We recently created their easy-to-use website which includes a user-friendly reservation form listing all the islands they fly to and from.

And, their statement, “We love what we do,” truly sums up their passion about their charter operation.

After several meetings and discussions we came up with a visual that would “marry” their high-end charter aircraft with the purity of their vision and customer service.

The Team page gives insight into each staff member and their devotion to a job well done while at the same time providing a level of comfort required when chartering an aircraft with people you may not have met yet.

When you look at a company’s website or a single print ad, at least one of these techniques should be present. If not, you can be certain of two things: 1) That company isn’t getting return on investment on their marketing spend. 2) The CEO and CFO are not happy.

These principals hold true whether you do business-to-business, or business-to-consumer, regardless of the size of your marketing budget.

To improve your marketing, you need to gain certain levels of understanding:

1) Isolate the sales moment.
Without question, every company needs to have one of these campaign types. Even when not doing major advertising, these techniques are necessary on the website, brochure, or direct mail piece, due to how people intake and remember information. Remember, these campaigns provide a handle for your company. But what campaign to use and what should it be based on? The ownable sales moment is one your competitors can’t easily steal, and one that your customers want, and one you can deliver. This is what you want to build your campaign on. Then, clearly and  memorably tell that story.

2) When to change your campaign.

You change your advertising campaign only when the current one isn’t growing sales to achieve established goals. If your advertising is not working, change it. If your sales are no longer growing, change it.

However, don’t keep throwing things against the wall, waiting for something to stick. Be strategic. Advertising campaigns most often fail simply because the ownable sales moment hasn’t been correctly identified.

1. Budget your time: perhaps fifteen minutes per day, or an hour per week.

2. Pick some winners: Which social media outlets do you use most frequently?  Which do your clients use most frequently? Sure bets like Facebook and Twitter will yield the most media bang.

3. Bring content, not noise: If you want to get dropped, flood your network with empty and irrelevant posts

4. Double up: If you want to establish a broad presence for your company but find that you are tight on time, use apps to write only once but publish thrice.  Twitter reposts your tweets to Facebook, and Wordbooker reposts WordPress blog entries.

5. Leave a calling card: Set up a profile on LinkedIn. A simple Internet calling card on a conspicuous business site makes it easy for old contacts to find you and recommend you to new contacts.

6. Crowd source: Are you doing something worth seeing?  Give people the tools to share.  Activating buttons for Facebook, Digg, Stumbleupon, and Reddit are a long-term investment in your work’s visibility.  Social media buttons imply that your work is worth sharing, and make it easier for your fans to claim the bragging rights of discovery.

Social media in 2011 can give your marketing a big boost in no time if you follow these tips.  In order for social media to help you in the long haul, though, you have to reward people for checking you out.  Make sure your personal site is up to date. Keep fun material there for contacts who come for a closer look. Show your best self on your own Internet turf, and then have fun using social media to make your work some new friends.

That’s changing, though. In 2011, 53% of redemptions are still done with paper coupons, but Internet-based redemptions are creeping up. By 2014 or so, most Internet couponing will be the norm, according to research from Promotional Codes, which created this infographic. This shouldn’t be too surprising. Fewer people are subscribing to traditional newspapers and getting the Sunday edition, which is stocked with free-standing inserts.

The shift to Internet-based coupons is yet another blow to newspapers, which have lost much of their classified ad business to Craigslist and other Internet operations. For consumers, though, especially those toting smartphones, redeeming coupons has gotten much easier. If the economy continues on its wobbly course, more people who never considered coupons before will do so, and they’ll do it digitally. With any luck, that will ease the congestion in those checkout lines as well.

Well in advance, determine the purpose of the brochure. Don’t set overly ambitious goals. Brand awareness or product sales are reasonable expectations.

Keep your customer in mind. Know who you are aiming your brochure at. Make sure it relates directly to them – how the product or service can satisfy their needs.

Give the cover considerable thought so it attracts attention. This is the first part that your audience will see. It must motivate the target to pick it up and read it.

Make the cover visually stimulating with photos, illustrations or graphics. These elements raise the cost, but they are worth it. Make sure the photo, if not your product, relates directly to your product.

Go for full color all the way. You won’t save any money choosing black & white. You’re competing with a never-ending array of other brochures. Make yours as good as it can be to stand out and get noticed.

Make the copy count. Once somebody has picked up your brochure, give them the information they want. Tell them the benefits. Describe how their lives will be better. Include a call-to-action to buy, or at least get more information or make an appointment.

Make it easy to read and use. Don’t make it complicated to unfold and follow the story. The type should be readable. The layout should direct the reader. The photos should help answer questions in the mind of the reader.

