’s not what’s he’s after. For example, if you chose the word “dishes” for your tableware manufacturing company, you might have visitors who are actually looking for satellite dishes. If you pick keywords that are unique and specific to what type of business you do, the chances of “accidental” visitors decrease.

No matter what your budget is, there is a pay-per-click plan for you. Some companies, like the popular Yahoo! Search Marketing (formerly Overture), allow you to put a certain amount of money every month in your pay-per-click account. Once that money runs out, your link is removed until the next month when your account is replenished.

Check out the major players

Although there are a bevy of pay-per-click providers, you really need to remember just two: Google AdWords and Yahoo! Search Marketing.

In the 5th Annual Search Engine Watch Awards this year, Google AdWords won first place hands-down as the Best Search Ads provider, followed by Yahoo!/Overture. Both of these programs have far-reaching networks of search engines. These programs are effective all by themselves, but form a potent one-two punch when used in tandem as they have separate coverage areas. What Google AdWords doesn’t cover, odds are Overture does.

Track your visitors and your programs

Once you’ve found the right pay-per-click company and keywords, you’ll see a noticeable rise in traffic with a minimal amount of money. But if you really want to leverage your pay-per-click budget, you’ll need another handy tool called a tracking program. Through tracking, you can tell what search engines refer the most visitors to your site and what keywords are most commonly used. You can then use that information to choose what pay-per-click vendor you use and how much to spend with them.

It’s also important to continually monitor the success of tracking programs. Some programs help you keep tabs, but it’s a good idea to keep your own spreadsheet that charts money spent, keywords, pay-per-click company and, of course, your sales for the same period of time. After observing the trends, you’ll not only find that certain combinations are more effective than others, but, more importantly, you’ll also learn a great deal about your online prospects and how best to reach them.

Need better results? Increasing Web visitors is just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your audience, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you’re really looking for … measurable results. We call it Communication with insight.^sm

Selling hasn’t changed since Willie Loman, right? You knock on doors. You dial the phone. Eventually, if your pitch has any merit, you’ll sell something. It’s all a numbers game.

While that may still be true, salespeople today have tools that Willie never dreamed of. Tools, gadgets, gizmos and resources abound to make every salesperson more effective, more efficient and, if all goes well, more prosperous. Here’s our quick roundup on technological tools and techniques to help you sell more.

Surf your prospects

Take a cruise on your prospects’ Web sites and learn what they want customers to know. Subscription databases all over the Web will give you even more — the low down on your prospects, financials, names, phone numbers, even e-mail addresses. Hoovers and Harris Info Source are a couple of the less-expensive options.

Another source of sales leads is switchboard.com, an online telephone directory that you can use, for example, to find all the barbershops, banks, dentists or hardware stores in any city or state in the U.S.

Connect your sales force, wherever they are

If your sales force keeps your prospect list in a database like ACT or Goldmine, they need to lug around a computer with a copy of the database on the road and periodically synchronize it back to the company database. And the data is only as good as the last time your entire sales force synced.

What’s even better? Live, real-time data instantly accessible all over the world by storing your prospect database on the Web. Everyone sees changes immediately. ACT for the Web, SalesForce.com and other services offer simple online databases or more sophisticated CRM options.

Stay in touch without really trying

Say you’ve got a list of 500 prospects that you want to reach at least once a month. That sounds doable until you realize that you also still have to service your existing accounts and make the occasional sales call. What do you do? ACT and other sales software programs let you generate individualized letters and e-mails to hundreds of prospects at a time. Just write the letter and push a button.

Create a virtual armory for your road warriors

Equipping your network of dealers or salespeople all over the country with your latest brochures and teaching them all the ins and outs of your products used to involve lots of printing, mailing and traveling. Not anymore. Now you can post PowerPoint presentations and PDFs of product brochures, slick sheets, sales handouts and almost anything else on your Web site. Your sales force has constant access to the materials and can print them on an inexpensive color printer.

Make your prospects experts on your product

Inform your customers by posting in-depth information about your product on your site — drawings, specs, manuals, comparisons, etc. You’ll have an advantage over competitors because you make it easier for customers to get what they need.

