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We all know those feelings–the fighting-to-look-interested feeling. The trying-to-keep-your-eyes-propped-open feeling. The hoping-no-one-sees-how-many-times-I’ve-yawned feeling. And the boy-I-hope-no one-can read-my-mind feeling that accompanies a painfully boring presentation by a colleague or conference speaker.

If you have to give a business presentation, the most important point to keep in mind is that you must keep your audience interested by giving a creative presentation. Monotone lectures and ordinary slide shows are going to turn your audience off before you even get to the meat of your message. Consider these creative presentation ideas to wow your audience:

Use dynamic visuals–By dynamic visuals, we don’t mean a slideshow or PowerPoint presentation as these tend to be extremely boring. Use video or live people to demonstrate a point in your presentation. Avoid handouts and other paper visuals that require no audience interaction. You will put your audience to sleep in record time if you don’t allow them to watch something that is in motion and sound.

Motivate your audience to return promptly from breaks–To get your audience to come back on time after an intermission, you can use raffle tickets for a drawing or offer some type of quiz with a prize for the winner. While this may sound like something more for kids, adults need to be stimulated, too, and offering an incentive to return to your presentation is a great way to ensure the audience will come back after a short break.

Dress up in costume–If dressing up in costume can possibly fit into your presentation, then do it. It will show your audience you’re committed, and it will show them you’re enthusiastic about your topic. While the costume can be light-hearted and fun, you don’t want it to be so silly that your message is totally lost on the audience.

Provide food and/or drinks–The best way to win over an audience and to keep them interested is to feed them. Light snacks and drinks are a welcome addition to any business presentation.

For any creative presentation, have a back-up plan just in case things don’t go as planned.

Please visit PaperDirect for a full line of presentation helpers, presentation displays, and presentation folders.

You know exactly what door hangers are. You’ve come home from work and had one hanging on your door, usually from the local pizza place, maybe from a church inviting you to attend or even from a local store running a sale. Sometimes you get a door hanger that has a sample product in it like cologne or even laundry detergent. Door hanger marketing is a very powerful tool and more and more companies are turning to it to boost their sales.

Door hangers have a lot of potential in a lot of different ways. Aside from the sample packs in hanging bags, simple door hangers can be the most effective marketing tool in your arsenal. Not only can door hangers provide a lot of information about your business, but they can be used to deliver sales incentives as well.

Since door hangers do have two sides, there is a lot of real estate to put information on. Not only can you put the store location, but you can put product information, sales blurbs, or even an invitation to visit the store. For instance, if you’re opening a new business, running a door hanger marketing campaign announcing the grand opening with refreshments, etc. can be a very powerful way to open the doors and get the information to people that a new business is opening.

Using door hangers as sales incentives with coupons or discounts if they bring in the door hanger works in a couple of ways. One way, you get the person to order product with the coupon which allows you to track how many people are using it or the other way is when they bring in the door hanger, you can count how many you receive back. This gives you a great way to track just how well your marketing campaign is working.

And a campaign like this isn’t expensive either. Door hangers are relatively inexpensive to start with and hiring people to canvass neighborhoods hanging them isn’t terribly expensive either. On the whole, door hanger marketing campaigns are the most cost effective and easiest ways to attract customers and build business.

One effective method of marketing is to get as much information about your products and services into the hands of your customers as possible. Sometimes you only want to concentrate on a single product or service, and others may be better suited as a general overview. Whichever approach you take, one way to deliver this information is by putting together a booklet. While having booklets made can become a major expense, however, making booklets in-house can be a very cost effective marketing tool.

When you think of a booklet, you generally think about a small sized book containing perhaps 20 to 30 pages with some type of cardstock cover. But that’s the easy part. Figuring out how to make a booklet can be the hardest part. Fortunately, there are tools out there that make the job not only less confusing, but a breeze.

First you have to keep in mind how a booklet is laid out. Setting up a template to hold the text can be mind numbingly confusing, so finding a template for a booklet can save you a lot of headaches. The good thing is they are available for your favorite word processing and layout programs. You can also use that template to make the covers for your booklet as well. After you’ve laid out the text and printed it, and printed the covers, you’ve accomplished most of the task. With those parts out of the way, the next challenge becomes making booklets to fit the size you want.

That is accomplished with a paper cutter. You can either use a standard office paper cutter which is capable of dealing with small volumes, or if you need larger numbers of booklets, you can send them out to a printing company to have them cut to size. By cutting them in the middle of an 8 ½ x 11 page you can get 8 booklet pages out of one sheet of paper.

