Even if you were to invent something earth-shattering, you would not earn any money out of it if you left the invention on your desk. The only way you can turn a profit from it is by selling it and in order to accomplish this, you have to inform people that it exists, that it is for sale and where they may get it from. In other words, you have to advertise it.

The US Patents Office has issued thousands patents for products that never made it and many of those did not make it, not because they were not good concepts, but because their inventors did not know what to do with them. A business is more or less the same as a new invention. It has to be marketed, unless it is located in the middle of the only street in town.

Having already started your business, it is to be hoped that, you have already worked out your target market and evaluated the demand for your goods or services. Now you have to convert those potential customers into contented customers and this is where your promotional strategy comes in.

A promotional strategy is nothing more than a for reaching your intended market, which is of course the people most likely to need your services or products. At its simplest, your promotional strategy might consist of just hanging a sign over your door and relying on word of mouth from satisfied customers to spread, so doing your advertising for you.

In some cases, this is indeed all the advertising a business needs, but the circumstances are not that common really. It works, if you are operating in a very small town or if your product or service is unique or very specialized or if you enjoy a long-standing good reputation. However, normally, customers require more details to go on before they will be drawn to your business.

Therefore, the objective of your promotional strategy should be to reach the greatest quantity of potential customers through the most economical use of your resources, which may include money, personnel and facilities. This means that you have to discover the channels of communication most used by your potential customers and try to connect with them through those. This is normally constrained by a budget.

Advertising involves the purchasing of time or space in the media you have selected in order to publicize your business to your target market. You then have to decide which form of advertising you are going to use: institutional or product advertising. Institutional advertising markets the firm’s name as in: ‘Larry’s Boot Shop – The Best In Town’, whereas product advertising is more specific and might read: ‘Nike Walking Boots – 30% off at Larry’s. Offer Finishes Friday!’

Both forms of advertising can be successful and lend themselves better to some media than to others. Institutional advertising is better carried out on shop signs, sign-written vans or windows or promotional calendars, that is, static, long-term, business name advertising and product advertising is better done by newspaper, magazine, radio and TV, where one-off special offers can be promoted.

Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with researching promotional wall calendars. If you have an interest in calendars, organizers or promotional calendars, please go over to our website now at Promotional Desk Calendars

Christmas – is the celebration of Jesus’ birthday. Although the precise date of his birth is unknown, December 25th was probably selected because it coincided with a pagan mid-winter festival. The ‘Twelve Days Of Christmas” mark the days between Christmas and Epiphany (January 6th), which was the day of the wise men’s visit.

Easter – is the most important day in the Christian calendar, because it celebrates Christ’s Resurrection, which gave / gives Christians the hope of salvation and eternal life. Easter always falls on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal (Spring) equinox, which is on 21st March.

Shrove Tuesday – (Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday) was originally a day of penance, but is now marked by merrymaking. It is the day before the commencement of Lent.

Ash Wednesday – is derived from the marking of a cross on the forehead of believers with the ashes from the burnt palms used on Palm Sunday.

Lent – 40 days of atonement and fasting

Palm Sunday – the Sunday before Easter, remembers the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, where palms were strewn on the road before him.

Maundy (Holy) Thursday – the day of the Last supper.

Good Friday – is the day of Christ’s crucifixion.

Holy Saturday – is the day before the Resurrection.

The Annunciation – March 25th is celebrated by Catholics as the day that Archangel Gabriel told Mary about her imminent pregnancy.

Trinity Sunday – is celebrated by some denominations in honour of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. It was confirmed part of the holy calendar in 1334 by Pope John XII.

Corpus Christi – Catholics celebrates the presence of the body of Christ on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday.

All Saints Day – this mainly Catholic remembrance is on November 1 and honours all Christian saints.

Advent – a religious season that starts on the Sunday nearest to November 30 and lasts until Christmas Day. It celebrates the birth of Jesus and anticipates his Second Coming. It was once a period of fasting, but now no longer.