You can also offer webinars, which allow you to educate potential customers over the Web the same way seminars do in person. As budgets for training and tuition reimbursement are cut to help companies meet the bottom line, time-starved, knowledge-starved executives all over the country are looking for a cheap, convenient way to learn.

Offer your prospects a one-hour free webinar on a subject they want to know more about. They simply log onto a Web site for an hour and watch and listen to your presentation. Your prospects will be grateful, plus you’ll get an hour of their time.

Cover less road, warrior

What if some or all of your sales trips could be avoided while still having the meeting? Video conferencing and interactive meetings were too expensive. Now Web cams and services like Microsoft’s Netmeeting and Live Meeting let you hold a video conference or run a PowerPoint presentation or software demo for someone thousands of miles away at a fraction of the cost of renting a video conference room or buying your own system.

Equip your road warriors with the right weapons

Here are a few gadgets that make it easier to track, manage and stay in touch.

• AddressGrabber is an inexpensive software program that instantly enters contact information from any e-mail, word processing document or Web page into Outlook, ACT or other software packages. Just highlight and click.
• Card scanners such as CardScan from Corex scan each business card and enter it directly into your contact management or sales software. Just feed the cards through and push a button.
• Get your Palm or other PDA to share data with Microsoft Outlook, ACT or other PIMs or sales software. Even better, with special software from Dataviz, your PDA can hold and edit Word and Excel files and even show PowerPoint slide shows. Garmin makes a Palm PDA with built-in GPS.
• Smartphones like the Palm Trio 600 combine a digital camera, PDA and cell phone into one small package that can even wirelessly check e-mail and surf the Web.

Need better results? Boosting sales with technology is just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your specific sales communications goals, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you're really looking for … measurable results. We call it Communication with insight.^sm

Thousands of valuable opinions and loads of indispensable customer feedback are right at your fingertips. In the same way the Internet has revolutionized personal and business communications, it's also revolutionized market research.

Research that used to take months now takes days, or as little as 24 hours, allowing you to react quickly to your customers' needs and avoid missteps. Whether you're looking for quantitative or qualitative results, here are some ways to get them that save you time, money and hassle.

Get it cheaper, faster, better

Online research typically costs a fraction of traditional methods. Conducting a survey through e-mail, for example, saves you printing and distributing costs, as well as the cost of entering and compiling the results by hand. You can make the system automated, adding results immediately to a database where you can analyze them for faster results. Connecting with respondents via the Internet also allows you to access hard-to-reach audiences such as doctors, lawyers and students.

Count on good quantitative research

When surveying, you can either e-mail surveys or post them on your Web site.

E-mailing surveys works best if you need many responses in a short time. Make sure to keep your survey small to minimize download time and be sure to follow Internet ethics — don't list everyone's name in the "To:" field and list your company in the "From:" field.

Placing a survey on your Web site works best if you need more-targeted respondents, since that's where your customers already go (hopefully). Be sure to explain its purpose, since your site is accessible to everyone — even non-customers. If your site gets a lot of traffic, simply place a link to the survey on your home page. If you don't get much traffic, you may have to e-mail an invitation.

When creating your online survey:

• Avoid a huge, scrolling survey with page breaks. Also, avoid one question per page.
• Use logical branching so that answers to questions automatically route the respondent to the next appropriate question.
• Limit survey-taking time to less than 5 minutes.
• Take advantage of streaming video and other media if appropriate.

Improve the quality of your qualitative research

Online technology makes focus groups easier and cheaper to conduct. There are some drawbacks, however. Since the moderator is not in the same location as the participants, he or she may miss body language or interpersonal cues that would be more obvious close up.

You can use the Internet to conduct streaming video focus groups, online focus groups and bulletin board groups.

Stream video to your desktop

Using live or delayed (on demand) Webcasting, the focus group still happens in a facility, but instead of traveling to view the groups behind a one-way mirror, you can watch live and communicate with other observers over an Internet chat room.

