CK Holiday Party

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The day began with a host of assorted breakfast foods prepared by members of the CK team including Regina Broudy (CK President), Linda Bair, Kari Wisniewski , Susan Nellis & Leah Broudy.

Employees enjoyed French toast, breakfast sausage, quiche & more!

Plus, a special treat; a chocolate fountain for dipping strawberries, marshmallows, crème puffs and pretzels!

It was a big hit!

A bird’s eye view of the lunch table before the Christmas feast!

A box of chocolates awaited each employee at the lunch table.

And…lunch is served!

A spectacular Christmas feast courtesy Olive Garden. It was fantastic!

Employees eating and socializing.

Kathy and Christina enjoyed chatting and eating together.

Then there was desert!

After lunch, employees received Wine Chillers as gifts from the company!

Holiday Gifts for Clients

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The holidays are a great opportunity for time spent with family and friends. Time to get gifts for the special people in your life so they know just how important to you they are. In all the holiday shopping rush and in the scramble to find those perfect gifts, though, it is important that you do not forget your clients. You may or may not be surprised to find that clients love receiving gifts during the holidays. Of course, everyone does, but taking the time to remember your clients during the holiday season is a great way to build up that relationship and to keep that relationship growing over time.

This is not a mandatory practice, of course, and if it were, it wouldn’t be the act of “giving” a gift. However, this is one of those things where it is good form, particularly if you want your clients to remember you during the holiday season and to end the year on a good note. Neither do the gifts have to be over the top or extravagant in any way. If you go with something too ostentatious, you might end up with a client thinking that you are trying to win them over through material displays.

When giving gifts during the holiday season, particularly to clients, it’s a good idea to give a gift that has been customized with your brand logo. Something like the Elleven Jr. Zippered Padfolio is a great gift idea that could include your business logo. The padfolio is a great gift that’s both useful, but very stylish and perfect for those tech-forward clients who have the latest in gadgetry.

If you’re looking to stay away from “business” gifts, though, you can always use something that integrates a little more fun and still incorporates your brand logo. Take, for example the Belgio Insulated Single Wine Tote. Insulated and with storage pockets on the outside, you can slip a card and a bottle of wine into this tote and your gift giving is complete.

There are a wide variety of options when it comes to holiday gift giving for your clients, and you can make them as personal as you want. You can get an individual gift for each client, or get one gift that will suit them all. No matter what you choose, keep in mind that remembering your clients over the holiday will keep them thinking of your business well into the new year.

Dan Broudy in Counselor Magazine

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“When you have an online commerce website, SEO is extremely important. You have to stay current.”

Dan Broudy is exactly right when it comes to SEO. Ensuring that a website shows up in the top 10 to 20 results on a search engine involves a good bit of SEO work. However, there are a number of ways in which a company can go about it.Improving a company’s presence overall int he online world is a great method. Companies such as Norwood have established themselves in a number of social media circles in order to get their name out there and in front of people’s eyes. Particularly notable is the company’s YouTube channel, which features videos on everything from product demos to informative Q&A videos.What Dan Broudy at Clayton Kendall is most proud of, though, is the use of content to steadily and consistently improve page rank. “We try to write a new blog three times a week. … It’s important that we provide unique content and link with other relevant websites.”This is a very solid point within the world of SEO. Providing content that is not only unique, but is also informative and actionable is valuable beyond measure. Giving people information they need and can use will keep them coming back to a website. Linking with other relevant websites also increases status within a particular industry and can establish a company as an industry expert, particularly because backlinking goes both ways.

One of the most important parts of staying on top of SEO trends, as stated by Broudy, is ongoing education and training. “I’ve researched best practices, gone to seminars and picked up what I could. Google always keeps you guessing.” In today’s world, this has never been more true. With things changing almost by the minute, continuing education is the cornerstone of staying on top of the leading SEO practices and keeping a company’s page rank at or near the top.

rushIMPRINT Sponsors Halloween

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Hospital stays are never fun, but possibly even more so when you are young. Being in an unfamiliar environment away from friends and most of their family is unsettling enough. Add in needles and IV bags, unfamiliar faces and possibly frightening diagnoses, and the hospital can seem like a scary place to be. But for a special group of children this year, Halloween got a little bit brighter.

