IncomeBox focuses on giving you ways to enhance and improve your overall marketing. ParleeStumpf delivers unexpected strategies, strong copy, bold graphic design, comprehensive production services and proven web tactics. It’s what we do. It’s why we’re here. It’s why we’re hired.

In this edition of IncomeBox, I want to talk to those of you who aren’t clients yet. You open IncomeBox but you still haven’t called! Well what’s keeping you?

Please hit reply and let’s discuss how ParleeStumpf and your business can work together to increase your bottom line.

I answer every email sent to me.

Todd Parlee
Senior Partner

We love our clients and you know what? Our clients love us. They trust us. We want to help them succeed and they appreciate it when they see our efforts pay off for them. It’s a team effort and it has to be. Nothing can grow in a vacuum. It’s the give and take of information between us and our clients which makes marketing programs grow and prosper.

When I meet with potential clients I’m often asked the question, “Have you done a similar project in my business/service?” That seems to be a fair enough question, but let me tell you why it doesn’t matter when working with us. In our experience, not having done marketing for a particular business/service is in no way a detriment. In fact it’s our fresh eyes, ideas and approach that makes our marketing efforts even stronger. We look at things differently and that in turn gets you noticed by your prospective clients in a hugely positive way. Although we have experience in a substantial amount of businesses/services we haven’t done work for all. (Note: Many marketing firms that specialized in a particular industry silo didn’t survive the economic downturn.) The fact is that our vast experience with so many different types of businesses/services has enhanced our approach to solving business problems with incredible success.

Remember, it’s a team approach. We work with our clients to clarify the true goals that they want to achieve. As we work together we are able to collect the most important information to achieve those goals. Once that is established we decide what tactics that are best for achieving success and to keeping us in budget. The client is the one who know their business inside and out. You are the experts in your field just as we are in ours. The relationship here is a symbiotic one. We work together, forming a strong bond to make the marketing plan successful.

The bottom line. We are experts in our field just as you are expert in yours. When we work together as a team, with excellent communications, marketing success is guaranteed. Come on and get in the game, give me a call and let our experience help your business grow.

This Month’s Interesting Tidbit:

Current statistics indicate that there are 600 tweets per second - makeuseof.com

SICOM Systems, Inc. is a full service point of sale company headquartered in Doylestown, Pennsylvania, in a state of the art 40,000 sq.ft. solar-powered building. SICOM Systems is dedicated to the research, design, development, manufacturing, marketing and service of point-of-sale computer systems and digital menu boards for the Quick Serve Restaurant industry.

In addiiton of other Quick Serve Restaurants, SICOM is an approved point-of-sale system vendor for Burger King™ restaurants throughout the United States, Canada, South and Central America, Caribbean and the United Kingdom. SICOM Systems’ technologies are used in over 3,500 BURGER KING® restaurants worldwide. Sicom has been named “Supplier of the Year” twice by Burger King.

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Pennacle®, the net generation of PET colorants, offer superior solutions to liquid, wax, and bottle grade PET. These colorants are used in both transparent and opaque applications for the production of plastic bottles and containers worldwide.

Penn Color was founded in 1964 by Edgar Putman as one of the original manufacturers of solid color concentrates for PVC films & compounds. Through nearly a dozen acquisitions over the years Penn Color now produces color concentrates for all thermoplastic polymers, including olefins, styrenics, PET, PVC, and a wide variety of engineering polymers.

Also a major supplier of color concentrates (or pigment dispersions) for printing inks, automotive & industrial coatings, wallcovering & flooring, and cosmetics, Penn Color is easily the most diverse, and one of the largest color concentrate producers in North America.

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IncomeBox focuses on giving you ways to enhance and improve your overall marketing. ParleeStumpf delivers unexpected strategies, strong copy, bold graphic design, comprehensive production services and proven web tactics. It’s what we do. It’s why we’re here. It’s why we’re hired.

In this edition of IncomeBox, I’ll be talking about what gets my artistic side excited in this business: concepting, copywriting and designing a truly beautiful piece of advertising art.

Please hit reply and let me know if you would like to chat about our beautiful, successful marketing work.

I answer every email sent to me.

Todd Parlee
Senior Partner

I have always been into art. I love being creative. Most graphic artists by trade do. My training was in fine art but I realized in college that the better bet for me was to take a career in advertising design. And that’s what I did. Now I’m a boss at this firm and I still love to design when time allows.

