Hooters promotional fundraiser for Red Cross

Gladstone & Associates creates promotional fundraiser with sister company, Act Naturally Studios.
Act Naturally Studios, photographer, Dominick Gladstone will be taking pictures of Hooters restaurant patrons with their favorite Hooters Girls and selling them as a fundraiser for the Greater Kalamazoo Red Cross.
The digital photos will be delivered on-the-spot and autographed by the Hooters Girls. The pictures will be sold for $10 each and the proceeds benefit the Red Cross of Greater Kalamazoo.

Act Naturally Studios Marketing

Gladstone & Associates has assisted its sister company Act Naturally Studios with additional marketing efforts in producing a new portfolio slideshow.
www.actnaturallystudios.com

Act Naturally Studios - Portrait Special

Kalamazoo, MI-- Act Naturally Studios is pleased to have Gladstone & Associates our sister company working on a comprehensive marketing strategy for this fall and into 2009.

Act Naturally Studios is promoting consumer portrait work with High School Seniors and families for holiday photos.

Gladstone & Associates is working on website updates, posters, and a sales strategy.

Don LaFontaine will be missed

He was the industry standard...there will be no real replacement.
What the voice of John Madden is to football; Don LaFontaine is to the movies.




Bookmark this on Delicious

Act Naturally Studios -- Wedding Photography

Kalamazoo, MI--

The Lindsey-Peters wedding is now available for viewing at our sister company's website.

Act Naturally Studios is available for wedding photography in the West Michigan area at the most reasonable prices in town.

Act Naturally Studios also does portrait photography for students and business headshots.

Act Naturally Studios - Website

Gladstone & Associates sister company is now accessible at the following address.

www.actnaturallystudios.com

Gladstone announces new client

Dominick Gladstone is pleased to announce the acquisition of Meints Glass Blowing as our newest client.
Frank Meints hired Gladstone to develop a new company logo, a website, and media for new website content.
Meints Glass Blowing serves the laboratory and scientific glass market, with additional work in custom and art glass blowing as well.

Gladstone's sister company, Act Naturally Studios, will be producing the digital internet media necessary for the new website.

Act Naturally Studios is launched!

Dominick Gladstone, President, Gladstone & Associates Inc. announces the launch of Act Naturally Studios -- The production company to watch!

This new media production arm is a perfect addition to Gladstone's marketing, advertising, and public relations consulting offering.

Act Naturally Studios will offer a full line of communication tools production including digital photography, video production, audio production, and a variety of ways to present media via the internet.

Coming Soon - Act Naturally Studios

I am launching a production company!
More to come...

Gladstone & Associates Supports Cable Advertising for Small Business

Steps to Effective Cable Advertising
By Dominick Gladstone

As a small business on a limited budget, you may think that you don't have the money to venture into television advertising. But with the advent of dozens of cable stations television has become affordable advertising for local businesses.

With television, you have the opportunity to create a mood or a feeling, and a way to reach a mass audience, no other medium today has the unique creative abilities of television. Visual media has a big advantage over radio or print, in that it speaks to sight and hearing, our most immediate senses. The combination of pictures and music, motion and sound create the best opportunity to demonstrate your product or service and to get an immediate, visceral response from your viewer.

The television medium also has the most punch with viewers, as nearly half of the viewing audience believes that television is the most authoritative advertising source. Today, with more than 55 national cable networks in the U.S., along with a handful of superstations, your ability to target specific viewer groups is improved.

Viewership is also another plus. Cable households watch more television than non-cable TV households. The heaviest viewers are middle-income, high school educated individuals and their families. The average home has TV / Cable / VCR on for 8.5 hours every day; children and teenagers view an average of 17.5 to 17.8 hours per week, around the world, older women watch TV the most (36 hours per week).

The same rules apply for buying air time as with radio-let your advertising reps present their best offer, take your time to understand your options, and play with ad schedules to suite your budget and when your customers might be watching.

TV is good for delivery of certain messages to large, well-defined audiences, and it has no match for developing image and brand reinforcement messages. TV reaches many stakeholders - not just customers - to build awareness about your business.

The procedures for buying national media can be so complex that most large advertisers seek the assistance of ad agencies or media-buying services. But local advertisers are well served by station reps to determine the best buys for the money. And local production services are available at reasonable fees, perhaps even discounted by the cable company. You can even purchase stock commercials and add your imprint and contact information for as little as $500.

