Brand name of a product has certain value to a company. How do we value a brand and how does it affect the fair value of a common stock? There is no definite way of doing it since a brand is worth more to some than to other people.

Brand is valued in the balance sheet under ‘Intangible Assets’ or ‘Goodwill’.. Each company values their brand differently but they all agree that brand name has certain value.

What is the best way to value a brand? Nobody knows for sure. One can only give his reasoning and then value the brand accordingly. Here, I will explore the possibility of valuing a brand based on asset value and based on the value of the common stock.

Let’s use a familiar brand name. Coca Cola Company (KO) has one of the most valuable brand in the world under the Coke brand name. How much is it worth? We can go to any grocery stores to verify. Grab a bottle of Coke and a bottle of generic cola. What is the price difference? We can argue that the price difference is due to the Coke brand name. Let’s assume a price difference of 10 cents. Let’s assume that Coke sold 1 Billion bottles of Cokes each year. This implies an additional $ 100 Million due to value of Coke brand. What is the fair value of a brand? Assuming a 7.5% yield (P/E of 13.4), the value of Coke brand is $ 1.34 Billion.

Please note that this is a very rough estimation of brand value . We just assume the same 10 cents product differential everywhere. Coke sells to almost every corner of the world and the price differential is not always 10 cents every time. Furthermore, as you may know, if Coca Cola is not selling that much Coke this year, the value of the brand will drop and vice versa. Therefore, the value of the Coke brand will fluctuate depending on the sales of the product. Supply disruption will result in lower sales. If there is a disruption in supply, which has nothing to do with brand value, the value of the brand will decrease as well.

Should we care about the value of a brand when investing in the stock? Yes and No. Yes, if you are valuing the company on the basis of asset value. If the value of the brand is a significant part of the balance sheet, then you should include it to value the overall net asset of the company. If a stock is traded at $ 10 per share while the net book value with the brand value included is $ 15 per share, then investors might profit by buying the stock at $ 10 per share.

For our version of fair value, valuing a brand name is not necessary. This is because the fair value of a common stock is correlated with the profits generated by the company. What is the brand name of Enron when it cannot produce a profit under this scenario? Zero. In general, we should not care much about the value of a specific brand. All we are trying to do as investors is to buy undervalued investments. We should compare the profit generated by the company with the price of the common stock, not with the value of the brand.

Finding the fair value of a common stock is more important than the fair value of a brand. You can get free investing lesson by visiting http://www.noviceinvesting.com

Instant communication? Palm Pilots, laptops, cell phones, instant messaging devices - of all the communications tools out there, the single best one is still the business card. With it, you instantly communicate your name, your business, your contact information and, with a little design capability, your personal style.

A well designed business card marks you as a professional, so make sure you choose a design that reflects the products you represent. Selling high tech computer equipment or software? A sleek, modern, minimalist design is perfect. Selling Victorian clothing or home décor accessories? A more elegant design with a floral or lacy theme may be more suitable. And while basic white is still popular, choosing a card design with dynamic colors will make your business card stand out from the crowd.

Make sure you include all the information you need to make it easy for prospective customers to contact you. Your name and business address, landline and cell phone numbers, and email address will direct your customers to you. If you have a website, including the URL on your business card will also let you provide substantial sales and background information to prospective buyers before they even contact you. Not only does this make your sales job easier, since you’ve already educated prospective customers to some extent about your product, the people who contact you after seeing your website are more likely to be serious customers.

Once you receive your business cards, get creative about how you distribute them. If you’re at a restaurant, dry cleaners, or other business that offers you a chance to win something for depositing your business card in a bowl, take them up on it. Just make sure, if you’re supposed to put your card into a clear container, that you deposit the card facing right side up, out at the customers; that way everyone who comes to that business’s counter can read your card.

Still paying bills the old fashioned way, through the mail? Drop a business card in with every check, every month. Join the local Chamber of Commerce, and pass your business card around at their after hours get-togethers. Need to hand someone connected to your personal life your home phone? Write it on the back of your business card.

You never know where your next sale is coming from. If you’ve got well designed, information-rich business cards on you at all times, you’ll be prepared to make contact whenever a prospective customer appears. In addition, a sales training workshop can help you close the deal after that prospective coustomer makes contact.

