The Economy in Newton Iowa

Why Buy American Made??

mkeeler@newtonmfg.com — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 03:57:00 GMT

US manufacturing processes are much healthier for the environment than many other countries. Purchasing American made products helps to keep the environment a little cleaner.

Many foreign countries have low standards that allow unsafe working conditions. When you support American manufacturers, you are also supporting good working conditions for the American worker, and ensuring that child labor laws are enforced.

When choosing American made products, you are supporting a fair day’s wage for an honest day’s work. Many countries do not have a minimum wage law and workers are exploited.
Why support jobs being shipped overseas? When you purchase goods made in the US, you support the American economy.

As we have experienced lately, foreign product safety standards are low. When purchasing American made products, you can be assured that consumer protection laws and safety standards will be in place to protect your family.

The lack of manufacturing in the US is not a wise strategy. Make a point to look for American made products and help America grow more independent.

Many factories and much money are being shifted to countries that are not friends to the US. When you choose American made products you help to ensure that our access to goods/products is not hampered by any political conflicts.

If we allow our manufacturing ability to disappear, we will also allow precious jobs to disappear. Buying American helps to ensure that jobs with a fair wage are available for us and for future generations of Americans.

We can all make small changes that will make a huge impact. Although it may seem a little inconvenient, take the time to look for American made products whenever possible. Our beautiful country is counting on you!

Why do tradeshows?

mkeeler@newtonmfg.com — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 14:29:00 GMT

Exhibiting at a trade show offers you one of the best ways to get in front of a lot of customers and prospects in a relatively short amount of time. Trade shows give you the opportunity to not only show your product or describe your service, but also create that all important first impression. According to one study, 91% of respondents ranked trade shows as "extremely useful" as a source for product purchasing information. This was higher than any other source, including on-site visits from reps. Also, nearly half of the respondents had purchased products or services at the trade show.

At a typical national trade show, with 10,000 attendees and 1,000 exhibitors, you can realistically have 200 visitors per day. If you were making sales calls, you could not even approach that number. Granted, you don't always have the opportunity to go into as much detail in your presentation as you would like, but it opens the door for future communications -- a door that sometimes is very difficult to get your foot into.

So for most companies, trade shows are worth the effort. In fact, before you decide to nix a show your company has attended for years, think about what that might say to your current customers who expect to see you there. This is especially damaging if your company has been through recent staffing/management changes, mergers, acquisitions, or other changes your clients may have caught wind of. Your competition will use your absence to their advantage. This doesn't mean you can't ever stop attending a show, but just be sure you think about whom you see there and what your company's absence may lead them to believe. If necessary, send a post card to your primary clients that you know attend that particular show, and explain your decision to attend show B rather than show A.

Before you even start looking for shows, you need to set your goals. To help you do this, there are four questions you need to ask yourself:

Why are you exhibiting?
Are you trying to extend your relationship with existing customers? Introducing a new product? Positioning your company within the market? Generating qualified leads for new sales? Countering a competitor's claim?
Who is your target audience?
What is the message you want to convey?
What do you want to get out of the show?
Do you want to bring home leads, sell your product/service, or create/improve/build upon your company image?

You need specific, measurable goals if you want your trade show activities to succeed.

About us

mkeeler@newtonmfg.com — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 19:39:00 GMT

For 100 years, Newton Manufacturing has provided promotional advertising solutions to businesses and organizations large and small. While the products may have changed over the years, Newton's commitment to customer satisfaction has remained steady. We focus on achieving your goals for promotional advertising through our innovative product ideas, corporate fulfillment capabilities, e-commerce solutions, and employee performance programs.

RPI Conference Provides Ammo for Selling Recognition Programs

mkeeler@newtonmfg.com — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 19:56:00 GMT

According to a recent Towers Perrin Study, most companies have workers that fall into three levels of worker engagement: 21% are "redlined," meaning that they're giving the company everything they've got; 41% are "enrolled," meaning that they do their jobs but don't go the extra mile; and 38% are "flatlined," meaning that they're doing the bare minimum, if that.

