You know you’ve got some great clients + potential clients. And spoiling them with a party has likely crossed your mind. But what a daunting (and possibly costly) task.
Most people expect good food, drinks and company from a party. If there’s a theme and some entertainment – that’s bonus.
Photography by Ron Sombilon Gallery
So how do you create a remarkable event without extravagant pricing? Here are some tried and true suggestions:
1. Partner up. Think of businesses that could use some exposure and work together to create something memorable. Some examples may include:
Utilizing another business’s facility or speciality has many benefits. Most notably include promotion of the event through their network and the offsetting of costs as you “share” your customer base.
2. Choose your food and beverage quantities wisely. Of course, you won’t want to run out of either, but if you are footing the bill (meaning you haven’t coveted an alcohol or food sponsor/partner) you’ll want to be careful about how you make your purchases.
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Mix catered dishes with purchased snacks (ex. crackers, breads, chocolates)
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Work with a caterer who understands your budget and needs and can help create something spectacular.
3. Pick a theme tied to a cause. Support a charity and show your community spirit. You’ll have an easier time getting donations for your event. You may even have luck forming a theme via the charity. Supporting Dress for Success’s theme could be a dress up event where WaterCan’s could be “everything in blue.”
4. Choosing to work with an expert may seem expensive at first, until you breakdown how much money you’ll likely save as a result of the connections, discounts and money saving techniques an event planner has.
5. Music is part of the fun. Do you know of any local bands that your clientele would also like? If you can’t afford to hire a DJ, consider renting speakers and creating a great playlist. (If you don’t have a musical ear – ask a musical friend. You might be surprised that they are happy to put together a playlist that they can add to their IPod later.)
6. Make sure your event is remembered long after the party hats are put away. Send your guests home with a gift. Goodie bags that have a good surprise in them are always crowd pleasers. (Try not to crowd the bag with too much promotional material). I have used Ultimate Gift Cards for some of my most recent events and they have been quite powerful. Both cost effective and impactful.
You will also want to look into any permits you’ll need such as a special event liquor license.
And, for every event you do, make sure you use what you’ve learned and accumulated on your next event. Write to do and check lists before your event and revise afterward. Add it to the file of things you need to throw your own successful party.
photo credit: ArtemFinland
There is nothing worse than investing time and money in a marketing campaign without the ability to track its effectiveness. Here are 3 scenarios, and some suggestions on how to track them.
A newspaper ad or direct mailer
In the past, you may have put an ad in a local newspaper with your website’s home page and phone number. Or perhaps you went another step further and suggested your reader clip the ad as a coupon or used urged potential customers to “Call for more details.”
By automating your print advertising you’ll be able to see the effectiveness of your advertisement and potentially increase your email database. That means, if the offer is good, but not good enough for them to buy right away, you can retain their information for further offerings or useful information. You can use landing pages to achieve this.
A landing page is a “hidden” page on your website – meaning it’s not on your navigation bar. It has a specific URL, like http://www.vancouvermarketinggirl.com/[insert page here] that is linked to a specific campaign.
Ask for some key information on a landing page – like name and email address. Walk through this promotion if you’d like to see an example in action. Visit ZipLocal and find Salon Montage. Click on the URL on their profile. Fill in the information and within moments you’ll receive an email coupon. (PS, if you did this, you just received a $15 certificate to use on their services). You’ll also be added to their email database which is how you can track how many people participated in your campaign (Don’t worry you can unsubscribe right away if you don’t want to receive their monthly updates).
Ask your web designer or email me for more information on how to create your own landing page.
Many companies also use different phone numbers for each specific campaign. This works well as you can track received phone calls. This could be a good route to go if your company isn’t participating in email marketing.
A Facebook ad campaign
This method can be tracked through Facebook statistics and through your Google Analytics. You can easily see how many people viewed your ad and how many responded. This way you can adjust your message accordingly. Facebook does an excellent job of allowing you to target your campaign by selecting the demographics that fit your criteria.
Email Newsletters
Email campaigns are a brilliant way to keep in touch with current, past and potential customers. Email marketing should be permission based. It’s a good idea to utilize a third party newsletter provider. I use Icontact almost exclusively. I like their pricing, customer service and the ease of their website.
With IContact you can send as many emails and have as many lists of subscribers as you wish. Two good lists to start with would be Current Customers and Potential Customers. This way you can address various topics that are of interest to each group.
When you send your marketing message Icontact takes care of the tracking. You can see in detail how many people opened your email and clicked on links. You can also see who has unsubscribed. I use this as an indicator of the usefulness of the message. In this genre, a straight promotion will usually result in more unsubscribers than a message with useful information as well as promotional.
Feel free to utilize your landing pages through email marketing as well.
photo credit: Margaret Anne Clarke
I can admit it. I have attempted Do It Yourself design. Sure, it feels good – being creative, visually expressing exactly what is lurking in my mind. But is spending the better part of a day or night hunched over a brochure design trying to figure out a cool design feature really worth my own time?
If it takes me 3-6 hours to design a brochure that takes a designer 2 hours to do have I really saved? I may have saved the bill out of those 3 hours at $50/hr, but I lost 6 hours that I could have done something I specialize in.
I have heard small business owners lament that large design firms can be pricey for simple things like brochure layouts, business card designs or even a website design. And, I’ve been told that freelancers can be unreliable with deadlines, amongst other things (Please know, I’m not trying to pick on graphic designer’s here, it was actually the urging of my own resident designer that I wrote this post).
Having interviewed and hired many firms and freelancers, I’ve experienced some of these laments too. Here are some of the things I take into account when working with designers:
Does the designer display these characteristics?