Aldene Fredenburg is a freelance writer living in southwestern New Hampshire and frequently contributes to Tips and Topics. She has published numerous articles in local and regional publications on a wide range of topics, including business, education, the arts, and local events. Her feature articles include an interview with independent documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and a feature on prisoners at the New Hampshire State Prison in Concord. She may be reached at amfredenburg@yahoo.com

Let’s face it the busines world we live in today is extremely competitive and those who sit back and do business the way they always did it are sure to perish. Think back to the general store. Every year you knew approximately how much you were going to make. A good year mean’t 10 or 15% over expectations and a bad year meant 10 or 15% under expectations. The extra profit would mean you were able to purchase a luxury item. The slight loss mean’t you cut back on a luxury item.

Today the world has changed. You earn more but the word savings is a word few know anything about. To compete today you always need to be on the consumers mind in a positive progressive way. Look at well established companies like Kodak and Bell. There monopoly days are over and they are looking for new ways to do business. Having a great product today is not enough. It must be advertised and marketed to the right consumer group, in the right way, at the right time. This brings me to the topic of Promotional Products.

Not to long ago when one mentioned promotional products you thought of a gadget or a pen with a company’s name on it. Today this same field incorporates practically every product you can think of. The Gap, Banana Republic, American Apparel, Sony, Coach, Sharper Image, American Express, Seiko, Movado, Nike, Calloway, and Liz Claiborne are all companies who buy booths in trade shows for the promotional product industry. Why are they there? They know that this industry includes corporate gifts, incentive programs and give aways and is a multi-million dollar industry and they would like to get their piece of the pie.

Think of any item, and you can brand it with your logo. Think I’m kidding, look at my web site, www.solutionsink4u.com. There are over 600,000 items to brand with many more not even in my data base yet. The numbers grow every day.

Here are the top ten uses for promotional products:

1) Business Gifts - Gifts to foster customer goodwill and retention.
2)Tradeshows - Trade show traffic generation. Watch how many more people go over to a booth when you are giving something away for free. it really doesn’t matter what but the better the gift the more lasting positive feeling you tend to get.
3)Brand Awareness - Promotion of brand awareness and brand loyalty.
4)Employee Relations and Events - Morale and motivation, corporate/employee events, employee orientation, corporate identity, employee referal programs.
5)Public Relations - Corporate involvement with community, fundraising, sponsorship, school programs, media relations, corporate image.
6)Dealer/Distributor Programs - Dealer incentives, co-op programs, company stores.
7)New Customer/Account Generation - New Customer or account generation rewards.
8)Not-For-Profit Programs - Not-For-Profit use for fundraising, public awareness campaigns (health,environment,public safety,etc.).
9)Customer Referral - Customer referral incentive programs.
10)New Product/Service Introduction - New product or service introduction.

Today smart companies are allocating a greater proportion of their marketing budgets to promotional products. This is due to it’s effectiveness. Promotional Products can be a cost effective and personal way to leave a great impression on one person. Word of mouth or exposure by this person can exponentially grow the positive results.

Need help with your next campaign give me a call at 514-337-2238, drop me an email at steve@solutionsink4u.com or visit my site for great original ideas at www.solutionsink4u.com. Here’s hoping your next campaign or launch keeps your company on the road to success.

Steven Schneidman Solutions Ink

Steven Schneidman runs a successful printing and promotional product company in Montreal Canada. He has an MBA and has worked as a finance professor at a Canadian University and has worked for the head office of a top Canadian Bank.

The headline of an advertisement is perhaps the most important component for it is this that either draws the attention of your reader or repels it.

Before you begin writing your headline, have a look at other advertisements in the media you are planning to advertise in. You don’t want yours to be proclaiming the same as your competitors, and you may find a unique selling point you can press that your competitors don’t have.

The following do’s and don’ts are rules-of-thumb to deploy when writing advertising headlines. There is no black and white to it as such, but tests have revealed what works best.

Do

Don’t

We hope you will find this useful in planning your ad campaign. For more tips see the links at the bottom of this page.

For a fail-safe method to getting the best results guaranteed have a look at The 9-Step Plan to Advertising Success, available at http://www.advertsuccess.com

A host of resources for maximizing your returns from print advertising are available at http://www.advertsuccess.com

This article may be reprinted in full as long as all links are kept intact.

Copywright Datsmart Ltd. 2005

Corporate gifts with logo are perhaps the most popular and widely used of all corporate gift ideas. Of course, it makes perfect sense. If your company wants to give its employees or customers a gift, then obviously you want them to remember you. What better way to make your company stand out in your customers’ memories than to give them a corporate gift sporting your company’s logo? Corporate gifts with logos are an excellent idea for almost any occasion, because almost any corporate gift you can think of can be imprinted with your company’s logo.