Holy Days Of Obligation – are feast days in the Catholic calendar marked by attendance at mass and the avoidance of unnecessary work. There are six in the USA: Solemnity of Mary – January 1: Christ’s circumcision, ie his first shedding of blood Ascension – 40 days after Easter Assumption – August 15: Mary is accepted into Heaven All Saints’ Day – November 1 Mary’s Immaculate Conception – December 8 Christmas Day – December 25.

Owen Jones, the author of this piece, writes on many topics, but is currently involved with Franklin Covey planner refillss If you have an interest in calendars, organizers or promotional calendars, please go over to our website now at Promotional Desk Calendars

Hereunder is a directory of minor holidays and occasions in the United States. Some of them are virtually unknown, and others are quite obscure.

April Fools’ Day – (April 1): the day for practical jokes (only before noon in the UK). Its origins are obscure, but it bears a resemblance to an ancient Roman festival for the goddess of nature.

Arbor Day – (last Friday in April): devoted to trees and their conservation. It is held on December 22 everywhere else in the world.

Armed Forces Day – (third Sunday in May): a day to honour the US armed forces.

Citizenship Day – (September 17): replaced Constitution Day in 1952 by presidential proclamation.

Daylight-Saving Time: was first suggested by Benjamin Franklin in 1784, but became the Uniform Time Act in 1966. It is not observed in Hawaii, the Eastern Time Zone of Indiana, most of Arizona (except on the Navajo Reservation), American Samoa, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and Guam.

Election Day – (Tuesday after the first Monday in November): presidential elections are held in years divisible by four and elections for all members of the House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate in years evenly divisible by two.

Fathers’ Day – (third Sunday in June): was first celebrated in West Virginia in 1908, but this distinctively American holiday was not made official until 1972.

Flag Day – (June 14): was first celebrated in 1877, which was the centenary of the adoption of the modern design. Truman passed the Flag Day Bill in 1949.

Groundhog Day – (February 2): on this day the groundhog looks out of his burrow. If he sees his own shadow there will be six weeks of Winter to follow, otherwise Spring is just around the corner.

Halloween – (October 31): All Hallow’s Eve is the day before the feast of All Saints. It started as a pagan custom honouring the dead and a celebration of Autumn. ‘Trick or Treat’ is purely American with no historical foundation.

Kwanzaa – is a secular observance by African-Americans to commemorate their African heritage. It begins on Dec.26th when a candle in a candelabrum is lit every day for seven days. It was first practiced by Maulana Karenga in 1966.

Mothers’ Day – (second Sunday in May): was thought of by Anne M. Jarvis of Philadelphia as a way for children to pay homage to their mothers. It received presidential proclamation in 1914.

National Maritime Day – (May 22): was proclaimed in 1935 to memorialize the SS Savannah’s first successful transatlantic crossing by a steamship in 1819. It is also a day of remembrance of merchant mariners who died in defense of their country.

National Teachers’ Day – (Tuesday of the first full week in May): is when pupils are meant to honour the teaching profession.

St. Patrick’s Day – (March 17): has been borrowed from Ireland where it is their national saint’s day.

St. Valentine’s Day – (February 14): was initially to honour two saints martyred by Emperor Claudius (214 – 270), but has been dedicated to lovers since the Middle Ages.

Susan B. Anthony Day – (February 15): Anthony (1820 – 1906) worked for women’s rights and suffrage.

United Nations’ Day – (October 24): commemorates the endorsement of the UN Charter in 1945 by the then five permanent members of the Security Council.

Owen Jones, the writer of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching Franklin planner pages. If you have an interest in calendars, organizers or promotional calendars, please go over to our website now at Promotional Desk Calendars

If you were to create a self-cleaning fabric, the world may want to beat a path to your door to acquire some from you, but first of all they will have to be aware that the textile exists, that it is available for purchase, and they have to be aware of where your door is. This requires advertising.

There are two classifications of advertising: institutional and product. Institutional advertising markets the name of your company in general and product advertising markets a product or range of products or services. The type of publicity that a business requires, depends on the products or services that it allows.