Here are the steps to purchasing a cable TV ad schedule:

Research available time slots: your ad rep will tell you what programs are available and how they match your needs for price range and ratings.

Choose targeted programs: decide on the most efficient programs in relation to the target audience using the cost per rating point (CPP) and cost per thousand (CPM) for each program.

Negotiate prices: the cable company will have a rate card describing the prices for different television stations, but these are always negotiable. Lower rates may be had with a longer-term commitment, or more flexibility in scheduling. A preemption rate, for instance, means you agree to be rescheduled of another advertiser pays the higher rate.

Sign a contract: This legal document states the program, dates and times of airing, length and rate for spots, total value, and other various obligations and terms. After your flight is complete, you should receive an affidavit of performance proving when your spots were aired.

To learn more about marketing, advertising, and public relations for the small to medium-sized business; click here: http://www.gladstoneandassociates.com

Dominick Gladstone has over 25 years of experience helping businesses grow.
Gladstone & Associates Inc. provides results-driven marketing, advertising, and public relations consulting for small to medium-sized companies.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dominick_Gladstone
http://EzineArticles.com/?Steps-to-Effective-Cable-Advertising&id=1025299

Reasons Why a Slogan is Crucial to Your Advertising: Part 2

Reasons Why a Slogan is Crucial to Your Advertising - Part 2
By Dominick Gladstone

Even if you're an advertiser, you're also a consumer. So think about all the media YOU are exposed to in a day. Can you remember any of the advertising you saw, heard, or looked at today?

The average American is exposed to thousands of marketing messages a day. Think about all the advertising mediums you are exposed to each day; television, radio, Internet, billboards, magazines, and newspaper. Perhaps now you can understand how hard it can be to be remembered by the average consumer.

You know that YOU need to hear a message more than once before you'll decide to take action... or at least remember the new business you want to try.

There's a term in advertising--'breaking through the clutter.' And there's more clutter than ever before. Have you had the pleasure of finding advertisements in a public restroom yet? If not, you will.

So obviously, you have to get people to remember you before they buy from you. This is especially true if they don't need what you want to sell them today. But they will eventually, right? Remember, you can't sell a refrigerator to someone who doesn't need one. But if you develop a consistent advertising presence, you will build awareness in potential customers, almost without them even realizing it. So when that old Frigidaire does give out, the prospect will remember a source for affordable appliances delivered to their home.

Creating awareness about your business-along with a descriptive, evocative slogan, will pay off when people are ready to buy. It can be as few as two words-Got Milk?™--or three-Just Do It™. A slogan is a phrase-a motto, a saying, a tag line, whatever you like-that expresses a particular concept that you want to stick in your audience's mind.

What makes a slogan memorable? Brevity, rhythm, repetition, vivid language.

Slogans come in many formats.

A feature: It keeps going, and going, and going...

An entreaty: Don't leave home without it. Let your fingers do the walking. Just do it.

An endorsement: They're grrrreat! Finger lickin' good!

A question: Got milk? Does she or doesn't she?

A benefit: Melts in your mouth, not in your hand. Tastes great, less filling.

A rationale: Because I'm worth it. It's everywhere you want to be.

A statement: A diamond is forever. Beef... it's what's for dinner.

An assurance: What happens here, stays here. Have it your way

There are seven ways to make a slogan memorable:

(1) Make it exciting

(2) Be boastful or exaggerated

(3) Self-referencing

(4) Metaphorical, playful or humorous

(5) Inspirational or uplifting

(6) To trigger painful memories or possibilities

(7) Use of colorful or fresh language

Sometimes a slogan becomes an indelible icon .... "The Real Thing" was used for which soft drink ...?

Where do you start to build a slogan? The most obvious is to hire a professional who brings a certain level of expertise to this crucial business decision. Professionals don't simply write some words...They create icons.

What do I want people to think of when they think of my business?

Ask yourself, "What do I want them to do?" This is another type of slogan. Yellow pages had a great one for years, "Let your fingers do the walking."

Another way to create a slogan is to take two phrases that have parallel construction and place them together with a comma. Ex: Prizefighter Ali, "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee."

Add a slogan or a tag line to your marketing plan and you could become an icon that's Finger Lickin' Good!

This article is part 2 of 2.

