It's hard to believe that something as simple as color can let an audience know what a product is all about. Each color and shape has an underlying tone that lets the consumer know what to think when it is viewed. It may seem insignificant, but a color is an important extension of a brand's image.

So why does color matter to consumers? The simplest answer is past experience. For example, the color red is used to express feelings of excitement and passion, such as red roses expressing love. When people see red they get excited and are drawn to it. Red is considered a "power color" because it symbolizes extreme emotions. Businesses can use colors to communicate with their target and emphasize a certain aspect of a logo or ad. Color can also give a visual cue to the consumer so they know what to look for in an ad. These factors make color a very important decision in the advertising process.

We now know that choosing a color is a very important decision, but the decision can't be made without knowing what these colors mean. David Johnson's article titled "Color Psychology" describes the use of colors and the meaning behind them.

• Black is used as a color of power or authority. It is also used as a color of submission, such as priests wearing black to show submission to God.

• White is used to symbolize innocence and purity. The most common example is brides wearing white to their weddings or doctors wearing white to symbolize sterility.

• I already discussed the use of red as a color that garners attention.

• Blue colors imply peace and tranquility. Studies have shown people to be more productive in blue rooms because is releases calming chemicals in the body.

• The color green is one of the most popular and easiest on the eyes. It symbolizes nature and is often used to help people relax. During the NFL Draft, the top college football players sit in the "green room" to help them relax before their name is called. The use of green is designed to help calm their nerves.

• Yellow colors attract a lot of attention. It is the most difficult color to take in but it can enhance concentration on a particular object or symbol.

• Purple is a color of royalty, wealth and luxury.

• Brown is seen as a solid, reliable color. Men are more attracted to brown than women.

Now that we know what each color symbolizes, how do we use them? Let’s say you just started a company and want to seem really high energy and dynamic. The best color to use would be red because it embodies the image you are trying to portray. How about an older company with very loyal customers? This type of business would want to use green because it displays the business as trustworthy and traditional. Finally, we'll use the example of a creative company that wants to stand out look different. Purple should be utilized because it shows you as individualized and original, not likely to blend in.

All of this information can be used to enhance your presence in the market and effectively communicate your message to the audience. Simple colors can make your ads and logos stand out and increase your chances of awareness and recognition. Use color to its full advantage and have it speak to what your company is all about. Maximize your message by coloring it in.

“99% of advertising doesn’t sell a thing.”

Sounds like something a local real estate agent might say after paying for yet another ad that didn’t produce, right?

You might be surprised to learn that the quote actually belongs to David Ogilvy, legendary founder of one of the world’s largest and most successful advertising agencies.

Yikes – if a man regarded as a giant in the ad industry is so negative about advertising’s success rate, how should you feel?

The Bad News is the Good News…

There is an upside here. If so much of the advertising in your local market is ineffective, you can gain a significant edge on your competition by having a better local advertising strategy than other agents.

Advertising vs. Advertising Strategy

Notice that I said a better advertising STRATEGY, not simply better advertising. There’s a big difference.

A better ad might get you a few more leads in the short term. A better advertising strategy can help you to have a consistent, meaningful message in your advertising, and will position you to get more business from your local market on an ongoing basis.

With that in mind, here are three tips to help you define your advertising strategy, and put it into action:

1) Have a Strategic Objective In Mind BEFORE you Advertise

Advertising for the sake of “building awareness” is probably the fastest way to flush your advertising dollars away.

Before you even think about buying an ad, you must have a strategic objective in mind – after all, why should you pay for any type of ad unless it helps you to reach your objective.

Here are just a few questions that you might ask yourself before placing an ad to help define what you want your advertising strategy to do for you:

- If I could be known for just one thing in my local market, what would it be?
- Which part of the local real estate market is not currently well serviced by other agents? Is there potential in this neighborhood/age group/demographic profile?
- Which part of the local market is emerging and might be a driving force for sales in future years?
- What’s changing in my market right now – immigration, aging population, young families moving in, etc – and how do I capitalize on the change more effectively than my competitors?

If you can answer even some of these questions, you will probably be on your way to identifying the basis for an advertising strategy.

For example, you may determine that based on trends and current prices, your market will become increasingly popular with first time homebuyers. As a result, your strategic objective may be to use your advertising to become recognized as the local expert in serving first time homebuyers.