And binding them is the last step of the process. Again, you can use a printing company to bind them there are binding machines available that will work quite well for small volumes of booklets. Not only will this save you money, but customizing booklets becomes a simple process because you do not have to rely on the printing company to handle the process.

Booklets can be very handy marketing devices to show clients a bit more detail about products and services that brochures simply won’t cover. When they’re looking for reasons to buy, booklets can provide those reasons in an economical, and relatively easy to produce way. Take a look at your marketing processes and see if your company can benefit from making booklets for your potential customers so they can be more informed about your offerings.

Door hanger campaigns can be a very effective way to reach a local public. Door hangers have a lot of uses, and we’ve all received them for various things, and since they’re hanging on the door of our homes when we get home from work or discover them as we leave, the marketer knows you’ve seen their advertising. They are very effective tools and taking advantage of them can be a big boost to your bottom line.

Here are 5 great ways to use door hangers:

1. We’ve all gotten door hangers from the local pizza place advertising delivery. If you have a similar type business, you can have a very successful advertising campaign with door hangers

2. Use door hangers as invitations. They can be used to promote a grand opening event or other event that has a specific time and place to be. As a way to invite the local public, it is very effective

3. Door hangers can be used to promote a sale. Local stores can expect a rise in traffic after a door hanger campaign

4. They can also be used to distribute coupons for money off a product or free samples. This encourages the recipient to come into your place of business to take advantage of the offer

5. Door hangers can also be used to deliver free product samples. This can be a very effective tool to get people to use a new product

Door hanging campaigns are usually very inexpensive ways to get your business name in front of the public. High school kids can provide the labor, and a lot of territory can be covered in a very short amount of time. Door hangers gives you two surfaces to put information and graphics on, so being able to get a lot of information in front of a potential customer is easily accomplished.

Check out the next door hanger you get and see if you get any ideas on how a door hanging campaign could benefit your business. Whether you’re selling a product or a service, being able to attract a local customer base with an inexpensive door hanging campaign will certainly do great things for your bottom line.

When it comes time to find ways to market your products and services, there are literally thousands of things you can do. Unfortunately, it seems like it costs more money to promote your business than you can recover from the advertising. However, there are several inexpensive marketing ideas you can use that really work. Here are a few for you:

1. One key is to make sure people see your name in as many places as possible. Sponsoring sports events on banners will be seen by hundreds of people during the event
2. Buying space on local restaurant table tents and menus will put your name in front of people every day

1. One way to put the business name in front of people is by putting flyers on windshields in grocery store parking lots
2. Hire some high school kids and hang door hangers with your business name on it. This is very successful if you offer a discount or free product.
3. Having inexpensive giveaways like pens and pencils with the business name and logo on it or Post-it notes and fridge magnets are always good to draw people
4. When you go anywhere, make sure you leave business cards somewhere people will see them. If you use the business card promos you see all over the web, that is definitely one of the most inexpensive marketing ideas.
5. Buy ad space in high school sports programs and annuals if they sell it. This reaches people for years.
6. Use Craigslist to advertise indirectly on. If you offer something for sale and use it to reference your business, it’ll be seen by hundreds, or even thousands, of people

There are lots more tips and tricks out there for inexpensive marketing ideas for your business. While there may be a little money involved in some of them, there are quite a few that are totally free.  Marketing your business doesn’t have to cost a lot, and the return on the investment can be huge.

Powerful presentations are vital to gain visibility for your company, prospect for new customers, and sell your products or services.  Read our tips for powerful presentations to make your delivery successful. Regardless of the structure involved, there are rules you can follow to make sure your presentations reach out and grab your audiences effectively.

Verbal presentations can be one of the most frightening aspects of your job (more so than being bitten by a dog or flying in an airplane, research shows). We hope to help relieve some of that fear and stress by providing you with these useful tips and ideas you can use for your next presentation:

1.   Appear confident in front of your audience; stand erect but relaxed.
2.   Speak so everyone can comfortably hear you, making sure to modulate your voice naturally.
3.   Speak at an appropriate pace for your material—neither too quickly (you’ll lose your audience) nor too slowly (you’ll put them to sleep).
4.   Use visual aids, overheads, or a software program like PowerPoint® to help keep your audience’s interest alive.
5.   Make frequent eye contact with your audience. Think of your presentation as a series of brief, one-on-one conversations with individuals. This keeps you from talking at your audience.
6.   Use a tone of voice that projects authority. Be enthusiastic in your delivery, and speak with belief in your message.
7.   Keep your presentation as brief and simple as possible.
8.   End your presentation with a clear message reiterating the most important points that you want them to remember.
9.   Engage your audience shaking hands with them either before or after your presentation.