Advantages include:

• Watching a group from any location — including your desktop.
• Saving money by not having to travel or rent a dedicated studio.
• Putting the session on a CD-ROM, or e-mailing it to others, with verbatim extracts available for presentations.

Chat in online focus groups

These use an Internet-based text chatbox rather than a central facility or room. Each respondent logs onto the system and connects to a remote moderator from his or her own computer. The moderator types in questions and the participants answer them by typing in their answers.

Advantages include:

• Integrating participants and a moderator from anywhere around the world.
• Saving money vs. traditional focus groups because you don't need to travel or rent a facility.
• Letting different types of people "attend" the same group simultaneously, such as boys and girls.
• Getting more candid responses, since participants are relatively anonymous.
• Reducing various "group effects" such as the tendency to seek agreement and compromise or a single respondent dominating the group.

There are a few disadvantages to keep in mind. For example, moderators cannot demonstrate products or distribute samples. Lack of face-to-face contact means you can't read facial expressions. And text of responses cannot be saved for later reference.

Check out bulletin boards

Bulletin boards work similary to online focus groups, but rather than being conducted in real time, they are conducted over the course of days, weeks or months. Participants sign on whenever they want, view other's responses and spend as much time as they want leaving their own responses.

Advantages include all of those for online focus groups, plus:

• Reaching busy audiences and providing convenience for people in different time zones.
• Getting more depth of research.
• Following a specific thread to look at only a specific issue.
• Saving text of responses for future reference.
• Not requiring the moderator to be present.
• Allowing you to ask fewer questions — or just one.

Need better results? Online marketing research is just one business communications solution we've provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your specific research goals, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you're really looking for … measurable results. We call it Communication with insight.^sm

Your customers watch TV. They read newspapers and magazines. They see billboards. They research on the Internet and read e-mail. And hundreds of advertising messages reach them through all of these media. But which ones work best for you to reach them? And how many should you use?

Plan your media effectively and you can hit your customers right between the eyes. Plan poorly and you can blow a lot of money fast, without hitting anything. Check out our lineup of media planning tips and you’ll find the right buttons to push to make your customers tune in.

Learn how to evaluate media

First, you need to decide which characteristics are the most important for your product and audience. Does your audience need to see your product to understand its benefits? Is your audience a small group with specific tastes? Do you need to get the word out quickly?

Determine which of the following media characteristics are the most critical:

• Selectivity – How well a media can be used to target niche markets. Radio is good because different age groups and genders have different listening preferences. Network TV has poor selectivity because it reaches a large, fairly broad group of viewers.
• Participation – The degree a medium involves the consumer. Web sites have high participation because you need to click links to navigate. TV and radio have low participation because you can leave the room and the media will keep broadcasting without you.
• Reach vs. frequency – Is the medium better at reaching a lot of different people who are exposed to your message, or is it better at exposing your message frequently to your target?
• Cost per thousand (CPM) – The cost of reaching 1,000 people with your message, the most common way to compare one medium to another.
• Production cost – The cost of producing the message in the given medium’s format.
• Production speed – The time required to produce the message in the given medium.
• Insertion speed – How quickly you can place the message in the medium.
• Permanence – How long the message lasts. Some messages last a long time (such as an outdoor board). Some last a day (such as a newspaper ad). Others a few seconds (such as TV and radio).

Next, evaluate each medium to see which has strengths in the characteristics critical to your product or message so you can pick the best one. 

Television 

• Selectivity – Target by sex or age, or by interests (cable TV) or local geography
• Participation – None
• Reach vs. frequency – Reach
• CPM – $5 to $400
• Production cost – $5,000 for decent local to $1 million for great national
• Production speed – A month, minimum
• Insertion speed – As fast as 24 hours
• Permanence – Short. Only 30 seconds.
• Advantage – Allows you to demonstration your product or service so that people can see the benefits, such as cleaning products or tools.