* A similar study by Gallup revealed that 18% of American workers are "actively disengaged," meaning that they are "deliberately throwing sand into the gears of commerce," Bill Catlette, author of Contented Cows Give Better Milk, told the audience of more than 250 at a keynote speech on Monday morning. Employees who are actively disengaged are a huge problem for companies – the lower productivity of actively disengaged workers cost the U.S. economy $382 billion per year, the Gallup study estimates.

These statistics certainly make the case that employers need to do more to engage employees – and experts at the conference provided plenty of strategies to help. In a keynote on Sunday evening, Bill Buckner, an executive at Cargill who also serves as the global company's Chief Recognition Officer, highlighted several steps the company has taken to engage workers. Here are some of his tips that distributors can share with clients hungering to beef up their recognition programs:

* Informal recognition is important. While all employees like to receive formal recognition, such as annual awards, the average employee isn't impacted by these kinds of programs, Buckner says. To engage rank and file employees, Cargill has a comprehensive informal recognition plan in place, which empowers managers to hand out small incentives to workers when they do a good job. Indeed, executives should have spontaneous rewards, such as gift cards or desk accessories with inspirational messages, at the ready, according to Buckner.

* Consider the recipient. One-size-fits-all rewards don't work, especially on a global playing field. Buckner recalled a situation three years ago where some Cargill executives sent hockey pucks to high-performing employees at a Japanese firm it had acquired with an inscription that read, "Thank you for putting the puck in the net." "The employees were offended, not only because we sent them a meaningless black blob but because the inscription was in English," he said. "They didn't feel recognized at all."

Its better to give than to receive.

mkeeler@newtonmfg.com — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 13:56:00 GMT

We work in the promotional business gifts industry for this simple reason. The old adage, "It is better to give than to receive", holds true in our experience. The act of thoughtful giving is enjoyable for both the customers and for us. From Fortune 500 companies to our dearest friends, we've capitalized on our experience and resources to research and deliver customized solutions for promotional business gift needs.

Each of our customers have unique needs that require customized promotional business gifts solutions. Newton has a team of experienced staff available to find solutions to your unique needs, whether they be personalized corporate gifts, advertising specialties, imprinted promotional products or trade show give aways.

Advertising

mkeeler@newtonmfg.com — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 03:41:00 GMT

Pens, mugs, calendars, magnets, stress balls, t-shirts, caps, pencils, can coolers they all serve one purpose, to increase revenue and or exposure. We have more products than you can dream up and we have a team of experts waiting for you to call. Really its a free call with free advise and if you dont like what we have to say your not out anything. Lets say you have a current promotional Products Distributor, are you getting the service that you deserve? Do you get order confirmations, tracking info, do they let you know when something is on sale, or if you order the same item often do they alert you when it is on special? Do they send you thank you gifts for being a customer? Do they email or mail you just to check in and see if you need anything? These are all standards with us so if your not getting the service you deserve call or email us!

Made In the USA Items

mkeeler@newtonmfg.com — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 14:35:00 GMT

I love this!

John Doe started the day early having set his alarm clock (MADE IN JAPAN) for 6am. While his coffeepot (MADE IN CHINA) was perking, he shaved with his electric razor (MADE IN HONG KONG). He put on a dress shirt (MADE IN SRI LANKA), designer jeans (MADE IN SINGAPORE) and tennis shoes (MADE IN KOREA). After cooking his breakfast in his new electric skillet (MADE IN INDIA) he sat down with his calculator (MADE IN MEXICO) to see how much he could spend today. After setting his watch (MADE IN TAIWAN) to the radio (MADE IN INDIA) he got in his car (MADE IN GERMANY) and continued his search for a good paying AMERICAN JOB. At the end of yet another discouraging and fruitless day, Joe decided to relax for a while. He put on his sandals (MADE IN BRAZIL) poured himself a glass of wine (MADE IN FRANCE) and turned on his TV (MADE IN INDONESIA), and then wondered why he can't find a good paying job in.....AMERICA.....

