If you are having difficulty balancing your budget, why not consider a car share arrangement with friends and/or colleagues, whereby each of shares the burden of the daily commute?

Also known as “car pooling”, all you need to do is get tw, three or four people who travel the same journey to work each day and then alternate the drivers. It doesn’t have to be done daily of course, you could for example, have one person use their car one week and another the next.

There are numerous advantages, the biggest of which is the money saving. In addition, we all know that commuter driving can be extremely stressful, so not only will you save money, you’ll probably reduce your blood pressure a few notches too!

It’s best if the car sharers live close to each other, so that none of the participants are unduly inconvenienced by the sharing arrangement, but that’s down to how you want to play it and your group’s tolerance for travel!

Naturally, you need that each of the people in your car share group are reliable, otherwise you could find yourself being late on occasions, so it’s important to set up the rules early on in the arrangement so that there are no misunderstandings between you.

Also, you need to ensure that you all have a means of contacting each other for when things go wrong, as they will from time to time, with illnesses, traffic jams etc.

In some cities, people have set up car share clubs whereby they can contact people from other places of employment close by and make arrangements, even contingency arrangements for when unexpected things happen - for example, the driver is taken ill at work and leaves you stranded at the office!

The issue of environmental pollution is demanding more of our attention as the planet warms and becomes damaged by human excesses and the car is the worst offender.

In London for example, a city that was once renowned for being foggy and smoky due to the fossil fuels that were burned by its inhabitants, it’s estimated by Friends of The Earth, that around 90% of current pollution is caused by cars.

Congestion in cities could be solved if just one journey per driver per week could be eliminated.

Car sharing offers an economical and logical solution for people who hate, or don’t have easy access to public transport.

Billions of dollars are lost to business annually in most areas of the world because of road traffic congestion.

Car parks are fast filling up and are now so over-crowded in major cities that costs for parking have rocketed.

In summary, car sharing will:

Save you cash on fuel

Lower your car insurance costs

Reduce your stress levels

Improve your long term health

Reduce pollution (and could save the planet)

Eliminate congestion

Ease the daily commute

All things considered, there are far more reasons to car share than there are reasons not to.

What’s your excuse today?

About The Author
David Carter is a UK based article writer and publisher of more than 100 web sites covering a vast array of subject matters. His personal web site can be reached at http://www.david-carter.com.

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NB: You can read part one here: http://EzineArticles.com/?id=58690

Could buying popcorn in a theatre be a ‘conditioned’ response? Could it be that people are ‘trained’ to believe that movies and popcorn go ‘hand in hand’ - and that one without the other is….”incomplete?” And, therefore, price is just not an issue at all?

What a powerful place to be as a marketer, wouldn’t you agree?

Of course, there are some customers who fall in the above group yet still aren’t completely happy with the experience. They still end up buying the popcorn because the desire to have popcorn with their movie outweighs the pain of having to pay the higher price.

Here are more answers that I received…

“It is marketed as all part of the movie going experience! And they’ve got a captive audience - you can’t get it in there unless you buy it from them. So if you want to experience the movie it it’s fullest extent, you need to get the popcorn, and it needs to be their popcorn.”

And another…

“First off may I say it is the conditioning that the movie theatres, producers etc have done. Movies and popcorn go hand in hand. The movie goer has been conditioned all throughout life, so that is what is on their minds when going to a movie. Once at the movies the smell of popcorn cooking, the power of the senses reinforces the thought of movies and popcorn. Once at the movies you are a captive audience.”

Yep. As, you can see, there’s more than one marketing principle at work here. Stacked on top of each other, these strategies produce the overall result that’s very powerful and very effective.

I’ll go over each one below. And…I’ll also cover one big mistake movie theatres are making.

Let’s discuss the various marketing principles that are involved in “popcorn marketing”:

1. Conditioning and Programmed Responses

Since childhood, people have been ‘conditioned’ to associate popcorn with movies. Growing up, many of us enjoyed popcorn with our favourite movies, and we now see a bag of popcorn as an addition to the “overall” movie-enjoying experience. Some of us even see it as a ‘requirement’ to watching a movie.

Here’s how one of my smart subscribers explained it

“I think cinemas are relying on a very strong emotion — nostalgia. Many of our happiest memories from childhood probably involve experiencing wonderful movies, maybe Bambi or Mary Poppins. It is likely that popcorn accompanied these life-changing events. Whenever we go to see a movie, popcorn will be linked with some of our happiest memories. I’m surprise they can’t get away with charging more!”

Bingo! We have been conditioned and ‘trained’ to believe that movies and popcorn go hand in hand. Watching a movie without having popcorn somehow doesn’t seem ‘complete.’

Eating popcorn by itself may or may not do anything for people. But, having popcorn while enjoying a movie is the “icing on the cake.” It enhances the movie-going experience.

Yet, others are conditioned to want to munch on ’something’ while they’re watching a movie, be it popcorn, a hotdog, or any other snack. Because of this conditioning, they will buy something from the concession stand, despite the high prices.

But here’s what’s really interesting… movie theatres didn’t create this demand or ‘conditioned’ response. They simply aligned with an ‘existing’ demand, an existing ‘conditioning’ and fulfilled it.

