So what do we do to make the most of this oportunity? Bear in mind that at each BTCC race there is between 20,000 and 50,000 people we can get our message accross to but what’s the best way to do that and how much will it cost?

Well, there are 10 race venues per season with 3 races at each venue. 2 have already gone leaving 8 remaining.  So, by my reckoning that’s approx 25k X 8 = 200,000 people.

Ok, so we can’t get to ALL of those people so we need to consider our options. Do we give something away for free?  If so what and how much will it cost us?  Do we have company logo branded staff handing out leaflets?  Do we hire a stand and sell comapny merchandise? Do we give out cool freebies like caps, mugs, keyrings, bags etc and if so - which?

Well, the answer is not so straight forward.  There are pros and cons of each to consider.

Hiring a stand to sell merchandise is a good idea if we got all the sponsors to chip in get some decent race shirts/clothing made and then go for it - it would promote to the company, the team and BTCC in general which are all good things but then our message would get diluted in with all the other sponsors.  So, bearing in mind we have a limited budget - that’s out for now but one for the future maybe.

Logo’d up staff seems an obvious one really - anyone who goes should wear the company colours that also have a clear association to the team we’re sponsoring.  For not much money we can get the staff in quality clothing and they are then walking adverts.  We can also use them for…

Handing out freebies.  So we have an endless choice of products varying in price, I’ve gone with the following:

Logo’d Caps = £1.25ish each - Would be cool and goes with the racing theme but just too much for our budget I think.  Perhaps we’ll just get a few? 

Bottle open key ring = £0.45each - These are great - there’s a panel inside where you can put the logo and just enough room to put details of a competition in it too.  Plus - people are likely to keep these for a long time as they’re so useful which in the long run gives us even more value for money.  Also, we can put a code on them so that we know that a hit on the web site came from that key ring competition.

Printed Quality Plastic Bags = £0.10each - The obvious choice for me - we can print on both sides of the bag and get tens of thousands done for little outlay. With the budget we’ve got, we could actually give one out to every single person there provided we don’t put anything to expensive inside the bag.  We can also use it to put the other sponsors stuff in which is great as it helps them and makes us look like the lead sponsor of the team.  

Leaflets = TBC but prob £0.05each - Again, this is a must for me as it’s so cheap to do thousands and thousands of them.  We can print them in batches with different codes on so we know which race that web site hit came from so that next year we know which races worked the best and which didn’t. We’ve got to this definitely.

Printed T-shirts = £1.85each - Just too much at the moment.  Although you can print a lot of info on a T-shirt which is great but will people actually wear them either on the day or at a later date?  Probably not so it’s really not worth it.  Again though - a few would be ok.

Printed Pens = £0.12each.  Now this is a nice cheap option that we can use that people are likely to keep which is great.  We could give them out with the bags and the leaflets maybe or on their own.

Obviously, there is loads of options and literally endless products you can brand up but i think these are the best options.

So, (depending on budget) I think we should go with the following:

50,000 bags to start with the option of more should we run out = £5,000

50,000 leaflets to go with the bags in batches with codes for marketing = £2,500

11,100 Keyrings - Approx 1400 per race to be handed out seperate of other stuff = £5,000

Another £2,500 for other options - a few hats, t-shirts etc etc for staff and team.

 In conclusion

I think for around £15,000 we could successfully market to around 60,000 people initially, then more as time goes on.  Referals from friends, keyring power and general branding.  That works out at paying £0.25 per person which I don’t think is bad at all.

Added to all this, we get the data capture from doing this which will allow us to do it even better next year as we will know what worked and what didn’t and that information is priceless and will help us to run a better company.  

So, there we go, sponsorship and merchandise……comments please! 

I’m getting really fed up with “standard reply emails” from ebay and amazon and their absolute incompetence in dealing with any issue whatsoever. They are a bunch of idiots just taking your money and they don’t give a crap whether you lose out or have to spend half your life chasing a product that didn’t arrive that cost you £12.  That’s it - no more…….