On Thursday, October 13, 2011, the kids staying in the Pediatric Ward of the Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo received a wonderful Halloween treat. The children were each given pumpkins and paints to decorate their pumpkins with, and were treated to a wide variety of characters in costume to help them through. Members of the Insurance Women of Buffalo, along with family and friends, donned costumes and volunteered to help out to make the event a grand success. The event provided a very welcome reprieve for the children from their usual day to day schedules in the hospital and was greatly enjoyed by everyone involved.

The Insurance Women of Buffalo coordinated this Halloween event for the children, which was made possible through. Among them was rushIMPRINT, donating 100 trick or treat goodie bags for each of the children.

The Insurance Women of Buffalo is a chapter of the National Association of Insurance Women. The association is dedicated to providing women in the insurance industry – from insurance underwriters to agents, risk managers, and others – with professional education in order to assist them with furthering their careers now and in the future. Putting on events for the Pediatric Ward of the Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo is just one of many charitable causes in which the chapter participates.

rushIMPRINT is proud to have been able to work with the Insurance Women of Buffalo and is honored to have been asked to donate such a good cause.

The Importance of a Website

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Having a website is no longer an option in today’s technology laden world. In fact, it has gone from optional to being an absolute necessity. Not only are you establishing yourself online, you are also opening up a whole new market. Creating a web presence does not have to be as intimidating as it may sound if you aren’t familiar with building websites. It can be incredibly simple, and does not cost much at all, now that options for web hosting have become more common and less expensive.

What benefits, exactly, come from creating a web presence for your business? A website puts you on the map, digitally speaking. When someone conducts a search for your business, or even businesses like yours, on the internet, you will show up. And instead of showing up because of a listing in the Super Pages, and not having a website? These prospective customers will find a website that showcases what your business has to offer.Making a web presence for yourself also <a href=”http://smallbiztrends.com/2011/08/5-benefits-smb-website.html”>shows authority</a> to prospective customers. You’ll be showing your customers that your business is one that stands apart from the competition with dedicated web presence. It gives your customers somewhere to turn when they have questions and tells them where they can go to get the answers. Which, of course, would be to you and your business.A website also offers you the chance to have a platform. Do you have information that you need to get out to your customers? You can get the word out to them through your website. You can even have people sign up for e-mail lists and send off newsletters, which are helpful to keep your company in the forefront of your customers’ minds.It does not matter whether your business consists of just you and your dog, or if it’s you and a group of your closest friends. Your small business needs a web presence. It will help to set you apart and lend you an extra bit of professionalism. And it will become the best, most economically efficient, marketing tool you have working for you.

Creating the Brand Logo

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Choosing one image to reflect your business may seem like a daunting task. You are essentially boiling down everything about your business – from the services you offer to the core values your business believes in – into one image, and perhaps a tag line. Talk about a task of massive proportions. Once you have chosen that one particular image and made it specific to your business, then your task becomes maintaining that image.
What is a brand logo? A brand logo is that one particular image that will represent your business. Think about some of the most well known businesses, and one of the first things that comes to mind will most likely be that business’s logo. The brand logo you choose for your business will serve a multitude of purposes, from reflecting your business philosophy to representing your business when you aren’t able to write down a brief explanation of your business.

When you sit down to choose your brand logo, know what you want to convey through that logo. This can often end up in a list of wide proportions, but try to keep it to a top ten if you feel yourself getting overwhelmed. You want to be clear on your business philosophy and how you go about business, particularly if that is something important you want to come across in your logo. For example, if you are running a green business, you’ll want to incorporate that into the logo somehow.