Moreover, some kinds of advertising lend themselves better to institutional advertising rather than product advertising. For example, a shop sign, a sign-written van or a promotional calendar are better suited to institutional advertising, while a newspaper or magazine advert would be better for advertising the latest special offer.

There are few facts and figures available that reveal the astonishing growth of the mass consumption society as well as those dealing with the expansion of the advertising industry. For instance, prior to the Second World War, US average annual expenditure on advertising per year had been about $2 billion for decades.

In 1950, as the post-war economy began to pick up , American businesses spent $5.7 billion to advertise its goods and services. By 1960, that figure had doubled to $12 billion. By 1970, American business was spending $20.

Between 1970 and 1990, as the children Baby Boomers became adults and began earning and spending, advertising expenditure went through the roof, so that by 1986, it had reached $100 billion.

That phenomenal rate of increase could not be maintained, but by 1999, total expenditure on all forms of advertising topped $215 billion . The last available figures are for 2007 and they stand at $280 billion.

In 1999, nearly 60% of all advertising dollars were spent on adverts in newspapers, magazines, on the radio and on television. By 2007, that figure had fallen to about 54% as the Internet started to have an effect on advertising trends. These trends are expected to continue as every firm is expected to have its own web site these days.

The nation’s largest advertisers are the manufacturers of cars, food, soft drinks, tobacco and beer and they filter most of their expenditure through about 13,000 advertising agencies., who usually create the ads and buy the space or air time from the media too.

These agencies have been transformed over the last decade by amalgamation. The most successful advertising agencies these days are huge international concerns. WPP, the largest advertising agency in the world, billed $37 billion in 2008 and had this to say about itself:

“Our total revenue in 2008 surpassed that of all our competitors, regaining the No.1 worldwide position for the third time”.

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching promotional wall calendars. If you have an interest in calendars, organizers or promotional calendars, please go over to our website now at Promotional Desk Calendars

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Are you wondering what the best times to try to schedule a fly fishing trip are? Well, when we talk about a fly fishing calendar, we are not quite referring to a printed calendar that you can hang on your wall. We are talking about targeting and specifying the right times to fish and the right places at which to fish.

The main thing you have to think about when you are considering drawing up a fly fishing calendar is: when will the water be at the optimum temperature? That is, the temperature that is best for catching fish. The right time to go fishing will depend on the region that you are looking at for your fly fishing trip.

In some locations, like California, the fishing is very good all the year round. While in other locations, such as Washington, you will have to avoid the water in the winter as the freezing temperatures will stress the fish and they will not be as plentiful.

Generally speaking, the fly fishing calendar shows that the best fly fishing is in the spring and summer periods. Early fall will also find some places seeing good fishing as well. Almanacs can be useful to steer you towards the best fishing times and places as can constantly updating Internet web sites that are run by dedicated local fishermen.

Many locations will give weekly, and sometimes even daily fishing reports on their websites. They can tell you where the fish are biting and where the best places in the river are to cast your line. They generally keep these areas of their web sites updated pretty frequently. So you can get quality reports just by looking at what other anglers have to say about their fishing experiences.

Usually, fish like warmer water, although, there are other species like salmon and steelhead that thrive in colder water. However, in general, warm water will attract more fish. Nonetheless, if the water is too warm, the fish will be lethargic and will swim to places where the water is cooler.

The fly fishing calendar used most often by experienced fishermen has been compiled over a lengthy period of time. They expend a considerable amount of effort to estimate where and when the best fishing will take place. Then they share it with others. That is one of the best things about fly fishing – the comradeship and the sharing that can come about because of a mutual affection for the sport of fly fishing.

You can create your own fly fishing calendar with a little time and effort. Just do your homework and keep plenty of notes. When you see a trend, you will know that it is time to go fishing! Then you should be sure to help your fellow anglers by passing on the information via a local club or the Internet, if you are talented at it, because others will be trying to figure out what you already know. You know that most fly fishermen would do the same for you, do you not?

Owen Jones, the author of this article, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with researching Franklin planner pages. If you have an interest in calendars, organizers or promotional calendars, please go over to our website now at Promotional Desk Calendars

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