Do Not Do The Following

Don’t shortchange yourself. If you are serious about your business, use professional talent to write and design your brochure. And make it a reality using a quality printer. A do it yourself project will look exactly like that and undermine your image as a professional.

Never make the mistake of thinking you can proofread your own writing. Spotting your own grammatical errors and typos is difficult. While word processing software has spell check, it doesn’t differentiate between know and no, there and their, sale and sail, etc. A fresh set of eye will be a vast improvement in the process.

Don’t expect your brochure to close a sale. A customer needs to take a journey from product awareness to purchase. A brochure is at the product awareness end of the spectrum. A brochure can prompt a reader toward the next step to purchase.

Don’t attempt to tell everything in a brochure. While a brochure allows you to provide more details than a print ad, you can’t include every last detail. The result will render the brochure a useless expense. Remember, it must be readable and you must be reasonable in your expectations of how much time someone will want to spend with your brochure.

Don’t reinvent the brochure. People have certain expectations in a brochure – for example the size. Stick to standard sizes such as full page (8-1/2” x 11”) or slim jim (3-2/3” x 8-1/2”). People are not as likely to hold onto odd shapes and sizes.

If you follow these guidelines, you steer clear of trouble and create an effective communications vehicle that should produce the results you want. The more brochures you create, the better at it you’ll become. Then, it will be your turn to give advice on making effective brochures.

Kudos to DSW! I just purchased $107 on shoes and received the a lovely thank you note.  No other companies mail me a personal thank you note when I spend a measly $100.

DSW’s way of saying “Thank You” for your loyalty keeps me as a customer for life.

And fortunately this “experience” happened while reading Chip Bell and John Patterson’s new book, Wired and Dangerous how your customers have changed and what to do about it.

They define the new “normal” customer as restless, cautious, powerful and potentially dangerous. Why? Customers with a beef or a boast have always been able to share it with their friends. The difference today is that the reach of their connection via the Internet is enormous; the speed of their link is instantaneous.

Hello DSW, we are your new normal customer, and we are so happy that we will now be telling everyone through Facebook, Twitter and more.
So—what happens if we are unhappy? We are equally powerful, wired and dangerous…you get the picture.

Wired and Dangerous will challenge AND change you! It’s a fun read and the book is loaded with real stories you’ll identify with over and over again.

As a consumer, it fuels your power as a customer. As a leader, or business owner, it proves the need to respond if you dare to ask. As any service provider (who cares) it proves, repeatedly, the necessity and POWER of high touch in our very high tech world.

Best of all, you’ll gain valuable tools for using this wired world to grow loyalty and turn the wired and dangerous to wired and devoted.

I tried to talk her out of it by showing her how much she’d need to spend to buy the lemonade mix,
get the cups, that sort of thing. Regardless of my best efforts, there was no changing her mind.
She wanted to go into business and there wasn’t anything I was going to do to stop her.

So as I succumbed to my role as venture capitalist in her first business startup.
I decided that at the very least, this would be a great chance to teach my daughter
about counting money, basic business principals, that sort of thing.

We sat down with a pad of paper and started writing the business plan.
It didn’t take long before Erin, becoming completely exasperated with
my efforts to teach her about price structure, looked up at me and said:

“But Mom, I just want to give it away. Our neighbors are so nice,
I just want to give them the lemonade.”

Wow! What do you say to that? She hit me with a complete game changer that I didn’t expect.

Suddenly, the lemonade stand had taken on an entirely different meaning.

So we put away the business plan, she drew up a sign and I helped her mix
a pitcher of lemonade.

Just as we were about to open for business, Erin came in from the back porch with
a some mint leaves she had cut from a pot.

“Can we put mint in the lemonade?” she asked. “I want to make it extra special.”

And with that, on a Sunday afternoon in a quiet neighborhood, she was open for business.

Within a few minutes, one of our neighbors who had heard about the project came
over with 50 cents to buy a glass of lemonade.
Twice the price my daughter was originally planning to charge.

“But it’s free” Erin told her.

“That’s OK. I want to pay you for the lemonade”, she replied.

Not knowing what to do with the money, Erin put it in a cup and set the cup on the table
(where everyone could see it).

Before long, more neighbors came by, each one giving her at least 50 cents.
When a car would pass, she would jump up and down and scream,
“Free lemonade” hoping they would stop.

For the most part they didn’t. However, at one point, one did and the driver
handed her three dollars for his glass of lemonade – 1,100 percent more then if she’d
gone with her father’s suggestion of 25 cents per cup.

