The trick is trying to relate the item with what you want to promote. Branded Kool-Aid packets, clocks, towels or even Magic Eight Balls can all be used to promote your business if it relates to either your company or a special event you’re marketing. Fox Searchlight gave away branded hamburger phones to promote the movie “Juno” and now even the unbranded hamburger phones are selling. As long as you make the item fun and useful, they can continue to use it and they see your company’s logo when they do.

After you know what you want to use, figure out how best to distribute it. Conferences and trade shows are good places for distribution. You can also get a mailing list going of clients and potential clients and mail you promotional item.

Promotional gifts are fun and easy to do. Almost anything can be used to promote your start-up. Plus it’s free! And who doesn’t enjoy a free gift?

Figure out if you can promote your business using coupons, rebates or contests. Social media outlets like Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook have also become inexpensive ways of getting the word out on your business. Other methods like TV or radio commercials, magazine ads and mailers can be a good idea.

Knowing where and when to market is important. You must plan and ask yourself: Does the medium suit the brand? Is the ad running where the target market will see/hear it? Is the mail/email targeted to interested prospects? Is it running often enough for the message to sink in? Can you afford to run it often enough for the necessary exposure?

Planning will take some time, but once you have an idea about what you need to do to market your specific business, you’ll be in a better position to reach your target market and start raking in the dough. Especially if you’re in the catering or landscaping business.

In order to get your company noticed, it takes more than just handing out fliers, or posting an ad up to a local paper (although you could still do both). Before you go all ad crazy, figuring where and when to put up those ads can be more effective and can save you money. In order to figure that out, you have to come up with a marketing plan and do some research.

Research your own business, products and/or services, your location, and your prices. Then look into what your competition is doing in all the same aspects. And lastly, look into your target market, their demographic and shopping habits.

A good way to research is by going online. You can visit your competitors sites, read blogs related to your business, and check out your chamber of commerce or local economic development agencies for demographic information. Knowing all these things will put you in a better position to market your business effectively and with better results.

A company’s logo is like a person’s face. If you can’t remember a person’s face, it’s difficult to remember facts about them. Several big name companies including Wal-Mart, Sysco and Kraft Foods all decided to get a logo facelift. They went from a bold, block, corporate look on their logo, to a more inviting, brighter and friendlier look. Logotypes are rounder, lighter and lowercase and colors are brighter and cheerful.

Stars, smiles, and bursts also found there way into theses happier logos. Wal-Mart, trying to change its image after some attack over labor practices, changed its military style star, to a more cheerful twinkle. And what better way to say that your company is environmentally friendly than to add a leaf to the logo the way Superfresh, QuickChek, and Sysco have done.

Even sports teams looking for a change in fortunes decided that a logo upgrade might be the answer. This year, the Detroit Lions, who last year became the only team in NFL history to lose all of its regular season games, will follow the Arizona Cardinals in trying to reach success after changing their logo.

Design has long been influenced by what’s going on in the world. And when things don’t go as planned for a company, they often try to give themselves a logo upgrade first. This shows the consumer that they have changed, they’re better or upgraded, even though they didn’t touch any other part of their company. Kind of like a corporate nip and tuck. And they say I’d never make it in medical school.

1. Company name – check
2. Location – check
3. Stationery/business card – check
4. Website – check

But developing business collateral, one of the most important things every start up needs, often gets overlooked. When starting up a company, or as your company grows, you’ll want to provide updated information about your business to employees, investors, existing and potential clients, and especially the media. This is the idea behind collateral items. As a design firm, we find there plenty of ways to show this information.

1. Fact Sheets/Biographies – For learning important facts about your business.
2. Capabilities Brochure/Product Fact sheets - For highlighting your company’s services or products.
3. Mission Statement – Serves as a basis of the ideas that are at the core of your organization, or to motivate employees and lets new hires know what you value.
4. Press Kit – Press kits are very useful for the media, trade shows, events and other public relations purposes.

Although there are other ways to have business collateral, we find these are the most common used. With these items, you’re ready to show off your company properly to any potential client, or employee. They’re easy to update, and great for every company to have, whether you’re starting up, or in business for 50 years.

Of course if I’d been backing-up my files, I wouldn’t be going through hours of trying to figure this out. Birthdays, holiday’s and other priceless pictures would not be in danger of being lost forever. And with so many different ways to back-up your files, it’s inexcusable when files get lost.

Apple has found a way to make backing up even more easier, especially for those, like myself, who find dragging and dropping files just too much trouble. A program called Time Machine comes standard in every new Mac and is part of the new Leopard OS. When an external hard drive is connected to your computer, it immediately starts off Time Machine. After an initial set-up, Time Machine is ready to back-up your files automatically every hour.

Recovering lost files is easy and actually kind of fun. If you discover that you lost a file, folder, image, or email; just open up Time Machine, and the lost file will be shown cascading back in time on your desktop. To see how your Mac looked on any given day, simply click on a date, and it will show you that day’s work. The Apple website even has a video to show you how easy this works.

Fortunately for me, some of the pictures I lost were backed-up on CDs. But not everything was recovered. Needless to say, Time Machine is my new best friend. Anybody looking to buy a 5 1/2 year old computer?

Last year, Tropicana decided to re-brand their struggling product. So they went out, changed their logo, changed their image (the clever orange with a stripped straw image), and changed their packaging. So what happened? They had to change it back. People where so turned down by the new look, they where questioning if it was the same orange juice. They where confused by the new labeling system and even the new round cap (which I kinda liked) got some back-lash. Another problem they had was that they didn’t advertise the new look to their customers, letting them know about the change. And a complete overhaul is never a good thing with a brand with so much history.

Interesting enough, Pepsi (who is run by the same people as Tropicana) decided it was time to re-brand as well. But instead of completely changing what worked so well for them over the years, they took what they had and updated it. They kept their look consistent with what was there before, but made it fresh to attract new younger customers. What also helped was that they put out an ad campaign, letting people know of the change. Their transition toward the new look went a lot more smoothly.

Design can make a big difference in the way a company is viewed. And by these examples, it can be the deciding factor in how a company moves forward (a little marketing doesn’t hurt either). Whether you’re starting up, or moving forward, building a brand can help your business succeed, as long as you remember to be consistent.

Web 2.0 allows programers to develop websites that invite people to participate instead of just publishing content. Ever heard of MySpace, Facebook, YouTube or Twitter? Well, all of these sites, and the rest of the social networking sites, are all made possible thanks to Web 2.0. And it doesn’t end there. Developers are looking for new ways to use Web 2.0. Companies want to build a social networking strategy within their internal networks that makes employees feel comfortable at work. It also helps employees feel more like part of a community while at the office, rather than just another cog in a wheel.

This excited and saddened me at the same time. It’s great that the web is developing great new technology in order to enhance our web experience. But for someone who just designed his very first website for a Law Firm (adradvocate.com), I realized that there is a lot more to learn.

The other thing I learned, is that NY1 is more than just a weather channel every 10 minutes!

For the complete report, click here.