Everything from the image to the colors you use may in the end be dictated by two very important factors: your industry and your target audience. Do not hesitate to research your competition. Find out what they are using as their logos and see how you can create a brand logo that is going to set you apart from the rest while still reflecting your business’s industry.This will also help with identifying your target audience, because you want an image that they will relate to and colors to which they are more receptive.

Once you have that brand logo chosen, hold on to it for dear life. This isn’t to say you can’t adjust the brand logo later on down the road. There are many businesses who have undergone rebranding in the last few years. What you will notice, though, is that while their brand logo may have gotten a face lift and been updated, it didn’t change drastically. That is the main point. Once you have crafted the brand logo that best reflects your company, consistent exposure over time will make that logo an automatic association both to your public and within your industry. And if you’ve created a strong brand to go along with the logo, that is exactly the desired effect.

Building a Brand Image for Your Small Business

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Image is everything, and this is especially true for small businesses. Creating a public face for your business, then associating a logo with that face, is known as branding. The brand image that you build should not simply reflect ideals to which you aspire. Rather, it should reflect your business from the inside out. How does one go about building a brand image for a small business?

Know What You Want to Say
Building a brand image is a big priority for small businesses. It’s what will help you stand out from the competition. Branding is all about what you want to say to the public, which should be something you have clearly thought out. This is not to say if you have been in business for years that you can’t create a brand image or even re-brand your business. By all means, feel free. Before you get into choosing a witty tagline or a slick image, though, you should think about what you want to say. Here are some questions to get you started:What are the core values of your business?
What message are you trying to convey?
What are the main values or feelings you want people to associate with your business?You can, of course, jump off from here into longer lists, but these questions really get at the heart of what branding is all about. The brand image that you choose for your business should reflect your business philosophy.

Know Your Audience

Images are incredibly powerful. They are also always interpreted and many times misinterpreted. Ensure that when you choose a logo and even a tagline that you are choosing an image and words with which your <a href=”http://oneims.com/blog/2011/06/22/creating-a-powerful-brand-image/”>target audience</a> is going to easily relate and identify. In the most simplistic of examples, you wouldn’t use a skateboard to brand your business if your target audience is comprised of elderly folks. Knowing your target audience may also determine the colors that you choose.

Consistency is Key

Once you have chosen a brand logo, you want to maintain that logo. Coca-Cola hasn’t gotten anywhere by changing their image and branding every few months or even every few years. Everyone recognizes the Coca-Cola logo, because it hasn’t changed over the years. Even major tech companies like Microsoft, Apple, and Intel have maintained their brand images even when rebranding made them update the image just a bit.

Your small business’s brand image should reflect your business, both philosophy and target audience, all at once. It also needs to remain consistent in order for people to build up strong associations with that particular image or tagline. Which is why it is so important to take time to really think about what you are trying to convey before choosing images. Once you have that, you’ll be able to create a solid brand image to represent your small business.

Uniforms as A Marketing Tool

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When operating a business that heavily interacts with the public, it’s important to understand that your business, and the brand you craft to represent that business, is represented in a variety of ways. Of course, there are the advertisements that are put out about the brand, and these are carefully crafted in order to achieve sales and attract new customers or clients. However, your brand is represented through more than just advertisements; and if you have a uniform policy, the uniforms your employees wear can actually be your biggest marketing tool.

Especially if you are in an industry where your employees are interacting with customers and clients on a regular basis, a uniform is not only a possible advertising tool – it is a necessity. Having a dress code ensures that your company’s brand is presenting its best face to the public at all times. Purchasing uniforms for your employees takes it one step further. Not only are they then dressed to appropriately represent your brand, they are also wearing your logo. This will ensure that your employees are easily recognized and readily remembered later on, particularly when current clients are looking to make another purchase or when they are making recommendations to their colleagues.If you’re still not sure, <a href=”http://www.bizreport.com/2011/03/staff-uniforms-trump-internet-as-marketing-tool.html”>the numbers back up these claims</a>. Over three quarters of people surveyed in about 14 industries state that uniforms perform noticeably better than traditional forms of advertising such as radio, television, and the newspaper. When it comes to competing with internet advertising, the numbers are still very positive, with approximately 51% in favor of uniform effectiveness.

