Pelland Advertising Newsletter

January 11, 2012

January 2012 Newsletter

We have been starting the new year with a bang here at Pelland Advertising. We have several new clients to welcome and some very exciting projects in the works. It seems that more and more people recognize the value of stability when choosing companies like ours that play a mission critical role in their success. No other company providing our range of services to the outdoor recreation industry has a track record that goes back more than 30 years. We have not changed hands even once over the course of that history, and we have not hopped around from one employer to another. In fact, we were producing award-winning advertising before some alternate suppliers existed (or, in some cases, when their owners were even born). Stability, reliability, consistency, and knowledge. Put them to work for you on every project. Turn to us. Read below for some specific ideas on how we can help!

Unconventional Wisdom Works
25 Marketing Strategies to Build Your Outdoor Recreation Business Today

In case you had not heard, Peter Pelland has joined forces with another well-respected name in the outdoor recreation industry – Evanne Schmarder – to author a comprehensive marketing strategy book written specifically for outdoor recreation business owners and operators. The book puts over 50 years of combined marketing expertise to work for readers, covering 25 actionable marketing techniques that will help businesses to build an online and offline presence among outdoor recreation consumers. The graphic, above, shows the front cover design of the book that will be available for purchase in the early spring. We expect to be accepting online pre-orders sometime in February.

Visit http://UnconventionalWisdomWorks.com/ for more information, to read snippets from chapters, to keep posted on the project’s progress, and to be the first to be notified when pre-orders become available!

The Best Way to Exchange Large Files

Our clients often ask us how to send us large files or a collection of dozens of photos. E-mail attachments were never intended to handle large files, and many e-mail service providers will block a message with an attachment that is over 10MB in size. What is the solution? We now recommend the use of Dropbox, a free cloud service that allows you to easily upload, share, and download files with anybody in your network. Click here to sign up. Again, there is no charge for this excellent service. If you are going to send us a large batch of files, this is the way to do it.

QR Codes & Mobile-Friendly Sites

Many businesses need to strongly consider developing a mobile-friendly website. (You will be able to learn much more about this in Chapter 11 of Unconventional Wisdom Works, titled “Going Mobile”.) At the end of 2011, there were 140 million smartphone subscriptions in the United States alone. This represents over 50% of mobile phone customers, and well over 50% of the users of handheld devices access the Internet using those devices on a daily basis. Very importantly, 70% of all mobile searches result in action within 1 hour. Only 3% of websites today are considered mobile-friendly. Almost any website is perfectly viewable on a mobile device, but a mobile-friendly site has slimmed-down content that is optimized for the format.

If you are interested in having a mobile-friendly version of your website built, contact us. In the meantime, we encourage people to at least register .mobi versions of their domain names. Those can simply redirect to your existing website URL for the time being, until you are ready to launch a secondary, mobile-friendly version of your site.

One of the most popular ways of getting smartphone users to find your website is through the use of a QR (“Quick Response”) code, added to your print advertising, posters, product displays, or anything else that can be scanned by a smartphone running a QR code reader app. If you would like to generate a QR code for your site, we suggest the free online service from QuikQR. This service has no strings attached and generates high quality images that can be easily converted for use in any size for print. Click here to visit the QuikQR site to get started with this excellent free service.

How Many Ways Can We Help?

One of our newer clients is Old Stage Campground, in Madbury, New Hampshire. Our first project for Old Stage was the production of a new logo in late 2010. The logo was followed by a new site map and a new rack card. Those projects, quite naturally, led to the production of a new website for the park. The new site was launched in the closing days of 2011, and is the newest component in the growing package of services that we have provided in our efforts at helping Old Stage Campground to grow and succeed!

Let us play an ever-expanding role with your business. You might be surprised by the range of services that we offer. Just ask. If we do not provide a particular service, we can usually refer you to a reliable source!

Interactive Customized Online Games

Time and again, we have learned that there is a direct correlation between the amount of time that a visitor spends on a website and the likelihood of that person taking the intended course of action. That course of action might be a product sale or a reservation. If your business appeals to families, particularly families with children, an online game might be a sound investment. We can program everything from simple (but fun!) word search games that appeal to younger kids to fully competitive, timed games for older kids and adults. Our new introductory price for customized word search games is sure to make you smile and fit into your budget. Follow this link to play working examples, then contact us regarding your project!

That wraps up this installment of the Pelland Advertising newsletter. Look for our next newsletter soon, when we will have even more breaking news to share. As always, please do not hesitate to contact us to suggest new ways that we may be of service to your business. If you find this information to be useful, please forward a copy to your friends and business associates so that they may subscribe. Thanks!

Peter Pelland and the Staff at Pelland Advertising