Common Corporate Gifts With Logo
Some of the most popular corporate gifts with a company logo include pens, note pads, caps, and key chains. But, there are a lot of other great corporate gifts available such as mugs, t-shirts, flashlights, office supplies of all kinds, and even computer accessories like mouse pads. All of these are items that can easily be produced with a company logo, so get creative! What are some items that people need and use daily? These are the best options, because they’ll be looked at every day, and so will your logo.

Imprinting A Logo
Depending on which corporate gift item you choose, there are some guidelines for the best way to imprint your logo. Usually, the corporate gift items you choose will already be manufactured, and your company logo is only imprinted on the quantity you order. So, typically there are some restrictions on the numbers of colors you can use in your logo and the size at which the logo can be imprinted on the item. The exact guidelines will vary from item to item, and they will also depend on the company you purchase your corporate gifts from.

In most cases, your logo will be no larger than an inch or two, so you want to choose a version of your company logo that is simplified enough that it will be very legible at this size. Also, you will probably be limited by the number of colors you are allowed to use in the logo for your corporate gifts. As a general rule, limit the number of colors you use in your logo to two. This way, the people to whom you give your corporate gift will know at a glance what is imprinted on it without having to study it for very long. These colors should also be in contrast with the predominate color of the corporate gift. For instance, if you decide to give away caps as a corporate gift with your logo, and the cap is blue, a good color for the logo might be white or yellow. Dark colors like red or black would be bad choices because they won’t stand out against the blue fabric of the cap.

Giving away corporate gifts with logo is most effective when you’re giving your employees or customers something they will look at and use on a regular basis. Imprinting your logo large enough to be legible and in colors that stand out will make your corporate identity more recognizable too. If you follow these guidelines when choosing any corporate gift with logo, you can’t go wrong.

For more great ideas on corporate gift giving solutions, visit Corporate Gift Ideas Guide

The size of your ad is a vital decision, for if you try and squeeze too much into a small space to save money then you run the risk of having fewer people read your ad, and dramatically reducing your response rate. Conversely, if you use a quarter page to say what could have drawn as much attention with an eighth, then you are wasting money.

So the first thing to consider on the road to a correctly sized ad is your message. What exactly are you selling, and how many benefits and features do you really need the advertisement to carry. Ask yourself the following questions:

Once you have answered all the questions above, you are then in a better position to begin sizing your ad.

As a rule of thumb, whatever size you come up with as a minimum advertisement size, you will need to enlarge it by a size. If you are planning a classified box ad, allow at least 2 capital letters, of whatever size print you are using, to fit in the margin on all sides. So, once you have laid out your ad in the way you want it, that will give you the recommended width of your margin.

This, and many other resources for maximizing response from print advertising, are available at http://www.advertsuccess.com

This article may be reprinted in full providing all links are kept in place and it is acknowledged to Advertsuccess.com.

Why purchase corporate gifts? The benefits of corporate gift giving can never be under-stated! Highly successful businesses understand the importance of branding. To achieve that well sorted after branding, resources are poured into marketing which will lead us to corporate gift giving!

Corporate gifts can be broadly categorised into internal and external branding. Internal branding can be achieve by acquiring gifts to be given to staffs within the company. This will help to foster the common identity to build that family spirit and morale which will increase productivity.

However I personally believe that external branding is by far the most important benefit of corporate gift giving between the two. Ultimately businesses are build around customers support. Therefore it is important to send signature corporate gift to customers to set your company apart and reinforce visual identity. Successful businesses are build on relationships that is base on the service that they provide more than the products they sell. It is this relationship that helps to seal the next project regardless of the price!

Personalised corporate gift which can be made affordable is used as a gentle reminder that your company still exist and re-established the business again! Whenever possible, promotional or seasonal corporate gift are best sent to thank customers for the business support.

Corporate gifts and souvenirs are also prudently employed to launch new company at trade show to create their branding and target any possible new clients.

Stephen shares the art of corporate gift giving. More ideas from http://www.corporate-gift-ideas-guide.com

At Corporate Gift Ideas, we aspire to add a new corporate gift item every other day for your corporate gift solution. We hope to pamper you with more choices to woo your well deserved customers.

With these, I hope to reinstate that the benefits of corporate gift giving is truly a MUST!

All too often I have heard clients say “Advertising doesn’t work for us” after a single appearance of their ad - sometimes even after trying only one media.

There are a number of things you can do if you want to know for sure whether advertising works or not for you. The first of them is to give your ad a fair chance.

Follow these basic rules and enjoy learning what the best way is for you to advertise. If your advertising doesn’t work, it is probable that one of these rules has not been followed.

