Even in today’s world of advanced technology, the business card is still king. It is the first impression someone has of your business. A cheap business card design usually translates to a cheap business in the mind of the person receiving the card. A quality card will take you far in face-to-face networking.

Yellow Dogg Designs is offering visitors to The Dogg Blogg the opportunity to win free business card design.

Giveaway Details

• 1 1-sided 2″x3.5″ business card design in jpeg and psd format*
• Restriction: Limited to US residents 18 years old and above only.

*Does not include printing

How To Participate

Simply leave a comment telling us different ways you network (social media, networking socials, organization membership, etc) . Be sure to include a valid email address in the appropriate section  for us to contact you. Winners will be chosen, at random**, from those visitors that commented. Only visitors who provide a valid email address are eligible.

Contest Duration

July 1 – July 31, 2011 @ midnight EST

Disclaimer

This business card design giveaway is sponsored by Yellow Dogg Designs.  Prizes cannot be exchanged for cash. **Winners are chosen randomly using Random.org. Contest winners will be notified by email on August 1st, 2011

In the film Field of Dreams, Kevin Costner’s character, Ray, hears a voice that says “If you build it, (they) will come”.

While this may be true about a lot of things, it is not entirely true in the world of web design. A good website can lie dormant and untouched if nothing is done to announce its presence. It is not automatic that if good content occupies webspace people will come view it.

What do you need to do before, during and after the website is built to ensure “they” will come? Justice Wordlaw answers these questions in his eBook “Traffic Overdrive – Send Your Website Into Overdrive”.

Traffic Overdrive is a step-by-step manual, from beginning to end, on how to optimize your site for search engines. It discusses both on-site and off-site methods that will, over time, increase the amount of traffic coming to your site.

Wordlaw’s Traffic Overdrive gives specific information on everything you need to know to increase the amount of visitors to your website. In simple, easy-to-understand language, Wordlaw lays out details to keep in mind that go beyond simple keyword and meta-tag inclusion.

Wordlaw makes sure to emphasize that he is not talking about just any traffic being sent to your site. The key to a successful search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is focusing on targeted traffic. He says this will “maximize not only your outreach, but also the overall profitability of your online business”.

Traffic Overdrive touches on all points of SEO; HTML coding, social marketing campaigns, press releases, building back-links, pay-per-click campaigns and participating in online forums. These are mentioned as key methods to traffic generation.

Since the introduction of Web2.0,  SEO has taken on a whole new life. Wordlaw touches upon this fact in his eBook by mentioning social media as a key ingredient to generating traffic. Wordlaw mentions that “with social marketing, you are able to take a personal approach to connecting with your target audience, and in doing so, you can gain a better feel for what your audience is genuinely interested in and what motivates them into taking action.”

The need for good SEO can never be overstated, and Wordlaw does an excellent job in his eBook of making sure the reader understands, not only the process, but the importance of positioning your site for optimal exposure.

Justice Wordlaw is a blooger and founder of Wordlaw Marketing, an online based company that assists entrepreneurs and companies in understanding how Internet Marketing works.

What’s more disgusting than knowing that pests are running all through where you sleep and eat? If you aren’t thinking about it, Orkin will make you think about it.

In the Orkin television ads the pests not only try to invade their home, but infiltrate their lives. From blind dates, to playing Guitar Hero while the family is on vacation, these rodents and six legged nuisances are determined to make the life of the humans a living hell.

With a bit of exaggeration and some detailed creature recreation, this Orkin commercial makes the reality of pest control very personal. It is a good way to get the viewer thinking about what could be creeping and crawling through the underbelly of their own home. They made sure they made the unwanted characters as gruesome as possible.  The story lines represent a lifestyle that is so intertwined with the pests, that only Orkin can remove them from their daily lives.

The effectiveness of the commercial lies in the fact that everyone should be aware of what lurks within their home. The size of the pests in the commercial makes it that much more difficult an issue to ignore.

In this fast paced world it seems that technology changes at a blink of an eye. Before you can get the packaging off  that brand new phone and finally learn how to use it there is a newer and better version hitting the stores. Best Buy has capitalized on this by offering its customers the opportunity to sell their old version to Best Buy and receive credit to purchase the new version from them. It is called the Buy Back Program.

The way it works is:

1. Purchase the Buy Back Program along with your new product.
2. Bring the product back in good, working condition with all originally included accessories when you’re ready for something new.
3. Receive a Best Buy® gift card for the product’s redemption value. (Shown below)

Best Buy has a couple of entertaining commercials that illustrates the frustration of never having the newest version of an electronic product.

One of the commercials goes through a serious of actor’s reactions to new versions of devices coming out. The other commercial features Ozzy Osborne and Justin Beiber. It spoofs the fact that phones change so quickly that i required them change the script (and the celebrity) before the commercial is even finished.

