Shopping bag advertising

I went into town the other day and picked up some things for a new marketing campaign idea I have. I purchased some of those canvas shopping bags, a package of iron on transfer material and a package of printer cartridges for my printer. Now I am working on ideas for advertising for my websites that I can place on the sides of the shopping bags.

I'll create large sized iron-on printouts for the websites, and iron them onto the sides of the shopping bags. That way when I go to the store people will see advertising for my websites.

I have also been thinking this would be a good way to do advertising in general, but I'm not certain on just how to sell the ad space on the shopping bags. I can see where it would be a great way to get out business information, though, so I might talk to someone with one of the advertising sites I know about starting up a "Green Ads" deal where advertisers pay so much for people to print out ads that are ironed onto their reusable shopping bags with the size and placement of the ad determining the cost of the thing.

Do-It-Yourself Advertising

Advertising can be expensive, and most small businesses can not afford to invest a lot of money to advertise. The problem is, they also can not afford to invest a lot of time to do advertising.

One simple way to advertise inexpensively and easily is to make shopping bags.

Create a grocery bag with your advertising on it. Green shopping by taking your own bag is a great way to go, allowing you to save trees (both normal ones and plastic trees!). Create your own shopping bags from inexpensive canvas bags from the hobby shop, using iron on printouts you make on your computer to place your business information on the bags. Whenever you shop, the clerk and whoever is behind you in line will see your logo as you pack your groceries into your bag.

You can even create bags for friends and family to use.

Marketing

Something that I want to be sure that I keep up on with here is marketing, particularly my guerrilla marketing information. So there will definitely be a marketing column in the new newsletter format. If you have any ideas or suggestions for marketing please feel free to share them. Under Marketing will also be SEO, since I consider that to be a very effective marketing strategy.

Guerrilla Marketing Tip - carpentry pencils

You know them pencils with the names on them and stuff? I think those are a great idea for getting, but I would like to see ones for carpentry pencils that can be customized. Imagine if your an electrician - you can put information on a pencil that guys building houses, or doing remodeling work, will have at their fingertips. Same for someone doing commercial cleanup services, trash removal, paving, landscaping, roofing... the ideas go on and on.

Guerrilla Marketing Tip - mouse pads

I made up a mouse pad to sell through CafePress a long time back that has the standard proofreader's marks on it and in an unobtrusive area on the lower corner it has my main website's URL. Finding something that would be useful to your customers and can be put on a mouse pad is a great way to bring back visitors. When I got my computer from Tent A Center they gave me a mouse pad with their information on it.

Guerrilla Marketing Tip - Free Stuff on Websites

One way to do some guerrilla marketing for a website is to offer free stuff in trade for a link to the website. For example, I have taken free clipart of a wyvern, and using GIMP I tweaked the picture so that it is colored and made several images (black background, white background, and transparent background) and am loading them up to my Wyvern website and they will be free to use provided they are saved to the user's own site and a link to www.wyvernscrest.com is given.

Guerrilla Marketing Tip - Espresso Coffee Cup Sleeves

As I was making my third cup of cappuccino I was hit by another possible guerrilla marketing idea. Maybe talk to a few of the locally owned espresso stands in your area and see if there is a market in supplying them with cup sleeves that have your business information imprinted on them.

This would be something that would cost a bit to get going, and you would have to look into where you can get custom imprinted cup sleeves, but think of the possibilities of having all those morning commuters sitting in traffic reading the side of their morning coffee and thinking about how your business could make their lives a little easier.

If anyone tries out this tactic please let me know how it goes for you. Thanks!

Guerrilla Marketing Tip - Voice Mail

It is so easy to get a phone with voice mail now, and it is a great way to advertise your special promotions for your business. You can add in a message about your business, or maybe comment on a special deal that you have going. You can encourage callers to visit your website for more information or to place an order.

Guerrilla Marketing Tip - Top Ten Gadget

I have been pondering the Google Gadgets (in case you couldn't tell) and thought of a good use for the things in marketing. Creating a top ten list gadget that pertains to your business. Ideas might include:

Dog sitter or walker: top ten pet names/obedience problems/pet foods
Answering service: top ten ways to answer the phone/messages left on answering machines
Book reviewer: Top ten books this week/my top ten book picks
Tour guide: top ten places to visit/ten things to pack/top ten things everyone needs on vacation
Car mechanic: top ten causes for car trouble/lowest gas prices in the area/car gadgets
Caterer: Top ten recipes/things to have at a party/party blunders

The ideas are endless, I'm sure by now you have a lot of ideas for your own business.

Guerrilla Marketing Tip - Create your own Google Gadget

The Google Gadget is a great way to draw traffic to your website, you can add in a link back to your site when you make a gadget, which means that you can draw visitors back to your website easily when they add the gadget you made to their iGoogle home page.

Check out the possibilities at Google Gadget - from lists to pictures, countdowns to quotes of the day, you can create all kinds of things for your business customers.

Guerrilla Marketing Tip - GeoCaching

Here is a guerrilla marketing tip that I have never heard of anyone trying out before, and one that is particularly suited to anyone that has a business that caters to the outdoors types.

Take something useful that has your business logo on it, such as a compass or map case and map or whatever promotional but really useful thing you have and go find a local geo-cache to leave it in. You get the fun of going on a hike to find a geo-cache and the thrill of discovery and get to leave behind a little memento of your visit that doubles as advertising.

If you want to take it to the next level set up your own geo-cache sponsored by your business (I'm doing this for my Alaskan ATV blog and maybe one or more of my websites - such as FamilyCaregiver.info maybe).