If you have followed these rules and your results are still disappointing, then please get in touch: enquiries@advertsuccess.com and we will be pleased to look into your case individually absolutely FREE.

Rules for making your print advertising work

In our experience, we have found that controlled circulation or free publications are those most likely to produce disappointing results. It stands to reason after all, if you get something for free, you are less likely to read it from front to back than one you pay good money for.

You should allow for this in your campaign consideration so that you don’t expect too much from a publication that cannot deliver. There will be other criteria too that will affect what sort of response you should expect – criteria such as the circulation volume, demographics, frequency. Take account of these criteria when planning an acceptable level of response.

For details on how to select your media analytically, see the 9-Step-Plan to Advertising Success.

Remember, however helpful they are, media sales people have completely different motives to you. Of course they want your ad to work. Then you’ll be more likely to advertise again. But just remember, they get paid the same whether you get one response or a hundred. You don’t. Always remain in control of your ad spend and don’t let them tempt you to deviate from your budget.

I hope you will find this useful in planning your ad campaign. If you follow the advice I have given here, I am confident that you will enjoy more success with your print advertising campaigns. If not, please email me at enquiries@advertsuccess.com and I will give you a FREE consultation.

Remember, for a fail-safe method to getting the best results guaranteed have a look at The 9-Step Plan to Advertising Success. Available at http://www.advertsuccess.com

This, and many other resources for maximizing response from print advertising, are available at http://www.advertsuccess.com

This article may be reprinted in full providing all links are kept in place and it is acknowledged to Advertsuccess.com.

Copywright Datsmart Ltd. 2005

Most people are attached to their sense of image and style, as we are being fed daily by magazines and TV shows, how fashion and style are expressions of individuality. However, being too attached to what is deemed your individual style, will lead you to using your image ineffectively to build your business.

Whether you agree with it or not, people judge others by how they look. Therefore, personal image may be used to create trust at first sight. So it must be well thought out with much care.

I have given image seminars where I see people in conservative industries such as finance wearing tops revealing their cleavage, even though they are in a suit. I have seen a career coach wearing an outfit that is more suitable for an artist. Their images are not congruent with their professions.

Your image is not just about you. It’s about how people relate to the image. Your personal image is comprised not only of dressing and grooming, but also your body language and words. That being said, people do judge others based on how they groom and dress.

So how can we all make the best use of clothing and grooming for the good of our businesses?

First, consider the message of colours. The more conservative or formal your industry is, the more neutral the colour of your outfit should be. Neutral colours are black, grey, white, beige, and brown. Blue is also considered a “neutral” colour in this sense, because it conveys trust. Banking, law, accounting, and insurance belong to this category of conservative.

On the other hand, the more creative your industry is, the more colour options you have. If you are an artist, you may wear just about any colour. For professional designers and consultants, however, you may wear pops of colours but in strategic places, for example, in your tops, in the small details of a suit, or in accessories such as glasses.

Second, consider the style of your outfit. The more conservative or formal the occasion is, the more formal the outfit should be. In a formal industry where you meet your customers in the office, a conservatively styled suit is most appropriate. This means suit jacket that covers the buttocks. Suit skirts at knee level. Suit pants are straight legged, not outrageously flared at the bottom. Professional designers and consultants are between conservative and creative, so pick a suit that is of a trendier cut – suit jackets may have more details and colours, They could be above the buttocks, or longer. The suit pants may also have details and textures. For the creative ones, a suit is not necessary in most days. However, T-shirt and flip flops are mostly unacceptable, unless you are going to the beach! Do put in some effort to convey professionally what you do.

Third, let’s look at grooming. For conservative industries, keep your hair and make up neat and neutral. It doesn’t mean not to style the hair or not putting on make up. Hairstyle should be chic and sleek (if your hair can handle it). Nothing outrageous. A chic bob, for example, is a good option. Do remember putting on make up, however, but leave out the sparkles and bold colours. People need to see you, not focused on the extremities of your dressing and grooming. For those who are in between conservative and creative, you may have slightly more outrageous hairdos – just don’t dye it in any colours of the rainbow. Your make up may be bolder, but be sure it is sophisticated, not cheap. For those creative ones, do whatever you wish, but use your common sense to keep everything neat and clean looking, even if your hair is green.