To this point I wanted to take the time to look at marketing from a different angle, the art rather than the strategy. I spend so much time with clients talking about the goals and tactics of making marketing successful that I tend to gloss over the fact that each project that comes from this firm is a mini piece-of-art.

For an example let’s talk about what goes into a print advertisement…

After the goal and strategy of the ad is discussed by the internal think tank, and the concept to achieve that goal is formulated, the creative magic really takes place.

It starts with the copywriting. Copy drives design. Copywriters are artists unto themselves. We are motivated by the emotional power of words—communicated in a clear and concise manner—to engage, inspire and persuade people. The copy draws you into the ad just as much as the imagery.

That takes us to Photography/Illustration. Imagery is a crucial item for a successful concept coming together. Photographers and illustrators are artists. Just as I said that we are motivated by the emotional power of words, we are by imagery as well. People are very visual. Having that inspiring image will help them enter the ad to help them better understand what is being presented to them.

The final piece of the art creation, one most critical, is the work of the graphic artist. Their job through electronic magic, is to merge the final words and imagery into one cohesive, visual thought. Through the use of typography and photo manipulation, individual pieces become one and the final outcome is inspiring piece of advertising art.

The bottom line. People like to be entertained. A great piece of marketing art will do that. Entertainment helps remembrance, which in turn motivates. Motivation makes a better prospect for your business. That makes your job easier. This brings a whole new angle to the term, “functional art”.

This Month’s Interesting Tidbit:

Advertising effectiveness depends on users’ receptiveness towards an ad and on their attitude towards advertising. - Siegfried Numberger, Manfred Schwaiger: Cross Media, Print, and Internet Advertising: Impact of Medium on Recall, Brand Attitude, and Purchase Intention

According to Manuel Santos. Vice President of Business Development, “Every custom design job is obviously unique, but this one was more of a challenge. The client needed very large bus bar boots, and we were able to accommodate him – in a relatively short amount of time. In less than two weeks, we designed drawings from the client’s CAD files, got them approved and produced a sample boot for him. “

The challenge for the Insulboot design team was in the size of the bus bar – over four feet in length. Considering that the majority of boots that Insulboot manufactures average about two feet in length, it’s easy to see why a custom boot was needed. Yet, the size differentiation posed no problem to the design and engineering team at Insulboot.

Insulboot’s Free Design Service is just one reason why so many of their clients are repeat customers. Turnaround is quick – on both the design and the samples. “Once we have a sketch from a client with their exact specifications, we can deliver a layout of the new part along with an estimate to produce it, in just a matter of hours. And, once we have approval on our layout, we can have a sample finished piece in a client’s hands in 2 weeks or less” adds Santos.

As one client recently wrote, “Insulboot did all of the design work for us. We supplied them with a solid model of the entire bus system of the switchboard, and we worked closely with them to correct any errors and to make sure the boots covered the appropriate areas. We found Insulboot to be one of the single most helpful companies we’ve ever worked with, and the product they delivered was outstanding.”

The bottom line? No matter what the size or shape of your bus bar or switchgear, Insulboot has you covered. For over 30 years, InsulBoot has been the principle designer and supplier of high di-electric insulating boots (Up to 38KV) to the switchgear industry. Leading manufacturers have come to rely on InsulBoot superior products and exceptional customer service again and again.

With fully integrated plants in USA, Scotland and Mexico and 50KV AC testing facilities, the company produces many thousands of InsulBoot per day to rigid specifications.
Their main driver is “The right InsulBoot on time, every time”

For more information on their Free Design Service, visit their website at Insulboot.com

CONTACT: Manuel Santos–Santos@insulboot.com

IncomeBox focuses on giving you ways to enhance and improve your overall marketing. ParleeStumpf delivers unexpected strategies, strong copy, bold graphic design, comprehensive production services and proven web tactics. It’s what we do. It’s why we’re here. It’s why we’re hired.

In this edition of IncomeBox, I’ll be talking about two trends in the Social world that you need to pay attention to, for your business’ sake:
One – Facebook business page changes
Two – Google+

Please hit reply and let me know if you would like to chat more about Facebook business pages and Google+ and how they can help grow your business.

I answer every email sent to me.

Todd Parlee
Senior Partner

It can’t be ignored, Social Media is a very important marketing tool. It increases brand awareness, leads, sales, and traffic and affects web search rankings with back-links and company mentions in content. But, there is so much churn in the Social Media world that it can make your head spin. New sites, new ideas, new trends, new updates, all leading to the new flavor of the month. For that reason it is always a good idea to keep an eye out for what’s new. One of those new sites just might help your business grow. The following is what you should be aware of in the Social Media world currently.