Radio 

• Selectivity – Target by age, to a degree
• Participation – None
• Reach vs. frequency – Frequency
• CPM – $7 to $45
• Production cost – $1,000 for decent to $5,000 for great
• Production speed – Less than a week
• Insertion speed – 24 hours
• Permanence – Short. Only 30 or 60 seconds.
• Advantage – Allows you to paint mental images in your audience’s minds. You can create those images cheaply and easily. The sound effect of a zooming jet is much cheaper than using a real one.

Magazine 

• Selectivity – High, because most magazines focus on a specific audience, such as doll collectors or hotrod enthusiasts.
• Participation – Some
• Reach vs. frequency – Frequency
• CPM – $9 to $130, depending on circulation size
• Production cost – $1,500 for decent to $10,000 for great
• Production speed – Less than a month
• Insertion speed – Slow. Up to 90 days.
• Permanence – 30 days
• Advantage – Products advertised in magazines are seen by the public as having a high-quality image.

Newspaper 

• Selectivity – Low. Only geographic.
• Participation – Some
• Reach vs. frequency – Frequency
• CPM – $5 to $15; $20 and up for national newspapers
• Production cost – $500 for decent to $2,500 for great
• Production speed – Less than a week
• Insertion speed – Four days
• Permanence – One day
• Advantage – Immediacy, because people feel like a newspaper’s content is news and needs to be reacted to immediately.

Outdoor 

• Selectivity – Geographic
• Participation – By accident, since you only see an outdoor board when you aren’t paying attention to your main activity — driving.
• Reach vs. frequency – Reach
• CPM – Low but questionable, since CPM counts every man, woman and child in a car moving past your board, not who saw the board.
• Production cost – $1,500 plus $200 for paper or $1,000 for vinyl
• Production speed – Four weeks
• Insertion speed – Roughly two weeks
• Permanence – 10 seconds for 30 days
• Advantage – Your message is large and it gives you a high-quality image.

Direct Mail 

• Selectivity – High
• Participation – High or not at all
• Reach vs. frequency – Targeted reach
• CPM – $900 and up
• Production cost – Hard to quantify. Printing, stuffing, postage, etc. drive up cost per contact. Often near or more than $1 per person.
• Production speed – Three to four weeks
• Insertion speed – One week
• Permanence – From one look up to days
• Advantage – You can ask the recipient to place an order with you.

Web site 

• Selectivity – None, yet highly self-selected
• Participation – Very high
• Reach vs. frequency – Reach sites use banners or other promotions to drive tons of people to the site once. Frequency sites are ones people visit again and again, such as news sites.
• CPM – Zero (except for minimal hosting costs). All costs are production.
• Production cost – $25,000 minimum for a good site or much, much higher.
• Production speed – One to three months
• Insertion speed – Immediate
• Permanence – From one look to years
• Advantage – Interactivity and a high-quality image

Web banner 

• Selectivity – By interest or subject
• Participation – None to high
• Reach vs. frequency – Reach
• CPM – Varies widely, depending on the popularity of the site. For example, the NY Times site claims from $20 to $40 based on the size of the banner.
• Production cost – $500 to $2,000
• Production speed – Less than a week
• Insertion speed – Immediate
• Permanence – Seconds
• Advantage – Can drive traffic to your Web site.

Media outside the box 

• In-store promotions, including ads on shopping carts, TVs, receipts or dispensers
  Prizes on game shows
• Trucks, which can serve as rolling billboards for your message.
• Market-specific. For example, an RV manufacturer could sponsor all the garbage cans in a national forest. A soft drink producer could offer a free trial at a fast food chain for a day. The possibilities are endless.
• Pick the right media for your message and you’ll reach the most customers for your money. And the more of your audience you reach, the more your profits will soar up the charts.

Need better results? Media planning is just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your audience, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547. 

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you're really looking for … measurable results. We call it Communication with insight.^sm 

Spam chokes everyone’s inbox. Filters fight to keep pace with shifty spammers. New laws struggle to regulate it. Recipients delete unrecognized messages without reading them. The Internet has made communications easier and harder at the same time.

E-marketing offers efficient and valuable ways to broadcast your message, but you have to compete with spam to make sure your target audience notices. Follow these simple rules and you’ll avoid spamming and deliver what your audience wants to see.

