Direct Marketing E-Book is Now Online

Linda Yarbrough and I have been working together for several years now. As I was working on "The Impending Paradigm Shift in Hardware Marketing," Linda and I decided to co-create an e-book on Direct Marketing. We both believe that traditional approaches to markets are becoming more difficult to navigate as businesses continue to be more metric sensitive and the number of competing messages continues grow. We have both seen too many entrepreneurs and start-ups that blew their budgets without a good understanding of what they were getting into. It is our hope that this e-book will provide enough information to help those venturing into direct marketing to avoid some of the basic pitfalls.

At only $9.95, it will provide a level of understanding that is the result of years of experience. It is easily downloaded as a PDF and is intended to be an aid to enhance your chances for direct marketing success. Click here for more information.

The 2005 National Hardware Show

Just back from two days at the National Hardware Show. Last year saw the demise of the Chicago show and the beginning of the Las Vegas Show. Rough years for both. This year, the Las Vegas Show was alive with more true hardware exhibitors and more attendees. Rumors were rampant that Depot and others were staying away, but that was not the case. Traffic was good and there were more small specialty distributors than ever before. the show had it's share of rough edges. The New Products area was a disaster. It was too small. Aisles were way too small and product was jammed in. People were going both directions and it was impossible to manuever. Some hardware folks were stuck in the back end of the Gourmet Food Show and the Lawn and Garden and off shore folks were stuck in an entirely different building.

The good news is that next year everyone is supposed to be together and I think the show will continue to grow.

I talked to several exhibitors with new products and they were especially pleased with the traffic and the ability to reach big name outlets for their products.

To paraphase, The Hardware Show is Dead, Long live the Hardware Show!

It is a thing of beauty

The web wizards at The Media Mix have outdone themselves. Linda and Hub are the gurus behind the new look at The Cannon Advantage web site. A new menu system was created. Case Studies and a cool new case study search capability has been added. A unique new power point with sound introduction is available. The Business Quiz has been moved to the foreground. It is more welcoming, has tons more information and is certainly more user friendly.

Very shortly, the store will feature a new E-book created jointly with Linda Yarbrough. It will be available for purchase and download for less than $10. Hopefully it will get to the right people before they spend their budgets rather than coming to us after their is no money left as is frequently the case.

Hub and Linda have created a web site that can be a tremendous resource for marketing, strategy, performance and change.

I hope you enjoy it as much as I am going to.

Direct Marketing E-Book

For some time now, Linda Yarbrough and I have been talking about direct marketing. I have been talking to Linda about how difficult it is for new products from single product marketers to get their products into traditional channels of distribution. Linda on the other hand has been telling me horror stories she has been hearing from some of these same folks who have tried to find reliable, knowledgeable advice on how to use direct marketing for their products or services.

Finally it dawned on us that maybe we should produce an E-Book on Direct Marketing that would provide prospective marketers with a basic understanding and do it so that it wouldn't eat up their marketing budget.

The Direct Marketing E-Book will be up on my website this week and Linda's website shortly as well. If you have a new product or service and are considering using direct marketing or direct advertising to go to market, please save yourself a lot of time, effort and money. Buy the E-Book first! Then, proceed with caution. Use the information provided to make sure that the people you choose to help you go to market are not just spending your budget, but truly do know how to help you get the best results possible.

Good Luck!