What are the other demands and ‘conditioning’ mechanisms that exist around you which you could tap into and profit from? Look around. I’m sure you’ll start to see many of them once you shift your focus towards that.

To read the rest of this special report, you can download it here:
http://www.trafficstrategiesonsteroids.com/popcorn.pdf

(Feel free to use this article online and in your email newsletters as long as you leave it intact and do not alter it in anyway. The by-line and resource box must remain in the article all links must be active hyperlinks.)

Ian Canaway Reveals A Breakthrough Internet Home Business System Which Uncovers The Secrets To Getting Rich On The Web Using 3 Simple Strategies! Click Here To Find Out How You Can Make Money Online.

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Cram as much content into the brochure, after all
you paid for the printing and the ink - you’ve got to get the most out your investment.

Remember that even if you have the most gripping content out there, if you brochure’s layout isn’t inviting, interesting and non threatening, no one will read what you have to say. Business owners are most likely to fall into this trap when developing ads or marketing collateral it’s this one. Your parents and your grade school teachers were right - sometimes less is more.

Write what you think the important features about
your products and services are.

Oh no, please avoid this like the plague! What you want to focus on is the value as it relates to your clients and customers. Keep in mind who is buying from you; your client are, you’re not buying from yourself. If you want to know what your clients think, feel and want - ask them! If you’d like some guidance on how to ask you clients, call me, I’ll be happy to instruct you how (I’ll probably ask you a few questions as well). Everyone is tuned into the same radio station (WIIFM, what’s in it for me), so everything you include in your brochure should benefit the client from her/his perspective. Does that make sense to you?

Print your brochure to inform people

If you’re in business to sell information, skip this step, but if you’re like most small businesses, you’ll want to read this. I’ll ask business owners, “Why are you having this brochure designed? What is it going to do for you?”, they respond, “We want to keep our customers informed”. Hey, that’s great, keeping people informed is good, but it won’t bring in any sales, and most businesses wouldn’t be investing hard-earned money on something that won’t help the company grow. This is why it’s so important that you as a businessperson take a moment and clearly identify why the brochure is being designed and then setting up some objectives you hope to achieve with it.

Recently a physician contacted me about having us design a brochure for her. She didn’t have an answer to why she was considering having the brochure designed, and didn’t have any clear objectives for it. In the end she designed the brochure herself and didn’t really get anything out of it.

If you want to get the most out of your brochure investment, you have to start with a plan.

Leave it up to the prospect in what the want to
do next

Wow, I started laughing when I wrote this one; this is another outstanding way to make sure your brochure finds its way into the circular file. Of course you don’t want that to happen, so what you want to do is to articulate a clear and defined action step that you want the prospect to take after the brochure. You want to lead your prospects by the hand through your sales process. If you don’t have a sales process, call me, we’ll talk about getting you one, they are critical.

Here’s a trick, find a niece, nephew, son or daughter and ask him/her after reading the brochure, “Do you know what the brochure is asking you to do next?” If she/he doesn’t know what the action step is, you need to go back and make it clearer. The next time you read the paper or see a commercial on television, take a moment and identify the action step, you will almost ALWAYS see one in there, that’s because they are leading you down the path to buying from them. You want your brochure to do the same thing. Now there effective and ineffective action steps, so you want to make sure that the designer who is creating your brochure understands marketing and can develop the right action step to get your prospects to act.

Do it yourself to save money

Well this is a tough one; of course not everyone can afford having professional marketing materials, right? Well, if you want professional results and you’re serious about growing your business you might want to consider it. Business owners by the thousands design their own collateral materials - you can do this too. You’ll want to ask yourself,

How effective am I going to be at designing something that achieves the level of professionalism I want?

Am I going to lose out on sales because my marketing collateral looks mediocre? How much is that costing me?

In terms of dollars and cents, what results can I realistically expect if I design this myself? What kind of results could I expect if I had someone design this for me?

Just remember that your marketing materials are a reflection of your company, your character and your level of professionalism and quality. Based on who you elect to design your brochure, you have the choice to look professional, intelligent or amateurish and no so savvy. Keep in mind that people, whether choosing a date or choosing who they do business with, make up there minds within the first 10 minutes, so you want to make sure you look like the clear and undeniable choice for your prospect to do business with, and well-designed brochure from a business savvy designer can help you do this.

About Jeremy:

I help small businesses build more confidence and credibility into their business brand. Through marketing and design initiatives; I help you feel better about your company. Making you feel good about your business gives you more confidence and less anxiety when you are networking, promoting or selling your business. If your business needs the reliability and talent of an in-house marketing and design department but doesn’t want additional employees, salaries and benefits, give me a call at 480.391.0704 - I have a new approach for you.

If you are looking for more free insight and inspiration, you’ll want to get in on the “Can-Do Confidence Builder”. Emailed weekly, the Confidence Builder provides you with essential marketing and design insights that help you get the most out of your investment and help you to stay one step ahead of the competition. Email me at comments@candographics.com and asked to be added to our list or visit http://www.candographics.com

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