All posts by admin

Promote Your Band With New Marketing Ideas

By admin on

Promote your band
Key ways are mp3 music ringtones, Mini dvd discs and postcards.

By Chris Ciabarra

This is a paper on how to promote your band, over the past 12 months I have been in contact with a hundreds of bands looking to become famous in LA. Everyone wants to a hit! Well it all comes down to being discovered! You can be the best band in the world and if you don&;t market yourself right well good luck! Lets analysis fortune 500 companies. Take a look at there budgets They dump 35% to 65 % or more of their profits back into marketing and advertisements every year. Becoming and remaining number one requires a lot of work. Advancing to more and more new customers not only requires more and more marketing but keeping the old ones happy!

Wanting to Promote your band with Live performances and marketing new ideas well you have come to the right spot.

Once people have bought a bands CD and their tee shirt, and seen the band live now what? Note, promoting a band is a lot of more then just t-shirts and cd&;s hell anyone can do that! You need to promote in many ways, just look at fortune 500 companies they email, do giveaways, mini dvd discs promo&;s, cold calling, internet marketing etc. You must do at least 3 forms of promoting to get a response out of your audience. The newsiest one for bands is music mp3 ringtones which we will get into later.

We will go over many ways of promoting your band:

1. Great item that I have seen so far are mini DVD discs called pocketreels. GOTO www.pocketreels.com for more info on how to pick them up. These mini dvds can go a far way just think what people would do if you handed them a mini dvd. They go crazy and they are super impressed! Place a nice video of your band on it and see how many new customers you receive at your next show!

2. Having a photograph or videoagrapher at your shows to help promote your band is a good thing. They can take pictures and or videos and upload the images or videos to your website which can boost mailing lists and a fan club! And then they may be compelled to come to your next show and bring more friends or soak in the opportunities for fame and the live music experience itself. For video or photographer outlets call PR Productions at 310-694-8350 for CALIFORNIA only. They have the best crews around but they are not cheap. Shoots start at $400 + editing.

3. That brings us to a mailing list, each visitor to your website you should be collecting their email address so you can send them useful information like when your next show is going to be.

4. Promoting your band is not easy so do your self a favor and get a good publicist to promote your band. A good one can get you in 3 to 4 magazines and newspapers in one month for free, of course you have to pay the publicist but it will be well worth it. It can range from $400 to $2000. Note you can do this part yourself if you know how to negotiate with editors.

5. Promote your band by creating a really cool website! Check out www.royacom.com to make yourself a website with a CMS system. CMS stands for Content Management system A good website will cost: starting at $1000 but it will have video, email list generators, photo section and best of all easy management. They are a little bit more then a regular website but the ROI
Or return on investment is greater then a plain website. You can change show times just like myspace and it makes it really easy for owners to manage so in the long run you save big!

6. Make a professional music video for your band or gig. This will help with promoting your band. High quality Video can be found at many locations for a crew with experience one west coast call 310-694-8350 for east coast goto the best http://suitespotnyc.com a New york production company

7. Saving the best for last Another great way to promote your band is by making a music ringtone at www.a-free-ringtone.com for example you can download a nickelback ringtone and wow free advertising everytime someone calls that person and bam there is a song on your phone. You need help making your own mp3 or polyphonic ringtone please goto www.a-free-ringtone.com By making a ringtone like nickelback you can have your song ringing all over the world!

Your goal is to continue to reach more and more locals. Develop more ways to attract people’s attention. Always have something on you to promote yourself with.

Just for example. In an area with one million people, if you are getting less than 100 people to every show, perhaps you could be doing much more to reach more of the people in the community?

Its tough out there, and you must be relentless every day to meet new people, shake hands and hand out your mini DVD discs or if you can&;t afford mini DVD discs get free business cards by click here and smile at people who are passing by you on the street and in stores when you are out shopping alone or with friends, in bars carousing. Go out and meet new people. Walk up to people, introduce yourself, Hi, my name is Scott I play at ___ ___ place on blank night. What do you do? Here is my promo disc (mini DVD) with my video or here is my business card with my website on it. You can download my mp3 ringtone (or my polyphonic ringtone) for free at this address. Hand them a card with the information on it. Note always test all information you hand out before hitting the road. Nothing is worse then a fan going home and something you handing them not working!