The Importance of Promotional Products Today

mkeeler@newtonmfg.com — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 01:57:00 GMT

I found this article and I think its very interesting and makes a very valid point!

In these tough economic times, everyone’s looking for the most cost-effective way to get their ad message across. If you think TV, radio and print are the sale masters of measurable media, here’s convincing proof that promotional products are clearly in the mix.

Let’s face it. Everyone would like to see their business’s logo, their company’s products, their organization’s mission and message splashed across the airwaves in an award-winning, critically acclaimed TV spot during the Super Bowl, Academy Awards, NCAA Basketball Tournament or some other program with hundreds of millions of attentive viewers.

That would be pretty cool, right?

The reality, of course, is that most of us probably don’t possess a Super Bowl-sized budget, but you still need to come up with a promotion for next month’s product roll-out, trade show exhibit, direct-mail program or customer service/retention campaign that’ll make you look like a marketing genius and let you hang on to your job for another six months in today’s economically-challenged, “what-have-you-done-for-me-lately?” environment.

CPI = ROI

Consider, for a minute, the power of promotional products. You want to talk ROI? Let’s look at what in the ad biz is known as “cost-per-impression,” or CPI. A few head-turning examples:

Notepads. Recipients of a 50-sheet scratch pad will have a minimum of 50 exposures to the ad message written on it – each time they write something down, that’s one impression. And if the notes are passed on, the number of exposures can double or triple. The cost-per-impression for a $1 notepad would be $1 ÷ 50 sheets, or 2¢ per impression.

Watches. People look at their watch an average of twice an hour. If you figure there are 16 waking hours in a normal day, they’ll see whatever is imprinted on the watch face 32 times. For a basic $12 watch, the CPI for just one day is only 37¢. Spread that out across the typical 3-year warranty period, and it works out to more than 35,000 impressions, or a CPI of roughly three-hundredths of a cent.

Calendars. The recipient of a calendar will be exposed to the ad message on it 2-3 times a day at home, or 5-6 times a day at the office. Using 4 exposures a day as an average (and multiplying that times 365 days in a year), we get 1,460 impressions, which makes the CPI for a $3 calendar a mere 0.2¢.

Playing Cards. During a 1-hour game of rummy or poker, players would be exposed to the message printed on the cards more than 500 times. At a cost of $2 a deck, the CPI works out to 0.004¢.

Mugs. The ad message on a coffee mug will be seen as often as 10 times a day, and mugs tend to be kept for years. For a $5 mug, the CPI would be roughly 0.2¢ over a mug’s two-year life span. And recipients hold the ad message in their hand and use it every day! Try getting that kind of targeted exposure with a TV spot.

Given the potential promotional products offer for pinpoint targeting and superior CPI, it’s worth your while to sit down with a promotional products pro and together select some irresistible imprinted items, put together grabber graphics and copy and brainstorm a few dazzling distribution strategies. After all, these people’s expertise isn’t just in selecting products – they’ve spent years honing their packaging and delivery skills too, picking up unique and creative tips from colleagues and finding ways to spin them into promotional gold.

The Measurement Thing

One of the perennial stumbling blocks with promotional products is that they’re often relegated to a category called “unmeasured” media. Professors Marjorie Cooper and Charles Madden of Baylor University have dealt with the issue of measurement as it relates to promotional products. Here’s how they see it:

For mass media such as television, radio, magazines, newspapers and billboards, the measurement of people’s interest in them has to do with the size of the audience and the number of times the audience is exposed to the advertisements. These two measurements are known, respectively, as reach and frequency.

Reach is technically defined as the percent of the target audience that’s exposed to the advertisement at least once in a given measurement period. Frequency is defined as the average number of times a given member of the target audience is exposed to the advertisement. Additionally, gross impressions, calculated by multiplying the number of exposures by the size of the audience, is an aggregate measure of the total number of exposures that the advertisement elicits over its lifetime.