Last but not least, what about personal style? I can just feel some readers having this question in their minds – do they have to give up individuality and take up what is appropriate? I can almost hear some women who are in law or finance, saying that they love purple and pink, and refuse to give them up. So what can they do about it? This is where you must use creativity and common sense – for those who refuse to live without pink, maybe a soft pink blush or lipstick, very soft pink nail polish, or a very light icy pink shirt would do! If you feel that there are elements that are absolutely you, think of a way to weave these elements (maybe not all of them at once) into the outfit, making your image acceptable to the industry, yet reflecting your personal taste and preference.

Noelle Wong sees and unveils beauty in people. She is the owner of iN-IMAGE! Inc., a personal image consulting company in Toronto that offers one-on-one consultations and workshops to help people increase their personal presence. For more information, visit her website at http://www.in-image.com.

It certainly pays to have professional help when it comes to running advertising campaigns, but with some tips and good creatives, you should be able to run your own advertising campaigns effectively.

Running Your Own Advertising Campaigns

Follow this step-by-step guide to running your own advertising campaign to ensure success:

1. Conduct a Market Research

Identify your target market as mentioned in the article Choosing Websites to Place Ads at http://www.momtycoons.com/promotion/advertising-websites.shtml. Conduct a thorough research on where you will find your preferred customers. See where your competitors are advertising.

A simple way to see where your competitors have incoming links from is to go to http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/ and type in your website address and 3 of your competitor’s URL’s. You will see a chart showing comparisons between your link popularity and yours. Click on each Search Engine name to see all the inbound links of the 4 websites (including yours).

For offline advertising, identify local and budget publications that reach your target market. Your goal should be to reach the people who are most likely to respond to what you offer.

2. Decide Upon Your Advertising Budget

It is important to decide beforehand how much money you want to spend on a particular advertising campaign so that you do not end up wasting your precious bucks. Deciding how much to spend depends upon your financial ability and the size of your business.

3. Plan Your Campaign

Plan your campaign in advance. For planning an effective campaign, you will need to mix-and-match various forms of advertising. An example of how to break down your budget into various forms of advertising is shown below:

Total Budget - $1000

Online Advertising

Press Release - $100
Website Advertising - $100
Pay-Per-Click Advertising - $100
Ezine Advertising - $90
Sponsored/Text Links on Websites - $70
Classified Ads - $40

Offline Advertising

Promotional Items - $200
Print Shopping Guides - $50
Classifieds - $100
Flyers - $150

4. Prepare Excellent Advertising Material

Before you start implementing your planned campaign, aim yourself with adequate and quality advertising material. For online advertising, prepare good quality graphic banners in various sizes and compelling text ads of varying word-lengths. Write or get professionally written, an interesting press release. Your ad creatives and text ads are extremely important to your campaign. DO NOT risk designing them yourself unless you are extremely good at doing it. Saving a few dollars here may cost you your entire advertising campaign! Leave this job to the professionals.

For offline advertising, have adequate printed material on hand. This will include form mailers, brochures, flyers, signboards etc.

5. Begin Your Campaign

Send out your press release. I recommend PRWeb. This is not the place to try saving a few dollars so avoid sending only a ‘free’ press release as it will get you nowhere. Go in for their paid press release distribution programs. The extra $50 will be worth a lot more!

Book ad spots on various websites and in Ezines and Newsletters. Buy clicks on relevant keywords from ‘Pay-per-click Search Engines’. Place text ads/classifieds/directory listings etc. in various websites, directories and indexes.

For Offline Advertising, start distributing brochures and mailers, send out mailers etc.

6. Track Results and Work on Your Campaign

Once your advertising campaign gets started, you will need to track the results of each form of advertising. Allow 3 to 6 months time for advertising forms which are performing well to judge their performance accurately. If some means of advertising do not work at all or bring in results that are not at all cost-effective, discontinue them. See which text ads, banners and keywords (in pay-per-click) bring best results and use them again. Try using different keywords and monitor the results.

You must daily track all your ads actively and keep tweaking the ads to get the best performance out of them. Some banners, texts and keywords will perform very well while others won’t. Only through effective tracking will you be able to make your campaign a success.

Hiring an Agency

If you have an advertising budget of $25,000 and more, you should consider hiring an Advertising Agency to work for you. Advertising agencies have experienced staff for writing ad copies, designing compelling graphic ads etc. and they will place your ads on relevant websites and ezines and also provide you with ad tracking stats, thus making work easier for you.

About the Author:

Lata Tokhi is a successful website publisher with a network of popular websites. She shares her internet success secrets with you at http://www.MomTycoons.com

Visit some of her other popular websites at http://www.DotComWomen.com, a Home & Lifestyle website and an online community and http://www.Celebrating-Christmas.com, a complete Holiday portal.