Have a stack of Mini DVD discs or business cards or flyers in your pocket at all times ready to hand out. Make sure on your Mini DVD, Business card or flyer you have your contact information, website, and the next local performance. You do this 20+ times per hour for 2-3 hours and then youre distributing at least 50 mini DVD discs or business cards or flyers in those 3 hours.

You then go back to your car and re-stock. Grab something refreshing to drink, munch on a a sandwich, or whatever, and move on to the next part of town, or the next gathering of people. Or go to the next live gig, the next bar, the next scene etc. and you keep it going.

Once or twice a week, you hit Kinko’s, or the copier next to your office desk and you photocopy flyers and any designs you have created for promotion of your demos, etc. Better yet think ahead and goto gotprint.com much better deals then Kinko’s. (EXAMPLE 5000 post cards for $99 full color first side!)

Sell yourself. Meet with people and sell yourself. They dont know what youre doing. And unless you sell yourself, they wont care about what youre doing. They want to care, but they depend upon YOU to make that happen. People want so badly to care about something besides there problems. They want something to believe in. Entertainment helps take them there. You can be that entertainer, that leader of willing people of all ages that helps them to believe that there just might be something in this world worth caring about. They want to listen to you, and they want you to tell them about something that really matters to you. So, stay informed and develop interests in topics that may be discussed, even debated. Maybe you are trying to make a difference in the world – one person and one performance at a time. People want to believe in this and they want to believe in you. so, get out there and make it happen.

Remember go armed for battle you would not go into a war forgetting your gun would you? Look at it this way you rather have a tank and machine gun with you when you goto war so do the same with life. Make sure you have mini dvd discs, your own ringtone songs, postcards with info, website and publicist! Good luck and most of all have fun with what you do! BLOG your experience at http://promote-band.blogspot.com Hope all this helps

Play the fashion shoes store,enjoy the girls games

By admin on

Do you like the fashion shoes which can make a girl to be the most charming one?nowdays shoes are not just a tool for people,it is also be treat as a decoration for girls or boys ,which can make them to be much more comfortable and more beautiful,then you will see how interesting it is to wear a wonderful shoes,maybe you can just choose the shoes like that you are in the art shop,just have a look of them,which can give you the feeling of the beauty,you can take it home and wear them.Huh,you will have a different feeling when you try different kinds of shoes.now you can play this fun shoes store girls games,from which you will enjoy it and have fun.

You can see a pretty girl there,she has a important date,so she needs a pair of beautiful shoes for her date and she decides to choose a pair of wonderful shoes from the shoes store,and now you should do your best to help her,for there are so many kinds of shoes there,you should do your best to choose the right one for her,and after that you can also match this pair of shoes with gorgeous hairstyle and dress in the girls games.

The shoes are moving there,you can use your mouse to click it and then you will see so many kinds of shoes there,and then you will have the chance to have a look of the fashion trends then in the funny games for girls.

And you can also do your best to make them to be the wonderful one,just try them on for the girl,and choose any one of them for the pretty girl there,who is preparing for her date.

Enjoy this funny girls games,maybe you can find out the right shoes that you want to own.and then you can also do your best to make them to be the most shining one.

from

HTC Incredible S Crowning charm of mobile innovation

By admin on

HTC is one of the leading market leaders in the mobile industry. They have been making brilliant phones over the years. HTC’s phones always get success whenever companies conduct survey about the best handsets. Recently, company introduced HTC incredible S. This handset is quiet similar with HTC desire and HTC desire HD. In other words, we can say that it is mixture of these two widgets as far as look is concerned. Company added many excellent and new features in it. Phone has 4.0 inches S-LCD capacitive touch screen with 16M colors and excellent resolution 480 x 800 pixels. It is also equipped with Gorilla Glass display, Multi-touch input method, accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate, Proximity sensor for auto turn-off, HTC Sense UI and Touch-sensitive controls with rotating icons.

