“Best Of” winners aren’t necessarily the best, however. There’s a lot of campaigning going on. So if you sit back and just hope your customers enter your name on the ballot, think again. Business owners have been known to stoop to cutthroat tactics such as stuffing ballot boxes with fake names and launching smear campaigns against competitors.

You can play fair, though, by reminding your customers new and old to vote for you. Here are three campaign strategies.

1. Print and hand out postcards to your customers that urge them to vote in your local “Best Of.” Include a link to the ballot or remind them when the publication is distributed with the ballot. Be sure to include which categories are relevant to your business, and think beyond your niche. For example, I’m urging people to vote for a lunch spot I like for more than just sandwiches but also “Best Staff.”
2. As soon as the “Best Of” ballot link goes live, post it on your website, again asking clients to vote for you as well as suggesting specific categories.
3. Do you have a newsletter – e-mail or snail-mail? Do the same as above, and don’t hesitate to remind customers if you send another newsletter out.

When the “Best Of” winners are announced, publicize your achievement outside of the newspaper or magazine – order stickers to hand out and post on your door, print a banner proclaiming your victory and announce it on your website and through your newsletter. You worked hard to be the best – now let everyone know it. After all, a crowning achievement given by your peers is some of the best marketing you can get.

Photo credit: earl53 from morguefile.com

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

I’ve always believed in karma more than luck – I follow the simple Buddhist theory that if I’m a good person, good things will happen to me. Indeed, there’s a belief that good luck is something people create for themselves by being optimists, therefore creating their own fortune.

A lot of PsPrint customers are freelancers or are employed by small businesses, so we’re all aware of how cutthroat competition can be. But in order to survive and even grow your company, you need more than luck – you need gumption and drive. You need to make the effort by developing a solid marketing plan. Rather than pout that you lost another customer to your nemesis, think about why that happened. Was it bad luck, or did you not offer a good-enough value to the prospect?

Going back to karma – it really is a beneficial practice to consider for your business. Join groups, clubs and charitable organizations. Network. Make referrals. All of those things help your community as well as get your name out there. People will remember you when it comes time to making a business decision. The cliché “what goes around comes around” is true, as luck would have it.

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

1. Offer a green discount

The beauty of the Internet is you can post news quickly and take it down just as easily. If you advertise a sale on your company’s website today and then promote it immediately via social networking such as Twitter or Facebook, you still have time to catch people’s attention. Come up with something that will attract search engines, since “St. Patrick’s Day” is always popular this time of year. One idea is to offer a “green” discount – let your customers know that you’ll take a dollar off their purchase for each green item they wear on Wednesday.

2. Play up your greenness

The color green symbolizes St. Patrick’s Day as well as the environment. Combine those two for one promotion that casts attention on your business in a positive light. On your website, mention your eco-conscious efforts. Perhaps you’ve swapped out light bulbs or chosen an environmentally friendly printer. Let your customers know they can be comfortable spending their hard-earned green with you!

3. Know the reason for the season

Other companies might throw shamrocks and leprechauns all over their marketing collateral and store, but you can be different. Do a little research on the history of St. Patrick’s Day and then pass it on to your customers via the company website or in the shop. You can create a box on your site with St. Patrick’s Day facts, such as the origin of the shamrock and the pot of gold, or you can have an in-store contest with trivia questions.

So let this be a lesson to you: Even though you’re now armed with some quick marketing tips, don’t dawdle on future holiday promotions! Now is the time to plan for upcoming special occasions, such as Easter, Earth Day, Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Then promote the heck out of it!

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Sweep out the old!

1. Clean up your desktop.

Does your desktop look like someone planted icons all over it? Are all the abbreviated mumbo-jumbo titles running together? If so, it’s time to organize. Get rid of that Illustrator file you were playing around with that never became more than a few lines, file similar documents into one folder, and click on the images that are unfamiliar to you. You might discover a new piece of inspiration or remind yourself of an unfinished task.

2. Change the battery on your smoke alarm.

It’s recommended to change this battery twice a year when you also change your clocks. Sunday is Daylight Savings, which means we spring forward! Also check the battery on your carbon monoxide detector.