Uniform policies and preferences vary, and are largely dependent on the type of work your employees will be doing. You may decide to keep it simple and ask your employees to wear a polo shirt with the brand logo on it. Or you may prefer that your employees wear button-down dress shirts with the logo. You can also get jackets, which are great for colder weather, when your employees will need an extra layer on top of a shirt.

No matter what you decide on, the image you are presenting to the public has a huge impact on your marketing. It simply makes sense to take advantage of the opportunity uniforms present for both marketing and public company image.

Preparing for Fall Promos

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Crisp fall air brings to mind tail gating parties and cozy nights next to a crackling wood fire. Fall promotional gifts are a reflection of the season, and they may be used throughout winter months too. Warming autumn products, imprinted with a company logo or slogan, can leave a lasting positive impression for many years to come.

The choice of imprinted fall items is enormous, leaving lots of room for imagination. Fleece items are always a good selection, providing both warmth and premium visibility. It is a sure bet that hoodies, jackets, vests and other fleece promotional items will be most often worn outdoors where the imprint will be noticed and remembered.A fleece stadium blanketcan make a unique promo gift that is sports-minded and useful in colder months. Warming gifts like that start to make more and more sense as autumn approaches. It isn’t hard to imagine the recipient cuddled up for warmth under an imprinted fleece blanket. As the weather turns colder, the blanket becomes a cherished item, and a constant reminder of the thoughtfulness of the imprinted company.Knit caps also make great fall promo giveaways. Whether embroidered or screen-printed, knit caps are a one-size-fits-all item that everyone loves. Emblazoned with a company logo, knitted caps can last for several seasons, and be worn multiple times for huge marketing impact.

Keep in mind, the idea behind fall promos is to consider the seasonal needs of recipients. Fall is a time for afternoon football games, long walks in the park, and bonfire weenie roasts. It’s an active time with lots of social interaction. The right promotional items will enhance the enjoyment of autumn’s special appeal, and provide lasting branding power throughout the ensuing colder months.

For more ideas on fall-related promo products, consult with the marketing specialists at Clayton Kendall Promotional Marketing.

What Promo Products Can Do for Your Brand

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The mark of a successful company is its brand. Consumers will remember companies by the way they have been branded, and that goes for both good and bad impressions. Smart companies know that imprinted promotional products can create strong brand recognition that sticks indefinitely in the minds of consumers.
Any business can develop a company persona, and promote their brand with imprinted items. The trick is to match the promotional theme to the company’s niche. For example, a business that sells running shoes might select promotional apparel items that promote the outdoor lifestyle. Items like imprinted sunglasses, caps and hats, or hooded jackets would make a good reminder of a company that loves sports.
Another sporty angle is imprinted gifts for golfers. The variety of golf related items is virtually endless, including handy divot tools, golf balls and tees, binoculars, golf bags, shirts, hats and many more. It’s easy to imprint just the right golf products to develop positive brand awareness, and create a lasting impression of a company that champions the sporting lifestyle.
Promotional products can also reflect a company’s humanity. For example, items can be imprinted with a pink ribbon to express solidarity in the fight against breast cancer, or a red ribbon for the fight against AIDS, and so on. There is even a foam stress ball keychain in a ribbon shape that comes in multiple color formats to correspond with any healthcare concern.

Another good branding angle is to go “green.” A company can develop an image of global consciousness by gifting recycled, bio-degradable, and eco-friendly promo items. Reusable items, like imprinted shopping totes, water bottles and coffee mugs, are good examples. To further increase green branding awareness, choose items that bear the universal sign for recycling.

Any company can reinforce its brand with imprinted promotional products. It just takes some imagination and thought. Look to the experts at Clayton Kendall Promotional Marketing for more branding ideas.