I suggest that if you set up a cache that you leave a good pencil for people to record their entries in the log book (since pencil lasts better than most pen inks and a pencil survives climate changes better than a pen), and leave behind a pencil sharpener (not a knife, just a small 39 cent pencil sharpener for a kid's pencil box). That way people can resharpen the pencil when needed.

Guerrilla Marketing Tip - Post cards

Does your business have some sort of product or service that lends itself to being summed up in a picture? Have you considered the marketing potential of post cards?

You can create post cards that showcase your skills at graphic design, ones with the cover of your novel on them, or a post card that has a funny joke that pertains to your business (Lawyer's jokes for a law firm?).

Or take a lesson from the business cards and make post cards that are useful to the recipient. Maybe if you are a doctor you can make post cards that remind someone that they have an appointment at your office and on the front of the card print basic CPR information or a checklist of things to have on hand in case of emergencies?

Run an auto shop? How about a post card that includes a maintenance checklist?

Yuo can get post cards printed at places like Cafe Press or a local print shop. Or make inexpensive ones by running blank 5x8 index cards through your printer.

Guerrilla Marketing Tip - Bumper stickers

Here is another guerrilla marketing tip for you - bumper stickers. People love reading bumper stickers, and if it is a funny bumper sticker they will tell someone else about having seen it. They may even want one themselves.

Figure out something funny and original that can be made up for your business that can catch the reader's eye and build a bumper sticker around it.

You can even create your own 10"x3" bumper stickers for about $3 each at CafePress. Buy one for each of your cars and sell them on your website for another buck or so profit.

Cafe Press is a great place to find all kinds of products that you can sell through your website and you get to set the price (over the base price it costs them to make it for you).

Guerrilla Marketing Tip - Bookmarks

I did some low cost guerrilla marketing for my website just after it started up. On a whim I printed out some bookmarks with the picture of a famous author on one side and a quote by that author about writing. On the other side of the bookmark, running the length of the book mark, I printed my website URL and basic information on what the website was about.

I went to the expense of laminating each bookmark, just to make them a little more worth someone keeping, and then tucked them into a few books on writing before I returned the books to the public library.

This put the bookmarks for my writer's website in the hands of local writers. (Or in the library trash bin - I'm not positive which.)

Guerrilla Marketing Tip - Useful Business Cards

Today's Guerrilla Marketing Tip is to create Useful Business Cards for your business. Whatever business you are in, there is something you can create that will be of use to others, enough use that they will keep your business card handy rather than pitch it out.

Do you have an espresso stand? The tried and true "Free Coffee for 12 punches" is a great approach to a business card that people will want to keep - and that will also draw them back to your business.

Are you a surveyor or cartographer? You can keep your name in people's hands by offering something such as a bar along the edge of your business card that measures out the most standard mileage for road maps. Maybe if you make topographical maps of the national forests you can use the space on the back of the card to list places that information on forestry service and other natural resources numbers in the area?

Do you host children's parties? How about putting instructions for a simple balloon animal on the back of your card?

There are a lot of ways that you can keep your business card in the hands of the public and in doing so keep your business at their fingertips. Not sure what would be useful on your business card? Here are some things that could be useful on a variety of cards:

• ASL hand signs for the alphabet
• Local emergency numbers
• A calendar (perpetual if you can fit it on the card)
  
• Phone numbers for local resources such as the library

Feel free to add your own ideas (remember, you can get link love for participating in comments)

Guerrilla Marketing Tip - notepads

Something that a lot of businesses don't think about is the benefits of creating memo pads with their business information on them. Even if you can not afford to make up memo pads that can be handed out as promotional products, you can still create a few notepads for your own personal use.

Needed:

• Paper cutter or scissors
• Stapler (optional)
• White glue (or any glue for paper)
• Printer & paper
• A sheet of decorative paper
• Heavy cardboard paper like backs notebooks
• And an image program (such as GIMP or, if you can't afford free, Photoshop)
• Waxed paper

The first thing you want to do is use your image manipulation program to make up artwork for your notepad. Maybe you will use your company logo and just have to make it the right size. Once you have the artwork you want to lower the transparency on it until it is faint enough that someone can write over it with a pencil and still read what they wrote. You also want the image to be dark enough to be visible, so play with this some to get the right level of transparency.

Now, set up a word processor to print the image out on paper in whatever size you want the notepad to be. This too will take some playing around to find a size you like. Print maybe six or eight sheets to a sheet of paper.

In laying out the paper for printing you want the image centered where the person will be writing, and your business name and contact information set about half an inch down from the top edge. This will put it where it will be visible when the top edge of the pad is stapled and glued.

Print out a test page and make sure that it will cut apart properly, then print enough that you can place the desired number of pages (10 or 25 is okay) into each pad you will be making. Once they are printed carefully cut the pages apart and stack them up. You want them all the same size. Place a cardboard backing on each pad, cut to the size of the pads.

Take and place a little glue along the top edge, working it carefully into the edge of the notepad, and press the pages together so the edge of the pages will be glued together. Staple the pages to the cardboard if desired. This adds stability. You should put at least two or three staples in each pad.

Now, cut a strip of decorative paper about a inch wide and as long as the pad is wide. Fold it over the top of the pad to position it. Once satisfied with the placement, put glue on the backside of the strip of decorative paper and put it on the pad. Press between two pieces of waxed paper until dry.

The more of these pads you make, the better you will get at making them. They can be handed out to potential customers or sent along in mailings or just used for your own business use.

Guerrilla Marketing Tips

I'm starting up a new series here at the Work at Home Newsletter. Guerrilla Marketing Tips. These are ideas that you can implement for helping spread the visibility of your business. They will cover a variety of tactics from creating items for distribution to things you can do online. Some will be low cost, some are free, and others may cost a little or even a lot depending on your approach to the products. All are going to be tricks and techniques to get the word out there for your business and bring in potential customers.