Clayton Kendall

How to Attract New Customers with Promotional Products

admin — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:26:42 +0000

You love your customers, right? The repeat clients who come back time and time again for your products and services are your bread and butter. No matter how steady they are however, as a business owner, you should never overlook the power of attracting new customers. Of course everyone wants new clients and more business but acquiring new customers can be a bit tricky. If you haven’t tried it yet, use promotional products to attract newbies and expand your business even more. The only way anyone will remember your business is if they repeatedly see your name. Customers are fickle and for every business there’s a replacement business just waiting to take over. Keep your name in front of customers on a regular basis to ensure they won’t forget about you. This is especially true for businesses that rely greatly on referrals. If customers forget about your business, they won’t be able to pass along your name. While marketing may not be in your budget or on your business plan, promotional products should be. These products take the place of newspaper and television advertising and offer businesses an inexpensive way to circulate their name. The more useful the promotional item, the better. A teddy bear may look adorable when it’s wearing a t-shirt with your business name splashed across it, but CEOs aren’t carrying this teddy bear around with them as they walk the streets of New York City. Promotional products need to be used over and over again in a public manner. That’s why pens, key chains and coffee mugs make excellent promotional items. People use these items in front of other professional people and consumers. Nobody can go even one day without needing a pen. Everyone carries around a set of keys. Most people pour a cup of coffee at the office before sitting down at their desks. Tote bags are one of the best promotional items because your business name will be face first and available for immense viewing. Promotional products should be simple, straightforward and never time sensitive. The difference between a promotional item and an ad is that the promotional item never gets old. As long as your business is still up and running, your business name, telephone number and website address will be too. Never push a specific date or event on the promotional item. When the event is over or the product sells out, you don’t want to have to order all new promotional items. Naturally, your business name and logo should be the biggest thing on the item. Your phone number and website should be prominent as well. The print should always be proportionate to the item; the larger the item, the larger the print. If you have an oversized tote bag with your website address in tiny font, nobody will be visiting your site later that day. The pull of promotional items boils down to a very simple concept: people love getting free things. Any item is valuable if the consumer didn’t have to pay for it. This is especially true for items that everyone deems as a necessity. We all need a calendar for our office, a mouse pad for our computer desk, a t-shirt to wear to the gym, a calculator, a water bottle, etc. Since customers are going to be spending money on these items, it’s always nice to get them for free. When you give something to someone that they need and you don’t charge for it, that person will immediately think of you in a good light. This attraction is integral for pulling in more customers. Samuel Mautz is a marketing blogger with a particular interest in acquiring and maintaining consumer trust. He also thinks using free products like personalised t shirts can be a great way to get potential customers to think of you first when they need your product or service.

Promotional Products Programs

admin — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 15:00:02 +0000

Implementing a promotional program for your business can sometimes seem like an overwhelming task. There are hundreds of thousands of products from which to choose, and you may find yourself feeling a little lost in the mix. Choosing the right promotional products for your business is essential, and at Clayton Kendall, we have something for everyone. No matter the size of your business, we are more than prepared to handle any and all of your promotional item needs.

There are many people who may originally be of the opinion that developing a promotional program for their business is “just” one thing or another. For example, the idea to start a program may have originally come from a need for printing services. But once you have seen what Clayton Kendall has to offer, your imagination may very well take off and you will soon be coming up with hundreds of ways in which to use promotional products in your business.

Partnering with Clayton Kendall will give you the expertise you are looking for in order to form your promotional program as well as to organize both your products and printed materials. In order to ensure that your program is effective, you need products that not only fit your business, but that also fit the situations in which you or your employees find yourself. If you attend trade shows often, you will want something more than just business cards to give away. You may also need brochures or small items to give away such as water bottles, stress balls, or one of the thousands of other items we provide.

When gift giving season comes around, you have access to a wide inventory of promotional products to incorporate into gift baskets or to make the focal point of your gifts to both employees and clients. Recognizing an employee’s achievements has never been easier and retirement gifts are a breeze once you have a promotional product program in place for your business.

