April 22 will mark Earth Day, an annual event celebrated around the world as the greenest of holidays. Established in 1970, it was created to call attention to the environment.

Earth Day coverage has grown exponentially over the past decade and will get substantial coverage in most media outlets — including national television, radio, newspaper, magazines, blogs, etc.

Earth Day creates an excellent opportunity for companies to promote their environmental activities and concerns to a broad base, as well as to their local community.

What will your company do for Earth Day to stand out to its base and capture the attention of its public? How will you let your customers, prospects, employees and/or shareholders know about your efforts to reduce carbon emissions, use more eco-friendly materials, reduce waste in packaging, start a recycling campaign, cut emissions, etc?

My suggestion: Don’t forget the kids. Children are Our Future.

A national research study commissioned by the National Environmental Education Training Foundation noted that children placed the environment third in a list of 10 issues behind only AIDS and kidnapping. This contrasts greatly with adults, for whom the economy, crime, and drugs are of greater concern. Children worry about long-term issues such as damage to the ozone layer and destruction of the rain forest.

Did you know that 99% of children in America today have access to environmental classes in school, and 31 states require schools to incorporate environmental concepts into virtually every subject in all grade levels?

Reach out to children. Children have influence over parents’ buying habits. as well as being an influencing force for recycling and conservation activities.

If you have a local business, work with a school district and get imprinted eco-friendly promotional items, which are educational, into the students’ hands. Try to target elementary or middle schools for best response and maximum impact.

Many of my clients have given out live tree seedlings in imprinted recyclable bag to the local elementary school principals to be handed out to the classrooms during their Earth Day discussions. The students will take the trees home with them and plant them—reminding the entire family of your company’s kindness and desire to re-green your community.

Other great eco-friendly promotional items for students include: reusable backpacks or cinch bags, biodegradable water bottles, pencils and pens made from recycled material, coloring books about recycling and even magnets made from recycled cardboard.
If you are a regional or national company, work with your distributors or regional offices to get your products placed.

Bonus Tip: To save money, contact some non-competing businesses in your area and try to split, or co-op, the cost of the imprinted gifts. You can split the size of the imprint two or three ways—depending on imprint area, which will cut your costs dramatically.

Earth Day will be celebrated and discussed in nearly every school on April 22nd. Don’t miss your chance to promote your business in a green-friendly way.

Happy Earth Day!
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Robert Piller, experienced in green marketing campaigns and environmentally-friendly promotional products. His web site includes a comprehensive eco-friendly advertising specialty search, featuring over 250,000 eco promotional items in all price ranges, for anyone interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find recyclable, biodegradable, organic or recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame. View the Go Green website at EcoMarketingSolutions.com and comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com.

Earth Day is April 22

BPA-Free Drinkware by EcoMarketingSolutions.com

A study released last week by the Journal of the American Medical Association suggested a new concern about BPA, or bisphenol-A, especially in drinkware. Because of the possible public health implications, the results “deserve scientific follow-up,” the study authors said. Using a health survey of nearly 1,500 adults, they found that those exposed to higher amounts of BPA were more likely to report having heart disease and diabetes.

FDA officials said they are not dismissing such findings, and conceded that further research is needed. “We recognize the need to resolve the concerning questions that have been raised,” said Laura Tarantino, head of the FDA’s office of food additive safety.

SInce the dangers of BPA have been reported for several years, Eco Marketing Solutions LLC, teamed up with several key American vendors to provide BPA-free plastics, as well as stainless steel bottles and mug, for use in advertising specialties and promotional gifts afor trade shows, corporate outings and events, travel gifts, etc.

Eco Marketing Solutions has just introduced a 20 oz. biodegradable polypropylene plastic sports bottle with carabiner clip that is BPA-free. It was designed to fits all standard treadmill cup holders and comes with a pop-open lid with sport drinking spout. Robert Piller says, “This sports bottle is made in the United States so we can ensure it meets with all safety standards and is truly BPA-free. It can be re-used over and over again and it will keep a companies name and logo in front of their target audience for years.”

“Sports bottles continue to be a very popular imprinted gift at trade shows and for customer give-aways”, notes Robert Piller, President of Eco Marketing Solutions, a provider of environmentally-friendly imprinted promotional items. “What you give away should reflect your corporate values and knowingly giving away drinkware containing BPA is a poor reflection on a company”.

You can view this BPA-free sports bottle, as well as thousands of others, by visiting their new interactive website (EcoMarketingSolutions.com) to search over 500,000 imprinted advertising specialties and sort by price range and theme for any upcoming event.
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Robert Piller, president of Eco Marketing Solutions, is experienced in green marketing campaigns and recycled promotional products.  He has worked with thousands of retailers across the country to get them to offer reusable imprinted tote bags for their customers, to help reduce the landfill waste caused by plastic bags.

His company’s website, EcoMarketingSolutions.com, features over 25,000 eco-friendly promotional items in all price ranges, for any business or organization interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find biodegradable, organic and recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame.

You can also reach him by email (robert (at) ecomarketingsolutions.com) or comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com or below at his Twitter link.

(Part 3 of a 3 Part Series)
In this third and final segment on trade show marketing ideas, I will address ideas to help improve your trade show results through proven post-show follow up. I am still amazed at the number of companies that fail to follow up promptly and diligently after their trade shows, which is surely leaving money on the table and wasted opportunity.

Have you ever waited after a trade show that you attended for literature or samples that you had asked for, but which never arrived? Here are some trade show strategies to help you to make the most from your trade show experience—post-show and to increase your return on investment.

Most companies need to have multiple contact or “touches” with prospective vendors before they feel comfortable in purchasing from them. Here are nine ideas to help you capture more post-show sales with very little effort.

