Anyone who’s been in charge of writing content for a newsletter can feel my pain.  I’ve been trying to brainstorm some topics for our Reseller Newsletter, and I’m drawing a blank.  While I’ve got a ton lined up for our Affiliate Newsletter, the topics just don’t cross over.

A reseller is defined as “A person who is authorized to sell someone else’s goods and/or services.”  We definitely have tons, but what do these people want to know about?  What good tips and advice can be given to a graphic designer or print broker looking for a resource on how to resell printing?

I admit – I’m new to writing a newsletter.  I’ve often thought about starting one for my other sites, but what would I talk about month after month?  It’s sometimes hard enough to come up with blog topics, let alone an entire extremely focused newsletter.  I give those e-mail affiliate marketers out there a lot of credit.

I’m officially open to suggestions!  Let’s do some online brainstorming here in the comments.  What would you want to know more about if in this position?

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Well I’m back in the Pacific Standard Time Zone after 4 days in Boston.  To date, it’s safe for me to say that the HOW Design Conference has been the best for PsPrint to attend so far!  About 80% of people stopping by our booth had never heard of us before, which isn’t necessarily bad.  This has been a relatively untapped resource for us, and we excitedly passed out samples of our printing, paper stocks, and information on the Reseller Program.

A neat feature of this show was that the expo hall wasn’t open the entire day – we only had to staff the booth from 8-9 am, 12-2 pm, and then 5-6:30p on Monday only.  I believe the “Resouce Center” hours (their moniker) were set this way to avoid stepping on the toes of too many special sessions.  The real star of this conference is, of course, the educational sessions for designers.  The expo hall is just a bonus for vendors to be able to toss some marketing voodoo at a prime audience.

I think we’ll definitely go back next year to the HOW Conference, being held in Austin, TX.  Of all the trade shows I’ve been to as a representative of PsPrint, this was by far the most successful.  Everything arrived on time, our booth looked great, and the audience was truly interested in what we have to offer.  Overall, a great feeling!

Of course, I had to visit Faneuil Hall & Cheers, and did take some pictures that I’ll share tomorrow once I pull them off my camera.  My hotel (pictured above) was pretty decent for a Best Western, and I have some tips & such to share about Boston for those of us going back for Affiliate Summit East in August.  But that, my friends, I’ll leave for another day.

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I should talk about this topic more, but online is just SO fascinating and I’ve been immersed in off line for the last 4 years so it’s routine to me. Since we discontinued our old poorly performing affiliate program at the beginning of February, I’ve been focused on growing our new Reseller Program and much more improved Affiliate Program. We decided, as I’m sure we’re legally bound, to pay out all pending commissions, regardless of whether or not they met our minimum threshold. This meant 400+ checks being processed by accounting, then printed, then signed, then put into envelopes, then posted, then actually put into the mail. This took about a month to get through the internal systems and the checks were sent out a couple weeks ago.

Since many of our affiliates in the old program had long abandoned the program, a lot of checks are coming back unable to be delivered. I’ve been contacting people and resending the checks as I get new addresses, and with every check I’m resending I’ve been throwing in one of my business cards. I realize today that this is the epitome of online marketing (affiliate payments) meets off line marketing (business cards).

It just goes to show that you can’t keep exclusively to one medium or another. There’s such a vast audience out there for your product or service – and they’re not all going to be able to be found in one place. It’s important – maybe now more than ever – to integrate your direct mail marketing with landing page testing. Put your produced commercials for television onto the web and get a piece of the viral marketing cookie. Remember the old adage “don’t put all your eggs in once basket” and don’t put all your money into PPC or direct mailing.

Diversify your marketing efforts and remember that just because you’re an internet geek, not all your customers are.

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