To learn more about marketing, advertising, and public relations for the small to medium-sized business; click here: http://www.gladstoneandassociates.com

Dominick Gladstone has over 25 years of experience helping businesses grow.
Gladstone & Associates Inc. is a marketing, advertising, and public relations consulting firm that assists small to medium-sized companies who cannot afford a full-time ad agency.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dominick_Gladstone
http://EzineArticles.com/?Reasons-Why-a-Slogan-is-Crucial-to-Your-Advertising---Part-2&id=1022224

Reasons Why a Slogan is Crucial to Your Advertising: Part 1

Reasons Why a Slogan is Crucial to Your Advertising - Part 1
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Dominick_Gladstone]Dominick Gladstone

You may be an advertiser, you are definitely a consumer. So think about all the media YOU are exposed to in a day. Can you remember any of the ads you saw, heard, or looked at so far today?

Estimates vary, but the average American is exposed to thousands of marketing messages a day. Think about a visit to the supermarket-how many "buy me!" packages line those endless aisles? Add in your television, radio, computer, and newspaper time, and you can understand how hard it can be to be remembered by the average consumer.

So how do you make your potential customers remember your business? I would pose that a unique slogan-short, sweet, possibly humorous, perhaps rhyming, maybe a little ditty-is something that, when used in an integrated marketing plan, helps create a solid bit of real estate in your target's mind.

A slogan can add credibility to your product or service. People are likely to figure you've given some thought-and money-to your promotion, and will take you for an established, worthwhile business.

After all, if people don't remember who you are and what you sell, how will they buy from you? Studies have shown that rhyme, alliteration (repeating sounds), and rhythm all strengthen the power of words to be remembered. Add a little humor, or something unexpected, and voila, you have set yourself apart from the crowd.

Our brains can't help it, we like labels. It helps us organize information, and a slogan becomes your business's label. It helps customers know 'where to put you' until needed. And when your slogan is attached to everything you do, as a tag line in advertising, or the end of a broadcast spot, the repetition makes for familiarity, and familiarity creates a memory.

As a business manager or owner, don't you want people to remember you when they need the new or replacement widget? Develop a marketing plan that includes a slogan and you have planted a seed that will yield fruit when the buyer has their checkbook in hand.

This article is part 1 of 2.

To learn more about marketing, advertising, and public relations for the small to medium-sized business; click here: http://www.gladstoneandassociates.com

Dominick Gladstone has over 25 years of experience helping businesses grow.
Gladstone & Associates Inc. is a marketing, advertising, and public relations consulting firm that assists small to medium-sized companies who cannot afford a full-time ad agency.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dominick_Gladstone http://EzineArticles.com/?Reasons-Why-a-Slogan-is-Crucial-to-Your-Advertising---Part-1&id=1022193

Operating a small business using Advertising and Promotion

You are an expert in your field. You know the history of how your product was developed and produced, how your service has evolved to meet the needs of today’s consumer. You know how you can make your customer’s lives easier. And you know how to budget for payroll, production, purchasing, warehousing, and transport.

But it amazes me how little most business owners know about how to get the word out about their product or service. They don’t think twice about spending to produce or stock more products, or designing a beautiful storefront or warehouse, but that same owner will not spend much at all on advertising.

This tends to be the same business owner who wonders why advertising “doesn’t work for me”. This is woman who won’t take calls from advertising salespeople. Receptionists who are trained to screen out the ad reps. And if a call does get to the boss, he sounds utterly disgusted to be listening to – ick! – an ad salesperson.

This may be understandable. None of us want to be scammed or taken advantage of, and we feel this especially in areas we don’t know much about. What we fail to realize is that most salespeople are extremely knowledgeable about their product and may be able to educate us in new areas if we allow them the privilege.

My advice to the business owner is to make appointments with as many ad salespeople as possible, and take all the information you can—you’re not obliged to purchase. When you do purchase, you will know what you’re buying. Ad reps are happy to invest the time to educate you. Talk to the newspaper guys, the radio gals, anyone who can add to your knowledge base about promoting your business. You are bound to learn something new. People aren’t going to become a customer if they don’t know you exist.

I especially advise business owners to talk to advertising and marketing people daily to discover what is happening in their market. Salespeople have access to research data that would cost a business owner thousands of dollars to produce.