2) Have a Specific Objective for Each Ad you Place within your Strategy

With a clear objective as part of your advertising strategy, you can now think about investing in ads that support your objective.

Here’s a tip - you can create advertising that generates an immediate response while also serving to build your brand in a particular market.

Continuing with the above example, if you ran a series of ads in the local newspaper offering a free “First-Time Homebuyers Report” available from your website, you would actually be running a direct response ad (aimed at getting people to download the report) that also delivered a brand building message (the message being that you are the agent for first time homebuyers to call because you are the expert in that field).

You can measure the success of the ad by looking at the number of downloads from your site while the ad was running – since generating downloads was the specific objective of the ad. If the ads don’t generate enough downloads to justify the cost, pull them or change them. Ads are only valuable if they get you closer to achieving your strategic objective.

3) Be Consistent

All of your advertising (online, print, directory, flyers, etc) should be similar in both style and substance within your advertising strategy.

Yes, a consistent look and style for your ads is important to help you get recognized in a competitive market.

But even more important is being consistent when it comes to the messages in your ads. You can’t buy a Yellow Pages ad that promotes you as the leader in client service, and then advertise your “low low price” in the local newspaper, and then distribute flyers that try to promote you as the family real estate expert.

Your messages can’t conflict! Again, here’s where an advertising strategy comes in. With a strategic objective in mind for your advertising, you will be able to focus your advertising dollars on communicating a single, clear message to potential clients about why they should call you.

An Advertising Strategy is Critical to your Success

If Mr. Ogilvy was right, then most of the advertisers out there in your real estate market are getting it wrong. This creates a huge opportunity for you to use an advertising strategy to drive business and outdo your competitors.

- Have a Strategic Objective for all of your Advertising - Know what you want to say about your business, and who you want to say it to within your local market.
- Have an Objective for Each Ad – Measure each ad’s results against the strategic objective you are trying to achieve - if you don’t, how will you know if the ads were successful or not?
- Be Consistent – Make sure all of your ads are focused on helping you reach your strategic objective by communicating a clear message to the market.

Advertising can be a tough game, but so can real estate. And in both cases, those with a well thought out strategy will almost always succeed over those that don’t have a plan.

Stiff competition in the market is very much observed. Everybody is vying for a position that will make their business recognized in the market. Different strategies and advertising propaganda are used in order to grab customer’s attention.

However, not all businesses are able to fairly compete because printing jobs are quite expensive and costly. The budget they have for the printing job is just enough to produce the material they need.

Moreover the innovations in the printing technology had paved to provide quality prints at a very reasonable price. Cheap printing was provided in order to meet the demands and desired need of every business.

Basically with the services that online printing company provides there are several ways on how cheap printing can be availed:

Wholesale printing – this is a print job open for everybody. Purchasing your materials in wholesale will help to lessen the printing prices. This is because your printing jobs are done on a single print run yet producing large number of prints. With wholesale printing job the quality of the material is not sacrificed yet are developed with compelling prints just right for your campaign and advertising.

Bulk printing – this is also a print job that works print your material with large volume. Same as wholesale printing jobs, bulk printing also works to print and deliver quality prints that will satisfy customers need.

This is referred as cheap printing because the materials and inks are economically used and maximizing the inks used. The materials produced in this process simply offer cheap printing jobs yet attaining the quality the material it must have.

Discount printing jobs – one of the strategies offered by commercial printers is providing discounted print jobs. This is also ideal if you have a limited budget for your printing jobs. You can achieve the quality that you want for your material while not worrying of your budget.

However in rendering for discount services see to it that they can really give the quality that you need. This is because discount printing does not totally call for sacrificing the quality of your materials.

With the above mentioned ways of achieving quality prints through cheap printing there is no way to reason out that you were not able to get the quality that you need. With the tight competition foreseen in the market it is a must to comply with client’s expectations by handing out quality prints.

Sequentially, the achievement of success relies on how effective you were in introducing your business in the market. Whether you had undergone cheap printing jobs or an expensive one what matters is – you were able to provide your client’s with the quality prints.

Mostly, we often encounter many promotional materials on our way. They are either distributed by the hand or delivered via mail. This advertising materials like the postcards and business cards are said to be businesses frontline of their service. It is a simple way of expanding their company without the need to talk personally with their clients or do a house to house campaign.

