How to Create Your Logo Right from the Start

As a new business owner, one of the most important things, if not THE most important thing, you will do is design and create your logo. Your logo will be used on everything including letterhead, business cards, brochures, invoices, forms, website, and much more.It is important that you create your logo properly from the start. A quality, high-resolution logo that looks great every time is essential. Your logo is a reflection of your company and often times the first impression you make on potential clients.

It is important to create a logo compatible for print and web purposes. Note that I said print AND web. They are quite different, and you will avoid a lot of headaches down the road by taking this step.

You may be thinking, “What’s the big deal? There are many sites on the Internet where I can get a free logo or one for $99.” This is true; however, “you get what you pay for”! Not all on-line companies are bad, but there are things you should be aware of if you decide to use them. I have written a separate article on this subject entitled Do It Yourself Logos & Logo Templates, but for this article, I want to focus on creating a quality logo. In order to do that, it is important to understand the meaning of several key terms. They are explained below. Read more

Do It Yourself Logos & Logo Templates

So you’re starting a business or launching a new product and now you are ready to create your logo. If you are not a graphic designer, then you may have considered using one of the do-it-yourself logo factories on-line. I discuss in another article what you need to create a quality logo, but this article will focus on the pitfalls of do-it-yourself websites and what to look out for if you plan to use one.

You may be thinking, “What’s the big deal? There are many sites on the Internet where I can get a free logo or one for $99.” This is true; however, “you get what you pay for”! Not all on-line companies are bad, but there are things you should be aware of if you decide to use them.

The do-it-yourself logos and templates, while they may look easy and fast, do not create vector art or provide you with the original files. This means that you will be unable to change elements, colors or anything else on your logo. You’re stuck with it. Some may provide you with an EPS and JPG, telling you that the EPS is for print purposes and the JPG is for web. While this is true, they usually don’t tell you that the colors will not be accurate when you print your logo because the logo was not created using PMS colors (see How to Create Your Logo Right from the Start article for more details). You cannot change these graphics at all, and even though these would probably be okay for the web, they will not work for commercial printing. Read more

How Cost-Effective Are Promotional Products?

Promotional products are used every day, often several times a day. They are looked at, written with, put on and involved in a whole list of other basic activities that allow for multiple direct or subliminal impressions of the imprinted ad messages.

By taking the general cost of a product (exact cost can vary because of quantity, intricacy of imprint and number of colors in imprint, and possibly other specifications) and dividing it by the number of exposures the imprint receives, you can get a general idea of your cost per impression (CPI). Here’s some examples:

Notepads

The recipient of a 50-sheet notepad will have a minimum of 50 exposures to the message, which is imprinted on each sheet. If any of the notes are passed on, or kept, the number of exposures can double and triple. The CPI for a $1 notepad works out to be .02 cents per sheet for 50 impressions. Read more

How Well Promotional Products Work

Commonly known as the number-one vehicle for carrying an advertising message, promotional products actually offer more of a response mechanism than other standard media. Not all companies track their results, but some do.

How Promotional Products Can Be Used

Motivation/Incentives

Imprinted products are often used to motivate sales teams toward more sales, production workers toward greater efficiency, credit departments toward more collections, etc. But they can also be used as incentives to get store managers to give you better shelf space for your products, dealers to load up on your product so they actually have to push it, consumers to purchase more of your product, delinquent library-card holders to return books and so on.
Recognition/Service Awards

Employees, customers and vendors are recognized for years of service, performance, volume or frequency of business, etc.

Traffic Building

Be it retail, business-to-business, associations … everyone has a need to draw customers. This may be to your store in general, for a specific promotion, to your tradeshow booth or to your special event. Read more

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