As a business consultant I do a lot of research so that I can make intelligent recommendations to my clients. I receive some of the most current data from salespeople who have to be knowledgeable in order to sell their product. When I make a recommendation to a client about what they should or shouldn’t be doing with their advertising dollars, that decision is generally backed by hours of research that validate any claims.

There is more to come on this subject. One final thought, if you do not learn more about how to get customers in the door, your competition will.

Gladstone & Associates assists You in Building Your Brand

A Brand is Not a Logo or Slogan - How to Build Your Own Brand with Style
By [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Doug_Dvorak]Doug Dvorak

Remember that it is not just a logo or a tag line that makes a brand. There are any number of companies that have very attractive logos and even catchier tag lines. But they are not necessarily strong brands.

The logo and the slogan merely represent your brand. There are a host of factors that contribute to the building of a brand. Your product/service, customer service, pricing, history, your own reputation as a person, your company's reputation, legal wrangling, hiring policy, environmental concerns, ethical quotient, transparency with shareholders, sharing profits with stakeholders, and of course the logo and the slogan - all these determine your brand.

Each one of these factors holds a lot of power over your brand. A glossy sign and a catchy tag line cannot fool people in to buying from a store that treats genders unequally. Wal-Mart is experiencing a dip in its customer base as the number of employees' gender inequality cases are piling up against the retail giant. Seventy five percent of Americans felt that Wal Mart to be the number one destination for discount shopping two years ago. Now the number has dipped to sixty percent. Obviously any self respecting woman would have questions in mind while shopping at a Wal Mart store, "Do these people treat women employees unfairly?" "How do they treat women customers?" That's not a comfortable situation. Of course, there are other factors like steep competition from trendy stores like Target. But a sullied reputation undermines other advantages like low prices and a one-stop-shopping experience.

So, building a brand carefully takes into consideration all the above mentioned factors, and does not just concentrate on designing a logo and adding a slogan. There are discerning customers that would prefer a company that pays handsome dividends to its shareholders or treats its employees without any discrimination. Americans value values.

First Things First

The first and foremost thing that comes in to building a brand is - answering some vital branding questions:

How good is your product or service?

Get the Basics Right. The product or service that you stand for is the foundation of your brand. No amount of brand promotion is going to help a product or a service of inferior quality. Any kind of brand promotion will be an exercise in futility for low quality products or services. Your product or service must be good. In fact, it is suggested that you develop an unbeatable quality product or service. It will make your brand building easier. If you cannot make your product or service stand above the rest of the crowd at least make it visible among them. Let it have one distinguishable feature.

Next ask yourself:

• "Why am I here"?

• "How can I serve well"?

• "Who can I serve"?

Then the next set of questions should be:

• "What or how I can produce or serve differently"?

• "What unique way can my product or services be useful to people"?

Well, the answer you get is going to be your brand.

Doug Dvorak is the CEO of DMG Inc., a worldwide organization that assists clients with productivity training, corporate humor and workshops, as well as other aspects of sales and marketing management. Mr. Dvorak's clients are characterized as Fortune 1000 companies, small to medium businesses, civic organizations and service businesses. Mr. Dvorak has earned an international reputation for his powerful educational methods and motivational techniques, as well as his experience in all levels of business, corporate education and success training. http://www.dougdvorak.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Doug_Dvorak http://EzineArticles.com/?A-Brand-is-Not-a-Logo-or-Slogan---How-to-Build-Your-Own-Brand-with-Style&id=998698