- ability to create fresh designs again and again
- quick
- reliable
- perfectionist, but not to a fault
- accepting of feedback/criticism
- able to make revisions in a timely manner
- cooperative with your needs
My must do’s of hiring:
- A face to face interview
- A walk through of their portfolio
- Phone calls to at least 2 of their past clients
- Finding out what other jobs they’re working on
- An assessment if they fit the brand and company’s style – conservative, modern, trendy, casual, formal?
When working together:
- Hire the designer for a small project first (less commitment if something doesn’t fit)
- Ask for a written quote with a specified maximum amount they’ll charge for a project, taking the number of revisions into consideration
- Provide them with a work order
- Arrange payment terms before they start working
And I suppose it goes without saying that a lot of design can’t be based on price alone. The quality of work, their understanding of your company’s needs and their communication style should all be factored into your decision.
Of course, you can hire Polished Promotions (*sigh, shameless plug I know) to manage the process if you don’t have the time or if you don’t particularly like providing feedback and working through revisions. Feel free to connect with me for assistance or even just to pass along a referral.
electronic filing reasons
Yes, I admit it – I am on my strata council. In fact I am the Vice President of my strata council. I am the one who isn’t afraid to insist we work towards greening our building. For example, we invited the Lighthouse Sustainability Centre to give us their How to Green Strata Seminar earlier this autumn. (But alas, you can’t please everyone…)
Not so coincidentally, I rallied to change the way we deliver strata minutes to the 88 owners that live in the building. Every year we spend approximately $1,000 on printing (on traditional copy paper) + postage just to mail monthly minutes. I thought it would be an easy task to get the owners to switch to emailed minutes that they could electronically save. I even attempted to “bribe” them with free gym passes and gift cards. It didn’t take…
The reason for owners not wanting to make the shift was surprising. They didn’t want to have to file electronic copies. What? I thought this was the norm – and then I looked around – paper paper everywhere! Even I’m guilty of it.
So – three easy e-filing lessons (that I am using – can you imagine the chaos if I wasn’t using these??)1. Think about your filing cabinet – now organize your e-files the same way.
a. Are you a date or word type of person? Choose one system and stick with it. I like words followed by dates for my actual files (words for my folders).
b. Think about a file you were looking for a year ago. How did you find it? What did you think about to jog your memory as to where it was stored either electronically or in hard copy form. Write your file names so you can remember them. (Just a hint – numbers DON’T work- you wouldn’t think, “hmm, that was number 5 of 25 from last May … or would you?)
2. Some client filing examples (email me if you want some more hints – truthfully though, I’ll likely just send you to a professional organizer…Oh Tracy….)
a. Example: I have dozens of clients – so each has a special file with the same sub categories:
email communication (with emails dated mm/dd/yy),
advertising (sub files include different advertisers we are currently using or are considering working with)
email newsletters (the majority of my clients are on newsletters) – sub domains here: image bank, and then by mm/yy
Financials – invoices and receipts
Web – sub domains: web files, seo, blog
Events – sub domains: mm/yy, event ideas
Design – branding, image gallery
Marketing – [enter title here] project (aka brochure or booklet or business card)
b. Another example: general work information categories
Marketing – sub domains: idea bank, sources (websites I like etc), marketing quotes, my marketing material (templates for quotes, logos,
Printing – sub domains: quotes, contacts, samples
SEO – my ebooks, quotes, general information
Writing –idea bank, articles, blog (my various blogs published and not), the book I’m secretly writing 
3. Establish a system
a. Every Monday is office day at Polished Promotions – myself and my designer, Michelle get together and listen to boy bands in our pajamas – I mean…. we work on creative print, web and designs together, setting the tone for the rest of the week where I free Michelle to work in her pjs from home.
b. I make Friday’s my organizing days so I can have Monday’s to be freshly creative. Friday’s I clean out my inbox (there has to be less than 50 emails in there – which is usually the amount of “working on” projects happening on any given week), delete or save sent messages, remove everything from my desktop (both my computer and my desktop)
c. Finish the week with a soothing sigh of “ahhhhh….” rather than a stressed out exclamation of “AHHHHHHH!!!!!”
…oh yeah - and save trees while doing it!
Basics:
First – You’ll need a program to open and create zip files
Rarlab has a free download WinRAR 3.80 (it’s the first choice)
Next - follow the directions:
It will ask you to “Run” or “save” the program
“Run” the program
Unzip a folder:
Once WinRAR is installed select the folder you want to unzip
Right click it > Choose “Extract Here” (which will make the contents unzip in that very spot)
The file folder will download into the same folder
A Little Techie:
First - Combine files into a file folder:
Create a folder
Right click in desired folder > create > new folder > [insert name of folder] > drag and drop files into folder.
Second -Create a Zip File:
Right click on the file folder or the singular file you want to “zip” >
choose the action: “Add to [file name here].rar” > file should combine with an icon that looks like a stack of three books
More Techie
Sending Large files 5 MB +(because most email programs allow you to upload 10 MB total – and most email recipients don’t like getting large emails that clog up their inboxes)
If you are sending 100 MB or less in any given week, sign up for a free web program called You Send It.
If you are sending more than 100MB a week and you’d like to track your file transfers – click on the affiliate link on the right and it will take you through a sign up process there.
To send a file: Ensure file is zipped or a singular file > go to send file > choose email addresses (separate multiple emails with a comma) > choose file to send using the browse button to look on your computer > send file > DO NOT close the browser window while file is sending, it may take several minutes
You will receive a confirmation in your email when the file transfer is successful.
If you’ve ever sat across from me over drinks or seen me tweeting on my iPhone, it’s because of Hootsuite. When questioned why I love this client, or even what’s better about it than others, I don’t have much of a response… do you justify when you’re in love?