HTC incredible S contains three alert types, Vibration, MP3, and WAV ringtones. As far as hardware is concerned, gadget has 1.1GB ROM and 768MB RAM. Users can expand the phone memory up to 32GB with the help of microSD card. Handset comes along with GPRS, EDGE, 3G and WLAN. All these features enable you to access internet easily without any trouble. To use the internet facility, you do not need to attach any wire or hardware with product. It is compatible with 3G technology. You only need to make request to your service provider to activate your 3G service. Do you need a phone through which you can transfer the data easily? If yes, then your search ends here. Bluetooth and USB port allows you to share the data with your electronic devices easily. it is also available with different type of deals like contract mobile phones, SIM free phones and pay as you go phones.

HTC incredible S has one 8mega pixel high resolution digital camera with 3264×2448 pixels, auto-focus, dual-LED flash, Geo-tagging, touch-focus, and image stabilization. Phone runs on Android OS, v2.2 (Froyo) and 1 GHz Scorpion processor. People can upgrade the operating system easily up to v2.4. Company is offering this product in two different colors, red and black. This is the best widget from the factory of HTC as far as look, functionality, feature and technology is concerned.

Robin Rich is an expert author and has more then 5 years of experience in writing telecommunication and mobile articles. To know more about HTC Incredible S visit http://www.mobilephoneshoponline.org.uk/

How To Allocate Retail Loss Prevention

By admin on

Profit in any business requires an increase in income and decrease in expenditure. The same theory applies to the retail industry. To make profit in retail requires an in increase sales and reduction in shrinkage. This concept has so far been non-existence in the retail industry where the focus has always only been on increase sales and hoping that the problem of shrinkage will miraculously disappear.
Retail shrinkage occurs as a result of poor or non-existent loss prevention policies and procedures. Therefore, it is imperative that any retail organisation that wishes to remain profitable include loss prevention in its standard operational practices.
Loss prevention is the series of activities that are geared towards the reduction or elimination of all potential loss within an organisation. In the past, loss prevention has been confused with security. While security is a part of loss prevention, security is reactive, basically geared towards identifying shoplifters and employees suspected of stealing, loss prevention is centred around all the activities that are responsible for store loss. It can be known loss such as damages, returns and errors or unknown loss such as shoplifting or employee theft. Preventing shrinkage is simple if we understand the sources of the loss. Last year, UK retail industry spent 771 million on loss prevention, despite this spending, retail shrinkage rose by 5.4%. This has remained the story of loss prevention in the UK for many years. Shrinkage reduced by a few percent one year and increase by several percent the following.
What is the reason for this, the answer lies in the way loss prevention funding is allocated. Even though the levels of funding differ from one organisation to the other, the principle remains the same: spending more for less return on investment (ROI).
The Global Retail Theft Barometer report stated that for the 12-months ending June 2009 crime cost UK retailers 4,063 million. This is broken down as follows:
Customer theft 1,767 million (43.5% of all shrinkage)
Employee theft 1,479 million (36.4% of all shrinkage)
Distribution chain theft 175 million – (4.3% of all shrinkage)
Administrative error – 642 million – (15.8% of all shrinkage)
Total Shrinkage – 4,063 million – (100.0% of all shrinkage)