Facebook Business Pages

Just when you finally got your business pages set the way you wanted, Facebook goes and changes things again. This should be no surprise since months back they changed personal pages on us. The real surprise is that the changeover is happening March 30th! So now is the time to be proactive and get your pages updated so they aren’t a mess when Facebook does it for you.

Here’s a list of the key changes, good or bad:

New Design There is a much bigger display area for hard-hitting sell of your brand. (850px by 315px)

Private Messaging Key messaging can be sent privately to fans/users and not to the general public as before.

Pin You can “pin” content in the “Timeline” so it appears first, allowing you to highlight important information that relates to your business such as a blog or marketing campaign. *Facebook Timeline organizes photos, videos, and posts of any given user according to the period of time in which they were uploaded or created.

No Default Landing Pages In the past a default page could be set for marketing efforts to garner “organic” likes. This practice will be no longer available.

Only 4 Tabs With the new design there will only be 4 tabs available. One of the tabs has to be “Photos”.

Google+

Google+ is Google’s answer to Facebook. It is gaining momentum and is a definitely a service that businesses should be paying attention to. However, I have heard rumors and did a little bit of research to confirm that there is more to Goggle+ then meets the eye. A little secret that Google doesn’t want to admit to.

Although Google prides itself on being a very non-biased service when it comes to “search” and claims to offer up the most relevant search items, there are a few hints that indicate the “search” playing field is not exactly even. It’s that fact that makes it even more important for businesses to have their Google+ pages up-to-date so they appear higher when someone searches for their service.

I wanted more facts for this issue of IncomeBox and came upon an article by Danny Sullivan, Real-Life Examples Of How Google’s “Search Plus” Pushes Google+ Over Relevancy. His samples really illustrate why it’s so important to take advantage of Google+.

Here are some of the highlights from his article:

When you start to search, Google highlights those sites with a Google+ presence.

Even when you are signed out of your Google account, if you have one, Google suggests Google+ results in a prime location when you search for a particular term, such as “music”.

If you don’t have a Google+ account you may not get “suggested” for a certain search term such as “music”.

The bottom line. One of the main purposes of using Social Media in marketing is to bolster your presence on the web. The more links that contain your brand, the better. Web marketing is a constant effort and when done properly is an amazing asset to a business. Anything to do with the web moves fast and can be out-of-date in a moments notice. If you would like us to help you stay ahead of the Social Media curve, such as updating your Facebook business page or creating your business Google+ profile, give us a call today.

This Month’s Interesting Tidbit:

Top 10 Brands on Google+: H&M, Samsung, Pepsi, Burberry, Starbucks, Coca-Cola, ZAGAT, TOYOTA, Angry Birds, Sony (As of 2/9/2012) ~website-monitoring.com

Bob Kaminski, Penn Color Industry Manager, notes that “our highly-loaded PVC Pigment dispersions will save you time and money.  By using Penn Color’s phthalate compliant single pigment dispersions (SPD) in your film or compound formulations, you can quickly turnaround custom colors at affordable prices for your customers. “

Penn Color maintains an extensive color library to help clients develop custom formulations with the help of their highly trained and experienced staff. For those who would like to eliminate in-house mixing/blending, Penn Color offers precise customer color matched/PVC masterbatches.

According to Kaminski, “maintaining color control, as well as the physical characteristics of our dispersions is top priority. As an ISO certified manufacturing and research facility, quality is always job one.”

Offering Phthalate Compliant SPDs is just one of the many initiatives that Penn Color is undertaking to become a more earth-friendly company. They are investing time and resources into reducing energy use and waste disposal as well.

For a close-up look at the many advantages to using Penn Color’s Phthalate Compliant SPDs, visit Booth #21037 at this year’s NPE2012 in Orlando. Or visit their website at PennColor.com.

For more info, contact:
Bob Kaminski
Industry Manager
Penn Color Inc.
215.345.6550

tahoffmanarchitect.com

T. A. Hoffman Architects is a design and project management firm, with extensive experience in all aspects of architectural disciplines. The highly personalized focus of the firm is on the overall aesthetic and functional parameters you have for your project. In coordination with Engineering, General Contractors and other professionals, they provide a unique structure that is a true reflection of your goals, with an emphasis on exceptional service and follow through.

The majority of their work has been within the private residential sector, but they have also spearheaded projects for historic renovation, institutional and commercial buildings throughout Bucks and Montgomery Counties.

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