Obey the CAN-SPAM law

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing) took effect Jan. 1, 2004. The act aims to stem the tide of spam by penalizing spammers with fines up to $2 million for a number of common spamming practices.

The act requires unsolicited commercial e-mail messages:

• Be labeled as a commercial message in a “clear and conspicuous” manner (though not by a standard method), unless the recipient has given you prior permission to receive the message.
• Include instructions to opt-out, or cancel, future e-mails. You should process these requests within 10 days.
  Contain your physical address.
• Have a functioning return e-mail address or other Internet-based mechanism that is clearly displayed.
• Not use deceptive subject lines and false headers.
  In addition, CAN-SPAM preempts state and local anti-spam laws, except where they prohibit falsity and deception such as misleading origins information, headers, sender identity, transmission information, subject lines and falsely registered IP addresses.

Get recipients to opt-in

People want their inboxes reserved for conversations with people they know. This is why opt-in is so important. By opting-in, recipients give you permission to send to them.

According to the law, you can send once to your customers and prospects without consent if you follow the rules outlined in the law. This is known as the “one free shot” approach. Using this “free shot,” and using an e-mail marketing service that offers an automated system, you send recipients an opt-in e-mail inviting them to join your mailing list. If they want to join, they click on the confirmation link and are added to your list. If they don’t want to join, they do nothing and are not added. To entice recipients to join, your invitation should communicate the benefits they’ll get by receiving your messages — exclusive offers, information not found anywhere else, great ideas to grow their business, etc.

Double opt-in is even better. When meeting prospects, ask if they mind joining your mailing list. Other prospects might sign up at your Web site. This is the first opt-in. Once they agree or sign up, send them the confirmation e-mail. That’s the second opt-in. This will ensure you have adequate permission.

Construct your message to move your audience

Once you’ve gotten them to opt-in, remember to follow some important rules for building and sending your e-mail message:

• Make your “from” line accurately and clearly identify you.
• List your offer in your subject line or make it relevant to your benefit.
• Match the contents of the message body with the subject line.
• Personalize the message by using the recipient’s name, preferences, tastes, etc. Five to 10 personalized elements will triple your chances of getting a response.
• Understand your audience’s needs for mailing frequency — mailing too often will annoy them and not mailing often enough will make them forget about you.

Deliver relevant content

In addition to obeying the letter of the CAN-SPAM law, you need to obey the spirit of the law by giving your audience interesting, relevant information. If you don’t keep content relevant, they will delete it or unsubscribe.

Match your offer to your audience. Don’t just talk about your product. Think of other things that are important to them. For example, if you sell displays to retailers, include stories on topics such as the latest holiday sales predictions or tips on how to reduce shoplifting. There are many inexpensive subscription services that provide stories relevant to the topic you need.

Use the right vehicle

Your e-mail marketing can take several forms:

• Newsletters — Use these to offer news, both about your products and about related topics.
• Announcements — Show new products, preview upcoming products or communicate special offers or events such as trade shows.
• Discussion forums — Invite recipients to comment on your product, service or a topic related to your industry. It’s a great way to gain customer feedback.
• Event triggers — Use birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, etc. to give customers discount coupons, make them special offers or just wish them well and stay on their radar screens.

Need better results? E-mail marketing is just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your specific e-marketing goals, e-mail or call Matt Harlow at 800-800-9547.

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you’re really looking for … measurable results. We call it Communication with insight.^sm

With fewer people attending trade shows today, you enjoy a greater concentration of serious buyers — a target-rich environment. Here are some ways to run smarter so you hit more of those targets at your next show.

Measure your ROI

40,000 attendees at FRAMMIS 2003! Sure, but how many real prospects can you talk to? Not 40,000, that’s for sure!

• Serious prospects spend about 15 minutes in a booth that has something of value.
• One person can qualify about 25 prospects in an eight-hour show day (minus breaks and lunch).
• Multiply 25 times the number of days (typically four) and the number of people in your booth (let’s use two) and you get 200 potential sales opportunities. (25×4x2=200)

Trade show surveys indicate about 10% of trade show prospects will be “hot” prospects — people who came to the show looking to fill a specific need, wanting information and expecting immediate follow-up.

