Dr Copa

I enjoy going to trade shows. My wife and I especially enjoy going to the shows regarding home and garden, recreational vehicles, manufactured homes and boats. My wife enjoys the garden shows the most. She likes to take lots of pictures of the sample gardens that the landscaping companies design to bring home for inspiration. Some of the fantasy gardens are absolutely fantastic!

We also enjoy going to the other parts of the show where the vendors have booths set up to sell their various wares. We see some fantastic trade show exhibits at the shows that we go to. Some of the best looking trade show exhibit booths we’ve seen are at trade shows that feature kitchen and bath ideas at the home shows. I’ve asked a few people where they got their exhibits, and they told me that they got them from the http://www.gilbertdisplays.com website.  I can remember many years ago that the booths were fairly crude, but now they look very sophisticated and seem to be an art form in themselves!

Well, while my wife and her sister went off red-hatting today I decided to do my wife a favor and go to the grocery store to pick up the week’s groceries.  Boy, was that a mistake!  The store was absolutely mobbed!  Now I know why my wife tells me that she will NOT go grocery shopping on Saturday afternoon!  I always thought she had a screw loose by being stubborn about it, but I had to stand in line for a very long time at the checkout counter, and I was exhausted when I got home!  And I was, I regret to admit, cranky.  I guess I’ll make a point to NOT go grocery shopping Saturday afternoons myself!

I’ve noticed that a lot of companies are now using postcards to market their products and services, instead of simply putting advertisements in the newspapers.  I think that is a good marketing strategy because a lot of people don’t read newspapers anymore, and it is easier to send your postcards to your targeted market than to simply put an ad in the newspaper that ends up unread or reaches a lot of people that you don’t need or want to target.  Why pay for advertising space that reaches the wrong target?  

I think that customized color postcards will catch the eye of the recipient when they sort through their mail, and they will actually LOOK at it for a moment or two before deciding whether to keep it, act on it, or throw it away.  One of the benefits of advertising through postcards is that if they want to keep it for a future reference they don’t have to cut it out of the paper with scissors, they can simply clip it to their refrigerator or tack it on their bulletin board right then and there.  That makes it very convenient for them to be able to do that.

The postage for postcards is a lower price than mailing out envelopes, which makes it more attractive in a cost-efficient way.  And the recipient doesn’t have to decide whether or not to open an envelope from someone they don’t know or make the judgemental call of whether to toss it in the trash unopened!  All in all, I think that using postcards to market a business is a good idea.

There is a good website called vistaprint.ca that sells custom made postcards in two different sizes.  You can use their own pre-made designs, or custom make it using your own design.  Their service is quick and affordable.  I like browsing around their website to see what they have to offer – I love their free products that they offer!  It gives you a chance to see what kind of quality items that they sell.

Well we are having company over for a few hours tomorrow for Easter.  They are all coming over around 2 in the afternoon to visit and play games, then we are going out to eat at a restaurant.  My wife has to work tomorrow from 10-2, so today is the day she is frantically running around the house cleaning.  I offered to help out by staying out of her way and running to the grocery store to buy fruit and veggie tray ingredients.  My wife’s sister is over here, too, helping to clean the house.  She says it’s better than having the whole family come over to her place!  Later today my wife and her sister are going to a Red Hatter’s Tea Party.  So they should have a good time!  It’s funny to see them dressed up in their red and purple outfits!

As more people find themselves the victims of downsizing, rightsizing, or whatever “politically correct” verbiage their companies are using to sugar-coat the fact that they are laying off people, I think that more people are going to be turning to the Internet to try to find ways to make money.  I think many people are going to try their hand(s) at self-employment opportunities.

The technologically savvy among them are going to be looking for ways to use the Internet to help them to market their new businesses.  They will be looking at buying their own domains, finding a good webhosting service and trying to create their own web pages.  Some people will be using the services of other people to actually create their webpages, and some will buy some kind of software to help them do it on their own.

One of the most important things to consider in this entire package is finding the right webhosting service.  There is a great website dedicated to helping people find the right match for their needs.  It is called webhostinggeeks.com.  Their website has great articles about webhosting, and rates and reviews many webhosting services.  I especially like the link that they have to webhosting services that are environmentally friendly – they call that link the “green web hosting.”