At Clayton Kendall, we are also able to fulfill all your apparel and uniform needs, keeping you and your employees not only in uniforms that stand out, but that are of high quality to last you for years to come. The options available for you to customize with your business logo ensure that no matter what industry you’re in, we have just the apparel or uniform that you need to stand out.

A promotional program for your business does not just have to be printed materials, nor does it have to be only promotional products. The beauty of working with Clayton Kendall is that we provide it all – and then some. Partnering with us is a guarantee that your needs will be met with the utmost of professionalism, expertise, and quality.

Trade Show Guide

admin — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 19:52:05 +0000

If you’re exhibiting in a trade show, home show, or any type of public display, you’ve likely thought about having some promotional products on hand. There are lots of reasons this is a smart thing to do as an exhibitor, so let’s go over them.

1. Attracting an Audience

People are funny and fickle. They’re smart and independent, but when you put them in a group, they largely become sheep. When potential customers of your business come walking by your booth, if they see no one talking to you, they’re less likely to stop unless they’re immediately in the market. What’s interesting is when your booth attracts a small crowd, more and more people will stop and listen.

People are afraid of salespeople. It’s not the people, per se; it’s the high pressure that makes people uncomfortable. The more people watching the presentation, the less opportunity for a salesperson to lock on and put pressure on any single individual. It’s much more comfortable to stand with others.

If there’s a crowd, there must be a reason for people to be standing there. We’re all a bit curious about what’s so alluring at the booth, so we gather around to check it out ourselves. Giving away candy is a sure way to get people to your booth, but they always take the candy and run. That’s where promotional products come in – they’re more expensive than candy, but that works to their advantage. People are more likely to stop and ask permission to take, and less likely to take a promotional product and run. That gives you time to talk, which attracts an audience of others wanting to listen to what you have to say.

2. Living with Your Brand

On average, a customer will have encountered your brand seven times before their purchase. For the hundreds or thousands of people you need to buy your product to encounter your brand seven times, you have to spend a LOT of money on advertising. Send your trade show attendees home with something useful or beautiful that makes them want to keep it around, and they’ll encounter your brand daily!

Don’t get me wrong – you likely won’t see a sales spike from your promotional products sitting around in peoples’ homes. But you will see the effectiveness of your other marketing increase as people live with your brand on a daily basis.

3. Image of Winning

In sales, appearance means a lot. We’re more likely to do business with a company we perceive as successful, than one that is failing or run by chintzy, fat-cat executives. It’s all about the perception. For that reason, having cooler or more interesting promotional products will get you noticed and draw visitors to your booth, while seamlessly branding yourself in the homes and offices of those who take these products. Plus you get the added benefit of looking like a company which is on top of its game. Your company, through the use of promotional products with high perceived value and low cost, can be perceived as the successful company that everyone should be doing business with!

Make sure your booth matches the message you’re putting out there. Get a nice quality fabric backdrop, branded with your company. Make sure you and your sales staff are dressed nicely and appear friendly and easy to talk to. Have an interesting product/demo out to get attention. Look the part, and your promotional products will augment your strategy.

So there you have it – 3 reasons why promotional products augment your presence as an exhibitor at any show. Use these items for the most successful presence at a trade show. Also, I’d love to hear your experiences with promotional items at shows in the comments, as well!

About the Author: AJ Wilcox is a marketing director with considerable experience as a trade show exhibitor for a Utah home automation company. He loves exotic cars, running, and teaching keys to success that he’s learned over the years.

CK Holiday Party

admin — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 20:12:19 +0000

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

admin — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:23:10 +0000

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

admin — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 19:09:11 +0000

“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

admin — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 13:53:03 +0000

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

admin — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 13:04:43 +0000

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 shows authority 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

admin — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:47:14 +0000

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

admin — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 13:20:32 +0000

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 target audience 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.