I pisses me off to be honest…..ebay is a load of rubbish too, they charge you so much to list stuff and by the time you’ve paid their fees and the paypal fees it’s almost not worth doing.  It’s ok if you’re buying stuff and the person is honest but as a seller, I think it’s crap.

I did a test last year with a local toyshop to see if we could boost his business by selling toys on ebay.  It was impossible to make money unless you’re doing something dodgy.  The toy shop in question has been is business for thirty years and gets good prices from its suppliers but even with that, we could not compete. 

Other sellers are selling things for £5 under our COST price.  How is this possible? Well, apparently, the goods are bought in Europe and shipped over here which means these sellers are not declaring VAT and getting away with it.  It’s not fair on the small bsuinesses out there who can’t get away with dodging taxes and VAT out there.  The onus to sort this out should be fairly placed with ebay and the tax man to make competing in UK business fair and available to all.

Anyway, that’s my two pence worth…..Grrr.

The wife says I’ve got £100 but I can’t make my mind up.  I’d really like a new lightweight golf bag for this season but then I really need a new drill and I could get a nice DeWalt for that money….  Just don’t know…..

I think tools it will have to be - sad I know but I’ve got three vehicles that all need work doing to them and no tools to do the job so it’s the obvious choice I reckon.  I was just looking through the Toolstatation catalogue - Jesus, I could spend thousands!!! My kingdom for a double garage and £10,000 worth of tools……

I want a go! Aparently, it’s a lot easier than real golf which is great news cos I’m rubbish!  I thought this would be the ideal game for techie too as he’s a real rugby fan.

So, coming to a golf club near you, soon - sweeet!!!

It states that people who earn more money, create more greenhouse gasses. No! Really?  What a suprise!  Why is this the case I hear you ask?  Well, it’s because rich people go abroad more often and that causes more greenhouse gasses. Well blow me, what a revelation!

Well, I’m telling you now - if I ever make some real money, I’ll be going on holiday as many times as I can possibly fit in and I won’t plant a new tree every time I get on a plane either.  It’s ridiculous to suggest that in this modern world, we should all suddenly stop travelling by plane and go by boat or by train to save the environment. Plus, if you did do that, you wouldn’t be rich for long! Have you been on a train recently?  What a rip-off!  No thanks, I’ll stick to my car.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for saving the environment and I’m happy to pay a bit extra if I travel by plane but I don’t want that money to go to planting another sodding tree, I want it to go into the development of more environmentaly friendly planes and cars and machinery.  The quicker we develop these things, the quicker the issue will go away.

Already, there are electric cars and cryogenic engines that are virtualy polution free.  OK, so we still have to produce electricity but this can be done with nuclear power for the time being until we suss a better solution to that.  It’s a lot cleaner and is almost definite that we’ll be using them within the next few years. 

With that in mind, a solution for plane travel must be there somewhere too so I do wish everyone would shut-up whinging about travel!

So I clicked through to Haymarket subscriptions to pay online and get the login I needed to access the site.  So, as happens so many times with these things, it was broken.  Yes, after entering all my details it refused to work, hardly a great advert for an industry magazine!

So, I phone through my subscription instead only to be asked to get the code off the banner-ad on the web site to complete my subscription. Unsuprisingly, there was no code on the banner ad.  No worries though, the lady on the phone sorted it out and said we’d have the receipt within a week.  So can I have my access code now please?  No! Apparently I have to wait for the receipt to arrive which will have the code on it apparently…

So, today (over one week late) the infamous receipt arrives and yes, you guessed it - no code! So now I have to phone haymarket subs again and get this sorted.  The killer of it is the article I really wanted to read, appears not to be on the site anymore?  AArrrrrrrrrrggggghhhhhh!!!! (Although I can’t confirm this as I don’t have my code yet!).

So, this morning I phone them and ask for the code in person.  Guess what?  You got it, I can’t get on the site until the 26th January as my subscription has been set up from then.   WHY?!?!  I asked for it to start immediately?  “I’m sorry sir there’s nothing we can do I’m afraid!”  