Total loss prevention spending for the same period was 771 million slightly down from the previous year of 785 million.
Broken down as follows:
Contract Security – 270,621,000.00
In-house Security – 162,681,000.00
Security Equipment – 223,590,000,00
Cash Collection – 61,680,000,00
Other LP Spending – 52,428,000.00
However, in this same period, shrinkage as a percentage of sales rose to 1.37% a rise of 5.4% from 2008 figure of 1.30%.
This brings us to the central thesis of this article: Why is retail loss prevention measure ineffective?
The answer lies in the way funding is allocated. To produce the desired result, retailers first and foremost need to determine the source of loss and allocate funding according to the ratio of loss and the ROI.
The below table outlines this point better, it shows last year retail spending on loss prevention and their return on investment:
Measures: Spending: ROI Achieved:
Trained Employees – 6.8% – 50%
Security Personnel – 56.2% – 2%
Security Equipment – 29% – 45%
Signs & others – 8% – 3%
Customer related theft accounts for only 21% of retail shrinkage the remaining 79% can be broken down into cashier cause 32%, followed by general employee cause 24%, receiving 10% and the remaining 13% is the result of damage and error. But the interesting point that needs to be noted is that even though 79% of retail shrinkage in caused by internal activities, retailers spent more on combating customer related theft than on employee cause.
56.2% of loss prevention resources were on security personnel that produced only 2% ROI, 6.8% was spent on staff training that produced 50% ROI. It is not difficult to see why despite the huge spending on loss prevention, retailers have not been able to affect their shrinkage level. There is a direct correlation between loss prevention spending and the ROI. Until such time that retailers get the balance right, loss prevention spending will continue to produce negative result.

How to make loss prevention effective?
The following are measures when implemented can lead to massive reductions in shrinkage levels and increased profits:
Measure the Scale of the Problem
Analysis daily profit and loss report
Complete top management involvement
Create awareness of the problem
Continuous education and discipline of employees
Inspect What You Expect
Set Measurable Targets
Take Advantage Of Technology
Develop the act of flexibility in approach
Change from present paradigm

Loss prevention is a science and like any science, it requires a systematic approach. Loss prevention personnel cannot approach it with cross fingers praying for the best. Gone are the days when retail crime such as shoplifting was seen as teenage leisure activities, or conducted by drug addicts. Many incidents of shoplifting are now carried out by Organised Retail Theft rings with levels of sophistication never before seen in the retail industry. We as loss prevention experts along with law enforcement agencies have to wake up to this fact and try to build our own capabilities to respond accordingly.
Increase sale does not necessarily mean increase profit the quicker retail executives crabs this concept, the sooner they will be making sustainable profit.

Advantages Of Mass Mailing As An Advertising Strategy

By admin on

Direct mail is a type of advertising wherein companies send printed ads or letters to a big number of customers via mail. They are typically used by companies to advertise new products or to distribute coupons. Some agencies may also use it to raise funds or recruit volunteers.

Advantages of mass mailing

For-profit and non-profit organizations make use of direct mail for a number of reasons. For one, it puts their advertising message directly in the hands of the consumer. While TV adverts can be ignored or skipped altogether, people are more likely to read through something they acquire in their mailbox. Regardless of the growing significance of email and internet based marketing, many consumers still enjoy being given tangible mail.

Another advantage to direct mail is that it is targeted, making it a good option for smaller businesses. By restricting the scope of your marketing projects to a specific demographic, you are much more likely to get a positive reaction to your offer, without squandering resources. In addition, it is personal. You can address recipients by their name, and express your message in a manner that makes them sense that you understand their needs and that what you’re offering can help them. By touching on their interests, they are much more likely to respond.

Direct mail campaigns are restricted primarily by your imagination. You can choose from letters, postcards, brochures and other formats to send your advertising message. You can also increase chances of a response by including items that will let the customer participate like samples and coupons.

It is also straightforward to keep track of the effectiveness of campaigns that use direct mail. All that you should do is to count the number of calls or inquiries made or coupons that have been redeemed. Since it is measurable, you can improve future campaigns to guarantee better and speedier returns.

Another good thing about using direct mail is that you don’t need a considerable advertising budget. Bulk mail services provided by third-party logistics companies allow you to further decrease the prices and stress associated with executing this campaign.

Picking mass mailing service provider

You can use a third-party logistics company to take on your direct mail campaign. These firms vary in cost, turnaround time, and level of service provided so you must not hire the first one you come across. Get quotes and references so you can find one that matches your needs and budget. Select a courier that has a sufficient number of seasoned personnel and state of the art equipment in order to meet your order quickly without any reduction in quality.