While these measurements may have, by their very nature, a number of faulty assumptions associated with them, they’ve nevertheless been embraced by the advertising community for purposes of media planning and budget justification.

A Similar Set Of Measurements

But that’s mass media. What about something more specific, in particular, imprinted products? Developing and utilizing a similar set of measurements for promotional products can accomplish two objectives:

They would have enough in common with traditional mass media measurements that they’d be easily comprehended and deemed acceptable measures of effectiveness.

Such guidelines would incorporate the distinctive dimensions of promotional products and the very real advantages they tend to embody.

Promotional products have value to a recipient completely apart from their dominant function as an advertising medium, and the value of the item cannot easily, if at all, be separated from the message-delivery vehicle.

On the other hand, television programming – the vehicle that delivers TV commercials to the viewers – can be easily divorced from the commercial. A good example is “zapping,” where viewers immediately switch to another channel whenever any commercials come on or hit the remote’s “mute” button, killing the sound so they don’t have to listen. Many TV watchers wait until commercials to visit the bathroom, make a quick phone call, prepare a snack, and so on. As a result, viewers see the regular programming without the accompanying advertising.

Medium And Message

Promotional products have the advantage that recipients are hard-pressed to separate the message from the valued medium. The measurement of effectiveness represented by intrinsic value is reach – the percent of the target audience that’s exposed to the message at least one time. If the promotional product is delivered to a recipient, the message has absolutely been delivered at least once. This is very different than the delivery of a television commercial, which may or may not be delivered to the audience along with programming that’s being watched. Consequently, the measure of reach for promotional products is, in fact, far more accurate and substantive than the measure of reach for either television or radio.

Frequency is represented by promotional products’ environmental compatibility. For mass-media advertising such as television, the viewer must choose to be exposed to an advertising message. Promotional products have a definite and obvious advantage in that they become part of the environment; that is, imprinted products are useful in a utilitarian or decorative sense, apart from any additional advertising function. And as such they’re often placed where they will be encountered over and over again.

The average number of times that a promotional product is encountered by the recipient in a given period of time represents the frequency with which the recipient is exposed to the message.

How To Do It

How about that? We have academics – marketing professors, no less – arguing convincingly for the superior reach and frequency of promotional products. Some pretty heady stuff. But I know what you’re really interested in is practical application. So here are a few real-life examples of how a small but creative investment in promotional products paid off big for the end-user (that’s you):

Fish Lures Clients

Lona Jensen Temporary Services, a 15-year-old firm based in San Francisco, wanted to improve its share of the temp market with a specialty – but in an unusual way. “We needed to break through the clutter of pens, mugs, rulers, key chains, etc. that our competitors use to get the attention of temp service users,” explains VP Bruce Jensen.

Jensen turned to Robert Anthony, a local marketing firm, for help. Only one condition: The promotional item had to be orange, Jensen’s corporate color.

“We did a lot of advance research, including interviewing some temp users, to get a better handle on the market,” explains Robert Anthony’s President Robert Stankus. “But we still couldn’t come up with a product we knew would command attention.”

The situation remained unresolved until one night when Stankus passed a pet shop with lighted fish tanks in its window. Then inspiration struck.

The result: a glass fishbowl bearing the Jensen logo and phone number, hand-delivered to pre-selected temp users. What made the gift interesting was that it contained a live goldfish, along with an imprinted container of fish food.

A further touch was the inclusion of a card proclaiming “Gulp!” in large letters. The inside copy described – and deflated – the three biggest fears companies might have about using temps. It also held a “golden opportunity” card good for a 25% discount on the first order and an entry form to win a temp for an entire day free of charge.

Altogether, Stankus says, about 250 fishbowls were distributed. When follow-up calls were made, 100% of the recipients remembered the fishbowl, and 70% made appointments to meet with the temp firm.

Local Tie-In Resonates With Recipients

To help boost the city’s profile, the Memphis, TN, Chamber of Commerce created several unique and aggressive mailings targeting corporations around the country. The objective was to inform them of the advantages Memphis offers as a corporate/business location.