By the end of the day, Sophia had made a whopping eight dollars at her “free” lemonade stand.

When it was all said and done, I realized that although my original business
lessons didn’t stick with my daughter, I learned a lot about marketing.

Here are seven lemonade stand tips that you can use to market your services:

1. Give people something for free and they will feel obligated to return the favor

When you help someone, it creates a natural desire to return the favor. In doing so,
you’ll not only build trust, but also develop relationships with potential clients.

2. Give potential customers a taste of your offerings

Offer free training before you are hired or free consulting with a service. Just be sure to make it good.
When your customers are excited about the base product, they are much more likely to buy more.

3. Make it “Extra Special”

Don’t just offer lemonade. Put in that extra sprig of mint. Make everything you do
something “extra special” and clients will take notice. Not only will they come back for more,
they’ll tell their friends.

4. Don’t Be Afraid to Tell Your “Neighbors” (Network!)

One of the first things my daughter did when she opened her stand was run next door
and tell the neighbor. After getting her lemonade, she called two other neighbors
and so forth and so on. Don’t be afraid to tell friends and colleagues about your services.

5. Do What You Need to Do to Be Seen

It wasn’t enough to just put up a sign. My daughter’s advertising consisted of jumping up
and down screaming “free lemonade” at passing cars. While it might seem extreme, it worked.
How are you “screaming” about your business?

6. Be Persistent

Even though most of the cars passed by, my daughter didn’t give up. Finally, after many
failed attempts, one of them did stop—doubling her income for the day.

7. Build Anticipation

My daughter’s first customer knew about her project and was there as soon as it opened.
Don’t just launch your new web site, product line or location, let people know it’s coming.
Send email notices, direct mail, have a launch event etc.

(it’s a no-brainer, right?)

Successful companies provide proactive customer service. Proactive customers service leads to increased business and loyalty. Here are a few tips to keep in mind.

Be a double checker
Customers appreciate it when a sales representative takes a minute to check on an item they’ve asked for. It lets them know they’re being listened to and cared for.

Do something extra
Average service is about meeting the customer’s expectations. Great customer service is exceeding it. Give your customers more than they expect, and they’ll return to do business with you.

Take the initiative
Offer several solutions to the customer’s predicament. If one doesn’t work, make sure you have multiple avenues to resolve their problems. This way, the customer knows you are trying your best to help them, and in the future will not hesitate to buy from you, since they’ll know whatever problem they have, you’ll be able to fix it.

How can brands and retailers satisfy their male shoppers’ needs? The stereotypes no longer apply. It’s important to understand why men shop. Hopefully, insight can be gained from the following five male shoppers’ motivators:

1. Men need to “WIN” at shopping.
Men like doing things they can do well. They hate doing things they aren’t good at. Men have not had the opportunity to learn how to be good shoppers. By empowering male customers to demonstrate mastery of your category, he will feel like a conqueror.

EXAMPLE: Amazon enabled men to master buying music. Consumer reviews and lists provide the information required to feel confident about his choices. And the recommendation engine gives him the feeling that he is discovering new music, a key part of feeling like an expert music shopper.

2. Men substitute performance for emotional justification.
Men want to know how products perform. Performance provides a kind of “emotional rationalization.” It helps men feel that their choice is smart thanks to greater efficiency, higher power or technological advancement. Higher performance is the way to a man’s heart.

EXAMPLE: Dyson focused on powerful suction and great design, turning the humble vacuum cleaner into an object of desire for men; it’s more of a power tool for carpet than a domestic cleaning aid. Surveys reveal that when a couple buys a Dyson, more than 50% of the male partners reportedly want to take over vacuuming duties.

3. Men don’t browse, they carry out reconnaissance.
Men have evolved from primitive hunters, so when they find themselves dropping by a computer store or surfing through 3-D-TV reviews online, they’re not browsing – they’re carrying out a reconnaissance mission. Men seek out expert advisers and technological proof during their research.

EXAMPLES: BootDoctors in Telluride offers free fly-casting clinics to help match man and his fishing gear plus improve technique. Some running shoe stores offer gait-analysis to help find the right shoe.

4. Men want a place where they can be men again.
While men are happy living in the 21st-century, gender-blurred world, he yearns for the simple masculinity of the past. When it comes to shopping, the majority of men still do not view it as a leisure activity, perhaps because it still carries connotations of femininity. Yet the resurgence of traditional barbershops suggests a boom in retail experiences that create a sanctuary for maleness.

EXAMPLE: Many cigar shops hold evening events that are a haven for men to associate with other men in an atmosphere that harks back to the traditional English men’s club.