3. Back up your files.

I cannot stress this enough: As a graphic designer, a freelancer or some other work-at-home person, you are responsible for backing up your work. All it takes is one fried hard drive to erase hundreds of hours of painstaking work. And how will you explain that to your clients?

4. Check your inventory.

Do you have outdated supplies? I’m talking toner for a printer you no longer have or envelopes with your old address. Chuck those into recycling or the trash. Meanwhile, make sure you’re stocked up on all other office supplies. Here’s a supply checklist to get you started.

5. Recycle old magazines and newspapers.

Don’t let your office turn into a fire hazard – get rid of the clutter by clearing out old periodicals. No, don’t even bother to flip through them to find that one article you always thought you’d get to. If you haven’t read it by now, you never will.

6. Clean the coffeepot.

Seriously, it’s gross.

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Online. This is among the most popular forms of portfolio design. It’s easy to access by anyone with the Internet, and it shows that in addition to creating all the lovely projects in your portfolio, you can also create a user-friendly, attractive website. One tip is to let your work shine through – don’t go too crazy with the bells and whistles on the website at the risk of crowding your portfolio pieces.

Brochure. This is old school. A brochure is something you can physically hand to potential clients. It’s a shiny, classy way to be sure your work detail shows up. A brochure is a good choice – in addition to an online portfolio – for more artsy pieces, as creativity can sometimes get lost when it’s pixilated.

Booklet. A cheaper alternative to a brochure is a booklet. Freelance illustrator Steve Harpster recently ordered a batch of booklet portfolios after marketing attempts with postcards and directory listings. The booklets contain 30 of his images as well as his variety of styles. They’re much less expensive to ship to prospects than brochures.

PDF. Less expensive to produce than a website is a PDF. Despite the grumblings in the past, most potential clients will have a PDF reader on their computer, and they can easily open up your work and see it intact. A layered PDF allows the viewer to flip through multiple pieces of your work, and you can create buttons and links.

Business card. For a bonus way to market yourself, use up that real estate on your business card. Create fold-out business cards and include thumbnails of your best portfolio work. Be sure to include how to get access to the rest of your portfolio.

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Reem Rahim at work.

On starting a business:
“I started a business because I am an immigrant, and I was told to do something stable,” says Rahim, who was born in Iraq and moved to the United States in 1971. “One of the reasons was I wanted to do something my parents would be proud of, but I also had ideas.” Rahim, who had become an engineer, says she was miserable in her career and had always taken art classes. “My father said to choose one thing” to focus on for a business. Oddly enough, when Rahim told her brother, Ahmed, that she decided to open a tea business, he said he had come up with the same idea based around “numi,” a lime tea they drank in Iraq. Running a green business was very important to the siblings, as seen in their fair-trade tea, biodegradable tea bags, recycled packaging and carbon-offset program.

On creativity in the workplace:
“My artistic sensibility really created the brand,” says Rahim. “And people love our packaging.” Each box of Numi tea has a different picture, which Rahim often paints them based on her brother’s photography. The look, tone and feel of all the packaging was created by Rahim. Being artists influences how the brother and sister do business. “Artists are ultimately visionaries,” she says, “so we see outside the box – we see things different.” Though Rahim had taken art classes all her life, she didn’t have graphic design experience when she co-founded Numi. At that time she collaborated with a designer to put together the company’s materials, and since then Rahim has taken design classes herself. Now Numi employs a vice president of marketing, who manages a handful of staff, as well as two in-house designers.

On the future of Numi:
“We want to grow – the sky’s the limit!” says Rahim, as Numi crosses the 10-year mark of being in business. “We’ve learned so much about human resources, budgets, etc. And we’ve been branching out by developing our nonprofit.” Personally, Rahim says she’d like to scale back on the day-to-day responsibilities to avoid burnout and to focus on her art as well as the nonprofit arm of Numi and the social and environmental causes it supports. “We didn’t set out to make money,” Rahim says. “And I don’t think we’ll ever stop trying to make the world a better place. With a soothing cup of tea, you feel like a whole person.”

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.