Did you average 10 hot prospects per person in your last four-day trade show? (Whether you talked to 200 potentials or not.)

Get more hot prospects into your booth

Lots of prospects, but how do you get the “hot” ones to YOUR booth? The same way you sell your product once you’re face-to-face — lead with your strongest benefit.

• Booth header — concisely state your product’s #1 benefit. (Example: 33% more pieces per hour with the new hole puncher.) Do NOT lead with your logo.
• Highlight secondary benefits on large captions next to clear benefit photos.
• Your name and logo are placed in the booth, near the benefit photos, and large enough to connect the benefits with your company.

Your booth header should pull in prospects looking for the specific solution met by your product. Your benefits will stop them. Your name (95% of the time) won’t. Additionally, benefits get people familiar with your process to stop, even if they have no immediate need.

Isolate the hot prospects

You’re getting lots of people to visit your booth. How do you quickly isolate the hot prospects and make sure you get significant return on your valuable time? Go for the throat — immediately ask about THEIR needs.

• First contact — Watch for even casual interest in your booth’s benefit header. Then ask “Do you (insert your PROCESS) now?”
  Do NOT ask if they need your product. No one needs a product; they need a result.
• If they do — “What would improve your current process?”
  If they don’t — “Could better (insert your best process benefit here) improve your profit/productivity?”
• Next, meet the prospect’s stated specific needs with continued product benefits.
• Obviously, if the answer to the two questions is “no,” move on (politely).

Since you can qualify only around 25 prospects per day, each minute wasted on non-prospects costs you lost opportunity. Additionally, you’ll be doing that person a favor by not wasting his time.

Keep the hot prospects hot

Everyone returns to a full desk after a week-long trade show. The only way to properly handle the valuable contacts you paid for is to be ready BEFORE you go to the show.

Draft three letters: for hot prospects, delayed purchasers and those only “interested” in your product. Leave the first paragraph open and, on your return, personalize it (with notes you made in the booth).

• Hot prospects — Call them immediately. And “visit” each week — personally, by phone, by e-mail, by snail mail — until you are asked to present a proposal. DON’T mail a wad of literature. They’re ready to buy. Or at least you’ll keep them hot if this is a capital equipment purchase and the committee is very cautious.
• Delayed purchasers — Send a letter only after you’ve finished the hot prospects, but give them the chance to call you if you’ve misread their level of interest.
• Just “interested” — Send the literature and follow-up in six months, perhaps with one of the series mailings you sent to the hot prospects.

Making strong follow-up contact puts you ahead of 80% of the other exhibitors. (Attendees report they only get a follow-up in 20% of the cases.)

Get more real prospects to visit the show you’re in

Give real prospects a REASON to visit your booth. Just letting them know where you’ll be is hardly unique or compelling. Immediately ask about THEIR needs.

• Send an invitation a week or so before the start of the show. Give them a business reason to seek you out.
• Use NEWS — New products, new sales people, new literature, new pricing, whatever.
• Just make sure it’s not the same old stuff.
• If you have no news, offer them a reasonably valuable handout — something they’ll use at work, or even a toy if it’s intriguing. Then trade it for information on how/when/why they use your product.
• Avoid hiring “trade show decoration” to hand out the premium. They know nothing about your product and can’t evaluate the prospect. Your reps should offer the handout, after getting the prospect info.

Poor trade show attendance can be blamed on not giving your prospects a good reason to attend. Give them a reason and you’ll get a very nice return on your investment.

Need better results? Tracking trade show success is just one business communications solution we’ve provided over the past 25 years. To explore some innovative ways to reach your specific sales communications goals, e-mail Matt Harlow or call 800-800-9547.

Ideas are our product. We work to analyze your markets, isolate your key brand benefits and send clear, focused messages right to your target audience. Messages that build your brand image and achieve what you're really looking for … measurable results. We call it Communication with insight.^sm