1. Send in Leads Daily: Don’t get bogged down with your regular paperwork and activities once you return to the office by trying to tackle a stack of show leads at one time. Many trade shows offer a scanner where you can electronically capture the contact information of the prospect in second by scanning their name tag. Each night, send the file as an attachment to your office, where, hopefully a well-thought out after-show packet is ready to be sent out.

Note: Do not become so enamored with this scanning technology that all your staff does it scan cards and not develop rapport with prospective customers. I have been at shows where neighboring booths compete with each other for most names scanned. Do not opt for quantity over quality of leads.

If a scanner is unavailable, you can buy a business card scanner from Cardscan and attach to your laptop or cell phone, where you can instantly scan in a prospect’s business card and upload your list each night to your office. If you still want to collect business cards, bring a few FedEx envelopes and send them overnight to the office after each day. Speed is critical in showing your professionalism to your clients. It will also set you apart from your competition.

2. Rank Prospects: All prospects are not the same, so devise a method of ranking prospects on the spot. You can attach a questionnaire to their business card or give a score or ranking (on a scale of one to ten) on the back of the cards—with a comment or two. This will help you to determine which prospects should be followed up first.

3. Take Notes on Back of Business Cards: No matter how good your memory is, you will not remember every customer or prospect you meet– and what specifically you discussed, information you promised to send, etc. On the back of their business card, write a one or two line message as a reminder, such as “interested in XYZ machine” or ” wants me to email her specifications on Model B123″ or “deciding between us and Acme CO. and will get back to me in two weeks”.

4. Have Post-Show Kit Ready Ahead of Time: As I mentioned in step one, you should have a complete follow up kit ready to mail out—just waiting for the address label and postage to be applied. That way, your assistant can get the kits out while you are out of town and exude stellar professionalism.

5. Send Lumpy Mail: Flat standard sized envelopes will end up in a pile, unopened for weeks. A padded envelope with an irregularly shaped item inside will get opened immediately. Send an imprinted promotional product, such as an imprinted stress ball or imprinted pen or other unique advertising specialty with your note and catalog — and your package will get opened ahead of all the rest.

To maximize the effectiveness, get an imprinted circle label or decal and attach to the outside of the package with the headline “XYZ TRADE SHOW FOLLOW UP—SAMPLE ENCLOSED”. Everyone loves freebies – and by mentioning the trade show, the prospect will know it is not random junk mail. Choose an item that is not breakable and is not too heavy. A promotional product distributor that specializes in trade show marketing can help you or visit our website, www.ecomarketingsolutions.com to see our newly updated website that offers a free tool that allows you to select from over 500,000 imprinted and logoed promotional items, which you can sort them by price range or by theme. It is a handy tool that can save you a great deal of time and money.

6. Decide on Frequency of Contact: How often do you plan to contact with the prospect after the show and in what form of contact—newsletter, email, letter, phone call, samples? Customers may need five ten contacts or touches before they feel comfortable with you and your company. Reach them in several ways—some prefer email, some fax, some like phone calls. I recommend a multi-pronged approach, with a sample after the show, a phone call, then an email, then a newsletter, etc.

Be sure you walk the fine line of keeping your name in front of your prospects without becoming a nuisance or nag. Each “customer touch” should offer some benefit to your prospect, such as industry news, money saving offers, sales strategy, comparison to competition, etc. Don’t just keep asking for the order without becoming known as a source of industry or business ideas.

7. Stay in Touch With Your Reps: Independent reps or salespeople are often not as motivated by trade show leads as the home office is. The reason can be because too many reps are sent a stack of unqualified business cards without notes, so the reps assume these are cold leads, at best. Help your reps by breaking the list down into categories, such as “immediate need/30-60 days/60-90 days/90+ days” or break down your trade show leads to “A-B-C” accounts. Do a little homework upfront and you will create a stronger partnership between your office and your reps. Also, be sure to keep duplicates so you can follow up with your sales force in a set period of time.

One more note: don’t rely on your reps to make the immediate contact or post- show follow up. Be sure to send your information packet to the prospect so that they have some communication from you within the first seven days after a show.

8. Give a Reason to Follow up Immediately With an Email: If a prospect looks promising, tell them that you will email them something of value to them right after the show. Ask for their business card and write a note exactly what it is, whether it is to send artwork or proposal, email a white paper, information on a new service –whatever. That way, you can send them an email, which will already be in their in-box from you when they get back to their office, with the heading “White Paper You Asked for at The XYZ Show”, or something to that effect.

9. Speed is Key: As I have mentioned several times, prompt follow up is imperative in closing more trade show sales. Be sure your team is on the same page regarding the importance of prompt follow up and you will be pleasantly surprised at how you can stand apart from your competition.

Following these nine post-trade show ideas can make you more effective at your trade shows and help you to maximize your trade show success. Stand out from your competition and be known as the company that delivers on what they promised at the trade show. You will close more sales and maximize your trade show ROI.

Happy Trade Show Selling.

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Note: To view the other segments, visit http://greenspotblog.com/?cat=65

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Robert Piller, President of Eco Marketing Solutions, has over 25 years of experience in running and implementing green marketing campaigns and is a leader in the recycled promotional products industry, including offering one of the largest selections of reusable and organic tote bags, recycled and biodegradable water bottles, recycled pens and pencils in the country.

His company’s website, EcoMarketingSolutions.com, features over 25,000 eco-friendly promotional items in all price ranges, for any business or organization interested in going green. The site’s handy search tool helps you easily find biodegradable, organic and recycled imprinted promotional items in your price range and time frame.

You can also reach him by email (robert (at) ecomarketingsolutions.com) or comment on his blog postings at GreenSpotBlog.com or below at his Twitter link.