Moreover, we too can never deny the fact that online services had helped us much with our daily lives. For, we can immediately get what we want without any hassles. Like for instance if we are after printing our own business cards and postcards we could easily get the specs that we want by simply browsing the net and rendering online services.

In terms of purchasing or ordering the materials there are ways on how to achieve printing quotes online.

1. Through the assistance of customer service representatives – most representatives of a commercial printer are well trained to provide you with features that you can have for your material. After you have rendered your services online this customer service will be friend you and give you several pointers on how to easily deal with your print jobs. They could also explain briefly the printing costs that you will need upon the duration of the printing.

•Upon talking and gathering great ideas from the customer service they will hand you out a printing quote. This quote contains all the specific details that you need for your printing jobs.

•In addition with the submission of your quotes your customer representative will check on it to see whether you were able to provide the details. Soon as your quotes were completed your project will now then be processed.

2. Getting quotes online – this is the most practical way of acquiring printing quotes. With just a click of your mouse you could easily get your printing specs and acquire the printing cost of your print jobs.

•Mostly online printing companies do have the product order pages. This page has an instant pricing feature that will give you a price quote on the product after you had made the selections.

•With the printing quotes online you are free to choose what specs you would want to apply for your materials. Through the printing quote you are able to specify the following:

1. Quantity

2. Color

3. Size

4. Stock and

5. Add notes

With what we get through online services is really very advantageous in our part. We need not to spend more time looking for a local print shop rather with just a click of a mouse there you get what you want.

Moreover, with the lots online printing services providing printing quotes online go for the ones that can give what you are asking of.

Getting celebrity testimonials or endorsements is an effective way to boost sales, add publicity and credibility to your book, and attract attention from booksellers and libraries. As a small press author, I don’t think I would have any trouble getting reviews from Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly or Library Journal if printed on the front cover of my vampire novel were a testimonial by Anne Rice. Yeah, I know… dare to dream. Well, I actually checked on her website for her contact info, and although there’s a way to get in touch with her (that’s not to say she’ll answer my message), she makes it plainly clear that she won’t read other author’s manuscripts. With famous authors, this seems to be the rule.

Mid-level authors with big publishers have more luck because the publishers themselves (or at least their publicists) take care of this job. But how can small press authors get testimonials from celebrities when it’s so difficult to make contact, and when celebrities are too busy to read other’s works?

One way is through conferences and associations. By attending conferences in your book’s genre, you’re able to make connections and meet other authors, including famous ones. Even if you don’t meet famous ones, you might meet people who actually know them and could put a word for you. If you’re shy to socialize, just pretend you’re not yourself for the duration of the conference. This might sound silly, but the other day I read an interview where they asked the successful CEO of a famous company what her secret was, and she said, “I just pretend I’m Jennifer Lopez.”

Another way to get testimonials is by doing a search on the internet. Just type: “celebrity contacts.” Remember many celebrities have websites with their contact info.

You may also check www.ContactAnyCelebrity.com. This is a database with over 54,000 celebrities. Remember to choose people who are recognizable in your field.

Another resource is www.ParaPublishing.com (Doc. 609).

I’d recommend first querying before actually sending an ARC or draft of your book. Making contact by snail mail is more effective because of the problems with spam, though follow-up emails are fine.

When querying, remember the following:

* Make it easy for the celebrity to answer you. Always include a S.A.SE.
* Send a personal letter explaining what the book is about. Include all relevant information about the book—publisher, ISBN, publication date, etc.
* If you already have reviews or other endorsements (even by unknown authors), include them. Also mention any awards won.
* The more personal, the better. A handwritten post-it or note will get attention.
* Tell the celebrity how much you admire their work, and how honoured you’d feel if he or she gave you a testimonial. Many celebrities will feel flattered.
* Remind the celebrity how giving you a testimonial would actually give him or her free publicity.

If you haven’t heard from the person in two weeks, send a follow up letter. If he declines to read your book, thank him anyway. He might not read your book now, but he might do it next time. Once he agrees to look at your book, send him an ARC or draft. Some writers include an easy-to-fill out form to make it easy for the celebrity. Of course, never forget the S.A.S.E. If you don’t hear from him in three weeks, send a follow-up letter. The secret is to be persistent, but always polite.

And remember, you’ll never know the possibilities until you try!