Hit for the Cycle with Environmentally Friendly Ad Products

Reviewing our categories of environmentally responsible promotional products, we hold that they will be

1) recyclable, reusable or biodegradable
2) renewable, sustainable, organic or somehow do no (or less) harm to the environment when manufactured, or
3) made from recycled materials.

Let's see if we can hit for the cycle with eco friendly ink pens.

Hitting first is an entry from one of my favorite pen companies, Bic. It is the Bic Ecolutions Round Stic pen. With a body made from 74% pre-consumer recycled material, originally used in the production of automotive part trays, it fills the roll of the lead off hitter by getting on with a single...it satisfies category 3 above. It is also currently on sale for $0.29 ea plus shipping through the end of August, but since all 3 of our categories above are not filled by this pen, it is only 'a hard hit single.'









Next up is the Legend from Target Line. This pen's body is made from corn (a renewable resource) based plastics and is biodegradable, so it fulfills both categories 1 and 2 above. Its low price and low minimum order are also very attractive, so we will call this hit a stand up double!


Our sluggers will be up next time to provide us with a couple of 'environmental long balls'. I can't wait to show them to you. Until then...

Steve
www.raggo.com

Fun and Clever Things!

I am aways amazed at the variety of our products and the variations in the ways that they can be used. A few years ago I had a client who was looking for pens that had a really big circumference, like the Bic WideBody Grip or the Big Kahuna from Gold Bond. These are over-sized pens with grips. They are appreciated by almost everyone (ie., they have a higher perceived value than smaller, but similarly priced pens). They are especially coveted by those folks getting up there in age, like me, as well as arthritis and other joint-pain sufferers. My customer's best prospects were people over 50, so it seemed like a good idea. Anyway, I entered 'large pens' into my database and got 1300+ listings. That was too many to quickly look through, so I changed terms to 'wide pens' and got about 500 selections. Finally, I entered 'giant pens' and out came 29.

Glancing through the list I clicked on the Giant Monster Pen from Great Big Stuff. Wow! 1.5 feet in length and it writes! Ha! That's longer than most people's forearms! "Too big for our use" I thought. "Who could I show this to?"

Fast forward a few years and I am sitting in one of the referral marketing groups I belong to. We had decided that, in order to increase the number of referrals we pass, we would reward the member who passed the most leads with a gift certificate to the restaurant we met at as well as a trophy which would be passed to subsequent referral leaders. Kind of like the Stanley Cup, but cheaper and without the blood and broken teeth. Something that conveys bragging rights. Linda, our group's new Secretary, said, "We should get something fun and clever!" As I was driving back to the office I thought "What do we give the person who writes a lot of leads? OH! Why not a giant ink pen. After all, it takes a lot of ink to write a lot of leads!"

After getting the requisite approvals, we ordered one in, took it over to Dave, the sign maker in our group, to be lettered and...wait for it...wait for it...TA DA! here is our Leadshare Group's Quarterly Referral Award Trophy

Clever and fun, right? Now if I could just find an efficient way to market them to all of the business networking, leadshare and referral marketing groups around the globe. Some medium that doesn't cost any money, but can be seen by everyone, everywhere searching for referral trophies. Hmmm...Any ideas?

Steve
www.raggo.com

Time to Hit Restart Again

It has been a very long time since I made a New Year's resolution. I think it was the late 70's and I was at the US Naval Academy at the time. Something about keeping my weight down so that I would not have to go through the agony of making weight for next year's boxing season. I was a Brigade boxer at the time and in case you can't tell, I am the guy on the right. Going from about 180 in the off season to 139 to make weight in the fall was not something I looked forward to. I usually had to accomplish the loss in less than a month. You can check out my LinkedIn page to see how well I have kept that resolution (not!). In any case, I am going to make a couple of resolutions this year.

First, I am going to focus on my web presence. I will not let my web pages go out of date and I refuse to have a multitude of broken hyperlinks. I know that it is going to take some time to repair it and a lot more time to keep up with it. After a week of waiting for vendors and taking care of customers, for instance, I have ALMOST gotten our Current Specials pages updated. Add to that the changes our vendors make to their pages without our knowledge and we have a recipe for trouble. Nevertheless, that is what resolutions are about, isn't it - addressing and readdressing challenges that we have failed to meet in the past. My waistline is proof.

Second, I am going to change the way I look at this blog-thing. Granted, I did not really understand what it was all about when I started. A quick look at previous posts shows that I approached these entries as sales presentations rather than a means for you to get to know me. I might have come close on a couple of them...I really do hate cheap ink pens, for instance. Overall, though, I focused on product rather than relationship. I will go for relationship this year.

So, then, what does this mean? Hopefully, more work for me and a better experience for you. If you are better informed about our pricing, can get where you want to go on our web site, and if I can better relate my 13-plus years of experience with these products here, then all will be well. If not, then I will have another resolution for next year.

Hoping you have a very prosperous and happy new year.

Steve