If you’ve ever wanted to blog, but were not sure how to get started, keep reading! This past week in Chicago, I delivered a presentation at the ASI Show on blogging that included 8 videos designed to walk you, step-by-step, through the process of setting up your own WordPress blog. They are all available on Quintain Marketing’s YouTube Channel, but I’m including them here as well.

The first step in creating a blog is setting up your blog site. Our favorite blogging platform is WordPress. With WordPress, you can create a hosted or unhosted blog.

This video illustrates how you can quickly and easily create an unhosted WordPress blog:

Once you’ve set up your blog, you should take a few minutes and adjust the settings so that your blog title reads well and any other adjustments are made.

One of the greatest things about using WordPress is that it provides you with access to hundreds of free blog “themes” – design templates that you can install, with the simple click of a button, and which will make your blog look professionally designed. This short video illustrates how you can choose a blog theme.

In the sample blog theme we chose for this exercise, you can upload and install your own custom header. Using custom headers is a great way to brand your blog and give it a unique look and feel. Learn how to upload your own custom header in this video:

Once you have the look and feel of your blog the way you want it, you can add lots of functionality using WordPress widgets. Like “apps” that you might install on a cell phone, widgets are easy-to-install programs that let you do more with your blog site. Learn about installing widgets here:

If you’ve already got a website and want to incorporate your blog on your existing URL, you can learn how in this short video:

Hosted WordPress sites are more customizable due to the ability to install plugins. Plugins, once installed, become widgets (see the previous video). WordPress comes with a limited number of widgets, but on hosted sites, you have access to an almost limitless number of plugins. Lear more in this video:

If you’ve followed all of these steps, you should have your blog site set up and ready for posting!

Annapolis, MD July 15, 2010 –

The Advertising Specialty Institute, the largest media and marketing organization serving the $19.8 billion advertising specialty industry, announced today that John Booth, President of Annapolis, MD-based Quintain Marketing, has been named to the 2010 Counselor magazine HOT List. Honorees on the 2010 HOT List were revealed at an exclusive event held July 14 at the ASI Show in Chicago.

The Hot List is published annually and recognizes the promotional marketing industry’s hottest people – those who are shaking up the marketplace with new and innovative approaches. John is one of 40 promotional marketing professionals from throughout the United States to be honored by the Magazine in its August, 2010 issue.

According to Timothy M. Andrews, President and Chief Executive Officer for ASI, “the advertising specialty industry is always changing and providing creative, innovative and exciting products and services. These individuals are the industry’s trend-setters and they are being recognized for their ability to be successful by introducing new, fun and innovative things in the marketplace.”

John’s success in building a thriving social marketing practice at Quintain Marketing played a key role in landing him a spot on the list. Kathleen Booth, Quintain Marketing’s Owner and CEO (and John’s wife) believes John’s recognition is well deserved. “Last year, as our customers’ spending plummeted with the economy, John began an aggressive new social marketing campaign for Quintain Marketing, including a blog, Twitter, Facebook, and Yelp. He was so successful at building our own social marketing presence that our firm now has a practice area dedicated solely to advising clients on their social media optimization strategies. John is redefining what ‘promotional marketing’ means to include not just products, but social media channels as well.”

Quintain Marketing is a full service promotional marketing consultancy that helps organizations increase sales and raise brand awareness through the execution of integrated promotional campaigns encompassing social marketing, direct marketing (direct mail and dimensional mailing), branded products, company webstores, and employee or customer loyalty and incentive programs. For more information, see www.quintainmarketing.com.

Advertising Specialty Institute – or ASI – is the largest media and marketing organization serving the advertising specialty industry. ASI membership includes 22,000 distributor firms and 3,500 supplier firms of advertising specialties. For more information, see www.asicentral.com.

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With the economy seeming to go from bad to worse, I know many of our customers are looking to optimize their advertising and promotion budgets. The Advertising Specialty Institute (ASI) recently came out with new research that addresses just this point. Their study found that among businesspeople over age 21, advertising specialties beat out all forms of TV, radio and print advertising as the most cost-effective advertising medium available.

The average cost-per-impression (CPI) of an advertising specialty item is $0.004, making it less expensive (per impression) than nearly any other form of media. For example, according to Nielsen Media data (the folks behind the Nielson TV ratings system), the CPI of a national magazine ad is $0.033; a newspaper ad is $0.0129; a prime time TV ad is $0.019; a cable TV ad is $0.007; a syndicated TV ad is $0.006; and a spot radio ad is $0.005.

Among key findings, results indicate that:

• 84% of people remember the advertiser of a product they receive;
• 42% have a more favorable impression of an advertiser after receiving an advertising specialty;
• 24% indicate that they are more likely to do business with the advertiser of a product they receive; and
• 62% of respondents have done business with the advertiser on a product after receiving it.

Writing instruments are the most commonly-owned advertising specialty, followed by shirts, caps and bags. In most cases where people kept the items they received, it was because they were useful to them in their day-to-day lives, and nearly three-quarters of respondents had their items for about seven months.

At a time when every dollar counts, this research demonstrates that you can get more bang for your buck by making smart choices about the marketing mix you employ on your projects. Call us today to discuss how to incorporate advertising specialties as a significant part of your promotional strategies and programs.

I love bags – especially tote bags. Totes are great for work, school, and play. They’re a great way to expose your brand because, let’s face it, ladies always have a tote in-hand! Whether we’re headed to the grocery store, office, class, or the beach, we need something cute and functional to carry ALL of our stuff!

And, did you know that according to recent research by the Advertising Specialty Institute, of all promotional items, bags are the ones used most frequently (nine times a month, on average) by recipients? This means that your target audience will be consistently reminded of your brand when you put it on a tote!

Check out my favorite tote of the moment. The water/weather proof bags are available in black, navy, and grey and have seven different strap colors to choose from!

Spring and summer are just around the corner, making this the perfect time to give a promotional tote. Remind your customers that the cold winter days are nearly over, or get your employees excited for warm weather events. They’ll be sure to hang on to these great totes and use them when they thaw out at picnics and beach vacations.