Jingle With A
Twist
We’re all accustomed to hearing ice cream van jingles, or sandwich van jingles – heralding the
arrival of food and drink, but a Finnish firm have extended this kind of marketing to their DIY service.
Pikki Juttu’s (meaning ‘small things’) truck drives around the city, and you know it’s arrived in an area when you
hear the jingle. The van is kitted out like a mobile workshop, and it’s operatives are geared up to do all those
small jobs which people just never get around to or don’t have the tools to complete -everything from hanging
pictures, to cleaning out gutters to repairing a faulty lock.
Marketing isn’t only done via an old fashioned jingle. You can also book an appointment by phone or online, and
even track the company van via GPS on the company website.
Several ideas to take from this:
- The use of an old fashioned marketing tool in a new
field
- The mixing of old and new marketing
approaches
- The ‘branding’ and ‘professionalising’ of what is often a
very unstructured sector
Could this be something to be copied in the UK. It looks like a very
scaleable opportunity. With franchising being an obvious route to growth.
Ebay
Selling
Trick
Avril Harper, eBay Powerseller, has been offering me some eBay
selling ideas - it's that time of year when I sell off my unwanted items to pay for Christmas. Avril's
advice? "Try to use words that add value to your descriptions and make items sound more attractive. ‘Vintage’
sounds better than ‘Old’. ‘Pristine’ is more powerful than ‘Perfect’. ‘Gold Overlay’ sounds more appealing
than ‘Gold Plated’.”
“Make sure that these words are familiar to the would-be bidders though. If you buy or sell reproduction postcards,
the safest word to use is ‘Reproduction’ rather than ‘Reprint’ – it sounds more prestigious. The phrase ‘Second
Strike’ is in common use in the US and on US websites but it will cause confusion if it is used in the UK; and vice
versa if you use a UK expression on the US site.”
Better BTL
Management
Use a buy-to-let (BTL) agent successfully – know the questions you
need to ask and have answered satisfactorily. ARLA, the Association of Residential Letting Agents, is warning
investors of the dangers of unregulated agents.
Ian Potter, Head of Operations, says that every landlord and tenant should ask a letting agent, “Are you members of
a professional body? Do you maintain separate client accounts? Are you bonded? Do you hold professional indemnity
insurance? Are your employees qualified? Are you joined to a tenancy deposit protection scheme?” Only use the agent
if they can answer yes to all of these questions. Check out www.arla.co.uk
Canny
Comping
Skill
Nick Daws, author of Win A Fortune From Consumer Competitions, has
some advice on how to write a winning competition tie-breaker. He says to check out previous winners on the
website, www.winspiration.co.uk.
Nick sets out the key features of the most successful contest slogans; the slogan praises the sponsor’s product in
a simple and sincere way; it follows logically from the lead-in phrase (English Coxes are the apple of my eye
because...they’re full of Vitamin ‘See’) and words from the lead-in phrase are not repeated in the actual slogan
(as this can chime unpleasantly on the ear).
What’s more, the best slogans are crisp and concise; many winning slogans have a touch of humour (though nothing
too risqué); most winning slogans have a good rhythm and read like lines of poetry. Ensure yours have these
qualities. Check out www.winspiration.co.uk for ideas. Let’s say you have the know-how to create a how-to-product
of your own or, if not, that are ready to invest in a resale product, with master resale or private label rights.
In short, you have some how-to information, you can do what
Mortgage Fees
Update
The Telegraph has just run an update on the recent Streetwise
story of low mortgage rates/high admin charges. Borrowers need to crunch the numbers. As the Telegraph states,
'Sometimes it's worth paying a higher fee to qualify for a low interest rate. Principality offers a two-year fix
with no fee at an interest rate of 3.49pc. The total cost for a loan of £250,000 over the two years is £30,005. But
you could save £326 by opting for a two-year fix from ING charging 3.09pc interest, even though there is a fee of
£945.’
‘It's the opposite for smaller loans, however. If you want to borrow £120,000 rather than £250,000, Principality's
deal is the cheaper of the two. Its loan would cost £14,402 over the two years, a saving of £336 compared with the
£14,738 cost of ING's mortgage.’ Bottom line? You have to compare the total cost of the various loans. Often, the
larger the amount borrowed, the less important the fee.
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