Branding is the Key to Business Success

IBM and GE - How to Brand Like the Big BoysBy [http://ezinearticles.com/?expert=Doug_Dvorak]Doug Dvorak
Started in 1880 as Computing Tabulating- Recording Company (C-T-R), IBM has been rolling out one innovative machine after another every few years. It has been involved in the invention of the first computer for space programs. From helping the US government in calculating the census and to launching space shuttles, IBM has been doing a yeoman service for the country where brand promotion through advertising is not required much.
IBM still remains the world's largest provider of computer services. Yet the first manufacturer of computers needs to spend $632 millions a year (in 2006) on advertisements to beat out the competition from its closest rival Microsoft.
GE
'We bring good things to life' is a very familiar slogan that any American can easily recall. The slogan has been recently replaced by the slogan 'imagination at work'. GE has remodeled its logo and given a new direction to its business. It has launched an "Ecoimagination" initiative to project itself as an eco-friendly and 'green' company.
Thomas Alva Edison, the founder of GE, invented nearly a thousand products. Out of them the incandescent electric lamp is the most prominent one. Today the company manufactures jet engines and generates wind energy. GE has stayed in business because of a series of innovations and the invention of a number of products over the years. If it was a dynamo and an electric fan back in the late 1800s and the early 1900s, it's the light VCD to detect health defects faster, which GE has come up with recently. There are a myriad of products that GE has given to the world in addition to these.
Right from day one, even before the company had a logo, GE advertised for its products in the print media. It was in 1892 that the logo 'ge' was created. The company regularly promoted its brand in the print and visual media. Now its ad copies have a lot of white space signifying the company's openness and accessibility.
Doug Dvorak is the CEO of DMG Inc., a worldwide organization that assists clients with productivity training, corporate humor and workshops, as well as other aspects of sales and marketing management. Mr. Dvorak's clients are characterized as Fortune 1000 companies, small to medium businesses, civic organizations and service businesses. Mr. Dvorak has earned an international reputation for his powerful educational methods and motivational techniques, as well as his experience in all levels of business, corporate education and success training - http://www.dougdvorak.com
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Doug_Dvorak http://EzineArticles.com/?IBM-and-GE---How-to-Brand-Like-the-Big-Boys&id=987161

Internet Marketing Techniques

Profitable Internet Marketing - Latest 4 Persuasive Methods to Excel at Internet Marketing
By Sean R Mize

Compare to traditional media, the internet is by far effective in creating brand awareness and reaching your target market from across the globe. It is also considered cheaper considering the amount of exposure it can give your website and your product which can lead to impressive sales and profits.

Here are the 4 persuasive methods to excel at internet marketing:

1. Make your website search engine-friendly. Search engines are still the best sources of qualified traffic in the internet today. Thus, if you want to drive interested people to your website, you need to optimize your content so it will match relevant searches that are being made by your target market. This can lead to improved page ranking and additional page views.

2. Use autoresponders. Promoting your business online can be time-consuming, tedious, and downright exhausting. That is why, you need to automate your other tasks such as providing quick replies to your email inquiries, managing your email marketing lists, and promoting your business through email marketing. These can be handled by one powerful marketing tool called autoresponder.

3. Know how to convert your online visitors to potential clients. Every visitor on your website is a potential client. However, there is no assurance that your visitors will come back after their initial visit. So, how can you make sure that you can still get in touch with them? You can do so through list building. This is a marketing technique that allows you to capture the email addresses of your potential clients so you can send them follow-up emails or email advertisements.

4. Build and strengthen your credibility online. As you know, people will only buy from marketers whom they trust and consider an expert on their niche. Communicate your knowledge by writing and submitting articles on publishing sites to easily win the trust of your target market.

To learn more, download my free guide, "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online" here: "How to Generate $15,000 Per Month Online"

Sean Mize is an internet marketing mentor who teaches people to generate over $15,000 per month online via automated systems and product funnels.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Sean_R_Mize
http://EzineArticles.com/?Profitable-Internet-Marketing---Latest-4-Persuasive-Methods-to-Excel-at-Internet-Marketing&id=971743

Industrial B2B Marketing

Gladstone & Associates about to announce new ways for industrial businesses to get more exposure from their Websites.
If industry and manufacturers do not take a closer look at their Internet marketing strategies, they may be missing out on business and new clients they never knew were looking for their services.

More to come on this topic...

Check out http://www.thomasnet.com/ and see "Promote your business"

Website revisions

I am excited to announce new revisions to the website--Gladstone & Associates.
http://www.gladstoneandassociates.com/

We consult with small to medium-sized businesses, as well as individuals. Gladstone specializes in advertising, marketing, and public relations, as well as media production.
Gladstone & Associates Inc. can help YOU grow your business.

When working with individual consumers we provide a full range of media production services--from family portraits, to memorial slide shows, and even on that very special occasion, we might shoot a wedding.

Have a great 2008

As our country heads into a recession, and the race for a new President continues. The real questions remains--who's going to clean up this mess? The winner is really the loser--the clean up crew.

I do know this much...It is up to us, the small to medium sized businesses to get creative in this time of need. We need to be more openminded than ever.

We need to change and re-invent the way we operate our businesses and discover new ways to market our products and services.