I think the commercials are effective because, although exaggerated, it responds to a real life issue of being stuck with an outdated version and wanting to upgrade. The program allows a customer to at least retain some of the money they spent on the older version. The most important thing that this program does is create customer loyalty. It entices customers to purchase from Best Buy by giving them the assurance that they will not be at a total loss if they want to upgrade their product in the future.

Do you think the commercials are effective in communicating the advantages of using the buy back program?

PSA’s will never go out of style. Where they make their biggest impact is still by way of television ads. Television is the one method the unsuspecting individual can be introduced to a visual lesson in life in the middle of zoning out to something mindless. Above The Influence has created a series of televisions spots focused on deterring teens and young adults from drug use and abuse.

The Above The Influence ad campaign  was created by the National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign. The spots use exaggerated but effected ways of showing the effects of drug use. On spot features a young male listening to his father  shout at him about the damage he did to the car but unable to comprehend or respond because he forgot his brain at a party the night before. It is suggested that  his choice to do drugs was similar to leaving his brain behind which inadvertently caused him to get into an accident.

I think the Above The Influence campaign  is affective because the ads use sensationalizing and simple common sense to emphasize the importance of making sound judgment as it relates to drug use.

Do you think Above The Influence is successful in getting their point across to the audience they are targeting?

Since 2009 the Big Three (GMC, Chrysler and Ford) have been trying to recover from decreased sales and competition from foreign auto makers. As a result, Detroit’s economy took a direct hit. In response Chrysler created a commercial that centers around reestablishing pride in home-grown auto-making.

The commercial features Eminen driving through the streets of Detroit in a black Chrysler 200 with his track “Lose Yourself” slowly building in the background. It ends with Eminem stating “this is Detroit..and this is what we do”. To bring home the point Chrysler flashes the tagline “Imported from Detorit”

I thought this was an amazing concept because it successfully took on the responsibility of rebranding Chrysler, the city of Detroit and Detroit auto-making in one commercial. It did more than just promote the Chrysler 200. It developed a movement to put in place a resurgence of an important U.S. city. Detroit’s backdrop created very moving imagery and was effective in keeping the viewer’s attention. I see this marketing idea being very successful and look forward to seeing what else Detroit has planned.

What did you think of the concept? How do you think it ranked amongst the other Super Bowl commercials?

What Superbowl advertisers  packed the biggest punch leading up to the Superbowl? The infographic below (courtesy of the Meltwater Group) gives a graphic display of which brands got the most Twitter pre-Superbowl buzz between January 31-Febuary 4.

Image courtesy Meltwater Group

Even though players prepare all year round in hopes of making it to the Superbowl the real competition is in the advertising game. Millions of dollars go into making that perfect commercial to air during the Superbowl. Advertisers know that the largest viewing audience of the year will be available on February 6th so this is prime time to capitalize on capturing their attention.

This commercial for the 2012 Volkswagon Pasat made its debut online and will be one of the featured commercials during the Superbowl. It features a pint-sized Darth Vader who is convinced that he has he power of the force. The commercial is bound to catch everybody’s attention. The Star Wars music and little Vader’s cape is enough to keep people entertained until the real purpose of the commercial comes in the last scene.

Do you think this will be one of the best marketing campaigns featured during the Superbowl?

As strong as the internet can be, nothing beats the marketing power of television advertisement. A good ad campaigne can instantly become water cooler talk and part of a viral web searche. Sometimes the commercials can be more entertaining than the shows themselves. I have compiled a list of my personal top ten favorite television commercials and ad campaigns.

10. M&M’s Pretzel

9. Geico: Mistaken Identity

8. Nike Basketbll: Lebron Rise

7. Logitech Revue with Google TV w/Kevin Bacon

6. Dos Equis: The Most Interesting Man In The World

5. Allstate mayhem commercial w/Dean Winters as Teenage Girl

4. Geico: Woodchucks chucking wood

3. Snickers w/Betty White

2. Old Spice: The Man Your Man Could Smell Like

1. E*Trade Baby

Honorable Mention: Sprint mobile restaurant text break-up

Are there any that you you can think of that should have been included on this list?

State Farm features a series of commercials where after an accident the characters sing the State Farm jingle and an insurance agent shows up. While the State Farm agent analyzes the damage the characters have a little fun with the power and add their own individual request. In the one featured below the characters use the power to change their partners into their ideal boyfriend and ideal girlfriend.

I have noticed that insurance companies have chosen to abandon the boring fact-filled commercials for something a little more light-hearted and amusing. I think Geico – the king of the marketing – has spearheaded the thought that it’s ok for insurance to be funny when driving home a point.

Do you think humor is an effective method of marketing within the insurance industry.