This is a complete joke in this day and age to have to wait so long to get on a poxy website and especially for an industry body standard magazine that spends its time preaching to PR’s about web 2.0 and how they should be more web efficient and truly explore all the options open to them on the www.

Well PR week, can I suggest that you get your own house in-order please? 

What does everyone else think?  Is PR Week being a bit thick with this or is it just me being impatient?  Leave comments and let me know…thanks!

I think this is a serious issue yet few people on digg seem to agree. If it’s true, it’s a violation of your rights and a dangerous thing. Whether or not McDonalds were a party to this or not I don’t know but subliminal advertising does work - if it didn’t why would it be illegal? It’s a serious issue that shouldn’t be taken lightly and if McD’s are doing this they should be brought to trial for it.

When I was at school we learned about subliminal advertising - the project mentioned was about coca cola advertising in cinemas in America. They would flash up one frame of a word like “thirsty” then shortly afterwards “Coca Cola”. People in the cinemas would suddenly find themselves thirsty and go and buy a drink. This is why it was banned becuase you’re not making a concious decision about it - you just want a coke and you don’t know why?

I live in the UK where it is definitely banned. Recently, a hypnotist style performer called Derren Brown did a show where he put subliminal messages/words in the show for the home audience. At the end of the show, he flashed up the word “Forget” for one frame then said to the Studio audience that they would not remember what they had just seen,

I’m telling you now - I could not remember what had just happened in the show - I was trying to tell my girlfriend how cool the show was but I honestly couldn’t remember what it was about! I couldn’t beleive it — it worried me because it makes you think of the power of it - actually making me forget the last hour of my life - amazing.

So - to say subliminal advertising or messaging doesn’t work is crap - it does and that is why it is illegal - as it should be.

Whilst I absolutely could not do my job properley without it, it does have its drawbacks.  The cost for one. At around £3k per year, per licence, it’ s a killer on the marketing budget but it’s a necessary evil as where else can you get this information and access it easily? Nowhere.

Often, the contacts are out of date and although MDisk say they up thousands of contacts each day, they never seem to update mine which is a pain but you get that with any contact list. 

The benfits far outweigh the cons though.  Although it takes ages to get my press lists accurate and to the point, once you have done it, it takes minutes to send out a press release which is great.  Also, if I’m organising an event I can contact the people I need to invite very quickly which is a god send. 

So, I thought I’d share it with you guys……  It’s made by a company called Romeike who also do loads of other cool stuff, so there, PR away……

We decided to take them up on the offer and arranged for 8 of us to go down to a place near Bournemouth for a couple of nights to stay in a mobile home thingy.   We are all nearing 30 and are married or in a couple. So, we paid the £9.50 each and booked the holiday through the Sun. (£76).

About a month went by and then we recieved a letter from the campsite saying that we had to pay a £25 booking fee, a £50 security deposit and worse still, a £50 “Noise Deposit” that was payable on arrival in cash and would not be given back until 2 weeks after we got home.

It sounded to me like the campsite was trying to make-up it’s costs for being involved with this Sun promo.  So, I phoned them to ask them why they needed this noise deposit and even if they did need it, why couldn’t I have it back the day we left?  We were duly told that people like us cause trouble and the £50 deposit was to make up for lost bookings that would be caused by our actions! 

I stressed that we were couples nearly in our thirties and that this wasn’t a teenage holiday.  I also asked, who decides if we are too noisy then, and what is the criteria? She said that if one person complains, then you lose your deposit!!

What a load a shit!  So basically, we would have to pay our original £76, plus £25, plus £50, plus £50 = £201.  Suspiciously, this was exactly how much they charge at their normal rates for the weekend.  Obviously I knew we would never see that money again so I cancelled the trip and asked for our money back.

Guess what - apparently we broke our contract with them and were therefore not entitled to our money back.  What a con! 

So, in conlusion - do not go anywhere near Hols for £9.50 promo - it’s a total con. Grrrr!