One recent mailing included four jars of Smucker’s jams. The enclosed copy read: “Spread the word, Smucker’s is jammin’ from Memphis.” The chamber chose Smucker’s for a simple reason – the J.M. Smucker Co. has had its processing facility and distribution center in Memphis for over 30 years. Its story was used to show recipients that they too could be successful in Memphis.

Another mailing tied into sports. Since the mailing was conducted during the World Series, chamber President David Cooley thought a baseball theme would work best. A select group of 277 prospects in the telecommunications, medical instruments and food-processing industries were chosen to receive a mailing containing a set of 15 Donruss baseball cards, manufactured in Memphis by Leaf Inc., North America.

The cards were placed inside a custom box with graphics depicting a pitcher throwing a baseball – “If expansion is in your game plan …” read the cover copy. Inside the box was a photo of a baseball glove with the actual package of cards attached to the center of it. The copy continued: “Catch Memphis’ stats for a winning season.” The “stats” were a list of the advantages of locating a business in Memphis.

The major difference between the baseball mailing and its predecessors was that it represented the first time the chamber had included a response mechanism. Recipients were asked to mail back a reply card or call a toll-free number to receive a complete set of 700 baseball cards valued at $39. Of the 277 packets mailed out, 71 companies responded – a 25.6% response rate.

Pre-Show Mailing Boosts Booth Traffic

VTech’s ultimate mission was to make its Tropez digital phones a success in a market dominated by AT&T. Rather than go head to head, VTech President Steve Johnson chose to establish Tropez as a different type of cordless phone, choosing to introduce it to the electronics trade at the summer Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Prior to the show, VTech produced a creative mailing that included a logoed beach towel along with product information literature. The package went to 350 top retailers and included an invitation to visit the Tropez booth at the show.

The towels were packaged in briefcase-sized cardboard boxes wrapped in a poster featuring a photo from the company’s ad campaign. And since both the towels and posters were rather large, they also subtly alluded to Tropez’s “wide-area coverage.” Total cost of the mailing: $8,000, or $225 per prospect.

Other pre-show mailings for other exhibits also used products that suggested “coverage.” These included a golf umbrella and a sweatshirt. The products were selected because they called to mind an image of leisure, and all were white with a blue imprint. The mailings were timed to arrive a week or so before each show, so the recipient would have time to set up an appointment to talk with a Tropez rep on the show floor.

“The mailers were designed to entice people into our booth,” Johnson says. “We knew they’d be much more likely to open a big package to see what was inside than if we’d sent a traditional envelope filled with product literature.”

Johnson estimates that, to date, over 90% of the targeted retailers have been introduced to Tropez, and many are now selling it. At the CES, VTech generated more than 2,500 leads.

The Hard Earned Dollar

mkeeler@newtonmfg.com — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 22:33:00 GMT

I know how hard it is to make money and how even harder it is to save money. Every dollar counts and every dollar needs to be spent wisely, with this being said I invite you to call me and discuss your advertising budget, I would be happy to offer some ideas that will fit into any budget.

The New Year

mkeeler@newtonmfg.com — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 21:15:00 GMT

2009 is starting out much the same as 2008 finished off. Seems this may be the year of the never ending sale as the economy seems to be looking for a much needed boost. Its hard to imagine a modern day Depression and to hear people call it that sometimes takes my breath away. We have come so far since then and yet it seems maybe we have come full circle. Advertising is important with the economy the way it is it is important to advertise to get your name out there to sell your product, your message and most of all to let people know what you stand for. Calendars, pens, mugs, keychains, magnets, these things are not just cheep giveaways, they are a way for companies to build a connection with the consumer, a way to show your community that you still care that your spending part of your small budget on them. That you still value them and you know that times are rough but you appriciate their business. Now is the time to stand out to stand up to show people that even though money is tight and times are hard you still care about them, offering a free promotional product with your message on it is a great way to stay ahead of the competition!