Once your retail store is up and running, it can be all too easy to slip into a mundane routine of your regular end of season merchandise clear-out sales. You need to take charge and keep your retail business from becoming a stagnant lag of the same old sales. People are drawn to excitement. Shoppers are drawn to promotions and enticing events. If you've fallen victim to the marketing mundane, read on for tips to take advantage of every promotional opportunity that is available to you. The first step is to create a calendar of events for your store's year. Research your area and find out what's going on around town. Is there a special concert, festival or athletic event? Charity events and holidays, races and local celebrations, the possibilities are endless. Schedule your promotional launches well in advance so that you can have a successful presentation. You'll need to order special promotional materials such as signage, store displays, store fixtures and maybe even l

Every business today witnesses events on a regular basis. There are several events like conferences, seminars, product launches, luncheons, trade shows and many more. Trade shows make for a very important event these days. They give a platform for various products to be on display at the same time and allow for comparison. Trade shows are an important avenue to make business contacts, entice prospective interest groups and take your business forward. Trade shows can open up you to lucrative business opportunities. Thus considering the importance that trade shows have in the life cycle of a business one should put their best foot forward and make the very best out of it. At trade shows you'll find free handouts being distributed by various organizations. This is more of a strategy than being a part and parcel of trade shows itself. If you distribute free giveaways at trade shows chances are that you are making the most out of the event. Distributing promotional products at trade sho

Personalized gifts are more attractive than ordinary gifts. They make a personal statement on behalf of the givers and are an ideal way to convey respect and sentiment towards parents, relatives, friends, or colleagues. Personalized gifts are made for every occasion or celebration. Among such gifts are engraved personalized gifts that have the names of the recipients engraved on them with beautiful quotations accompanying them. Among the items that can be engraved are sterling silver jewelry, flasks made of stainless steel, and jewelry boxes. There are various articles available in gift stores that have beautiful designs and engravings. They may include antique cups, mementos, lamps, and pen stands. Generally, gift stores offer customized services for engraving the names and phrases for the recipients. Other items that make nice engraved gifts are clocks, pens or pen holders, photo frames, and albums. There are personalized gifts available for all occasions, whether there are birthdays

This is a fact. Recognizing achievement helps make your event complete, engages your participants in a new way, and leads to greater participation in future events. The reasons for this are complex but it boils down to our needs to be recognized for what we do. The greater the recognition of the event the greater the urge to participate and to succeed. This is true in businesses, in sports, and in life in general. Think about it, people who are passionate about acting tend to become actors. They have the drive to succeed. They see the recognition other stars get and that propels them to strive to perfection in order to gain entrance onto that stage. The same is true of successful sales people, who are usually looking for monetary compensation. Recognizing their achievements other, non monetary ways, often times will cause a greater bond to build between a company and its sales force. Which company would you want to sell for, company A who only gives a monetary performance bas

When we first started offering imprinted shirts it was becuase we had a machine that we were using for our recognition and awards business that also could be used to imprint shirts. The technology was not very good and we ended up scrapping the whole shirt imprinting until we started screen printing. At around the same time we became beta testers for another imprinting process that was a transfer process. This method worked a lot better than our old method and we were better able to achieve our goal of offering a greater product mix to our existing customers. With the screen printing and this beta-transfer process, we could offer to very different imprints at very affordable prices. Our screen set ups were the lowest in the area, and we were able to offer screen printed shirts for a low cost as well. This really helped our shirt business pick up and enabled us to grow our business while better serving our customers. Tomorrows post will be about our screen printing process, why you

We have three (that we use regularly): Screen Printing Embroidery Digital Imprinting Throughout the rest of tshe week we will be comparing and contrasting the differences between them, when they should be used and what they are used for. As you will see the digital imprinting process is a really neat animal. It is a machine that is relatively new to use and has done nothing but good things for us. The process uses a oversized, heavyweight printer to print directly onto the garment and a heat press is used to set the ink into the shirt, with the imprint adhering to the cotton. But more about that later.

Click here for RPI 2008: Best Practice Standards 2008 Nomination Forms NOMINATION DEADLINE : DECEMBER 1, 2007! Recognition Professionals International is the only association dedicated solely to the advancement of recognition in all work places. It is this association's desire that, through developing standards and implementing a site audit process, the Best Recognition Practice at work can be identified. Management Teams have learned through experience strategic and consistent use of recognition, reward and praise throughout an organization is instrumental in reducing turnover, increasing productivity and creating a positive work environment. A paycheck is not reward enough for employees. When an employee feels they serve a purpose and are being noticed for doing a good job, they will embrace the organization’s mission, goals and values, work above their standards, take fewer sick days, and are willing to put forth the extra effort for the company. As an added bonus, retaining