Feeling A Bit Sentimental

I was just reminded that we are coming up on an anniversary in a few days. One of our long-time customers out in Texas just called to order his 2011 promotional calendars and reminded me that he had been buying these from us every year for the past 11 years. 11 years is a long time to do anything and we truly appreciate his loyalty.

WE LOVE YOU, GARY!

On August 15, 2011 we will celebrate our 14th year in business. They say that time flies when you're having fun, so this must be work! ;^) We - you and I and this country - have been through a lot over those years. My youngest was just starting kindergarten in 1997. She is now a sophomore at college while her sisters have both graduated and begun their post-daddy lives. I now have a son-in-law and a grandson. Somehow, though, my wife is just as beautiful, talented and smart as she was then, while I ... well, let's be kind and just say that I am not.

Over the years, things have gone up and things have gone down. The Dow Jones Industrial average on January 1, 1997 was 6448.30. The average price of a gallon of unleaded that year was $1.23 and gold averaged $331 per ounce. In contrast, the yield on the 10 year US Treasury Bond began 1997 at 6.58% while the average interest rate on a 30 year conventional mortgage was around 7.6%.

It's a funny thing. I can't remember how old I am, but I can remember our first order. It was for business card sized refrigerator magnets for a florist. In our first 6 months of business existence, we served 16 customers. All of them either knew me in a former life, or met me when I walked into their place of business and asked for a moment of their time. Over the next 13 and a half years 6 of those customers sadly closed their doors, changed professions or moved far away (remember, Al Gore's internet had not yet become commonplace!). Of the remaining 7, 1 has changed ownership (and apparently their promotional products distributor) while 6 are still currently active customers.

WE LOVE YOU GUYS!

We stopped using calculators and columnar pads to keep our books in 1998. (Yes, I still have ours from 1997)

Our e-commerce web site went live in 1999.

Our nation was attacked and has been fighting back on 3 fronts since 2001. God bless our troops.

We have have served thousands of customers over the years, including 14 who placed their first order with us this year. Our new customers found us either by internet search, or they met me at a networking event, or they were referred by a satisfied customer. By the way, we reward referrals! Looking back, 9/11 has made door-to-door sales very difficult. The internet has made door-to-door sales almost unnecessary.

What does all this mean? We love our customers. We work hard to make them happy. We remember their names and their preferences. We return phone calls and answer emails. We want to be sure that their promotion or their event goes off successfully, without a hitch - at least our part of it. We work with them to find the right product at the right price and get it delivered on time...year after year after year.

Steve

Trial, Balloons

Ahhh....I have remembered one of the reasons I stopped making New Year's resolutions. It's the whole business of having to keep (or at least trying to keep) them. There is usually a pretty good reason why we needed to make the resolution in the first place - why we needed that extra 'prod' to our consciences that resolutions represent. It usually has something to do with liking the things that we resolve to give up or not liking the things we resolve to do. After spending a good number of hours this past week updating our Specials pages and repairing broken links on our web site, I found out on Friday that the repairs needed to be repaired again and some of the links that were working on our Specials pages no longer worked. I guess our vendors were working on their web page resolutions as well. Such a hard life I lead... (I know, I know, everyone is laughing)

So I have repaired the repairs and updates. Let me know if you find any of the hyperlinks on our web pages don't work. There is a sugar cookie dipped in dark chocolate in it for you!

I did notice something unusual this year while updating the Specials. For the first time in a very long time balloons are on sale - even the mylar ones. Balloons are one of those ad specialties that have never really needed to go on sale. They are quite inexpensive without the sale discount, and usually in fair demand. Think about it. Just about every event we celebrate can be celebrated with balloons. Open houses, anniversaries, Grand Openings, fairs, trade shows and award ceremonies almost always include balloons either falling from the ceiling or tied to sign posts or carried by kids of all ages. After all, if you are exhibiting at a trade show or expo or street fair of any kind, wouldn't you think it was great if everyone walked past your competitor's booth carrying one of your balloons!

Choosing The Right Promotional Product (Step 4)

Here is a list of the questions we must answer when choosing the perfect promotional item for your campaign:

1. What do we want to happen?
2. How will we measure success?
3. What is our target demographic?
4. How will we deliver the item?
5. How much can we spend?
6. How quickly do we need the product delivered?

Delivery method is a very important consideration when choosing an ad specialty for your campaign. Promotional products are most commonly handed out at sales calls, trade shows or expos or at the front counters of offices or retail establishments. Other delivery options include direct mail or through third pardies - like donation them to non-profits or business organizations for their golf tournament or other event.

The delivery method helps determine the size, shape, weight and fragility of the advertising item we will choose. A customer once decided that they wanted to send champagne flutes out to all of their customers as a thank you on their business’ anniversary. Flashing red lights started going off in my head as we talked this out on the phone. While an attractive gift with a lot of perceived value and promotional endurance, wine glasses and champagne flutes are bulky and highly breakable, especially when we are ’sending them out.’ When I asked how they were going to deliver 2000 champagne flutes to their customers the only response was…”Oh, wow.” We decided to send out a brass key tag with their anniversary logo instead, along with a post card invitation to their Anniversary Celebration directing the customer to bring the card (filled out with their contact information) into their nearest branch on that day for a free anniversary flute.

Steve Raggo
www.raggo.com