Touting your products and services by advertising is essential to business success. Expanding a business is easier with an expanding customer base. 

With big budget advertising out of the reach of the majority of small businesses, they have to live within their ability to pay. 

The options are all local; press, bill boards perhaps, on site signage, word of mouth, car magnets and simply delivering a useful service to the community. It means providing a valued service to locals.

This maintains market relevance as the small businesses endeavour to cater for a local market. Cars for many small business people are used for both business and private use. With the prevalence of dual business/private use for small business owners, a car magnet is desirable for the money for value utility they deliver.

At low cost, they get your business promotion on car – turning it into a moving advertisement. In a few seconds you can be “signed” up and ready to go off for another business call. At day’s end, its just a few seconds and you’re ready to party.

As these magnets endure this chameleon life, car magnets need to be cared for . Briefly, it means having them dirt free front and back, peeling them on and off the vehicle and avoiding long term, day after day usage.

In their off car life they need extra care to prevent scratching and bending them. This is simply in the bag when you use this new protect-a-mag pocket into which slide your magnets. 

These car magnets give you a flexibility unheard of for any other “on-vehicle” signage. A magnet on the car will bump up your profile and that’s got to be good for business success. 

One of the needs of most businesses is for more brand exposure.More importantly for times like this in the economy.Most people are going to be more selective in how they choose to spend their money.They will spend their money in all the places that they know and trust.So in order for businesses to survive they are going to have to brand themselves.They have to get the consumers to automatically think of them when they need their product or service.

Well one of the best ways to brand your company is mobile billboards.  I know it is one of the best ways because I have seen the results first hand running my mobile billboards San Diego company.For this form of advertising you get your brand firmly planted into your customer's mind.  How you ask?  By having a beautiful ad that grabs their attention.On the freeways when the prospective customers are in their cars, a nicely designed mobile ad will do just that.It can reach out and grab your prospect's mind and attention and put your brand in their heads.

You have this happen by placing your advertisements on the truck's sides.This is referred as truckside advertising.  I do it myself with my own San Diego truck advertising company.This is not like those vehicles that are made and then designed for the sole purpose of being a mobile billboard.
Here you transform a regular truck or semi and change it into a mobile billboard by placing ads on it's side.

It is a powerful way to get in front of consumers and advertise.  When you consider the great prices and rates it costs to advertise it is a no brainer. 

A lot of different ways are out there to advertise.You have the newspapers, radio, and TV.  But none is distributed in a way that can't be turned off like TV or radio.When a person is driving in traffic, they are literally forced into having to take notice of these ads.That is the reason they are so powerful.

So if you really want to do some effective branding this is a method you want to try out.You will really be amazed at how widely known and accepted your company becomes.  All from simple San Diego mobile billboards.

How to create a survey using Survey Galaxy

Writing surveys is easy; or is it? The truth is that writing surveys is easy but writing surveys that will be effective is more difficult. The following are twenty tips that if followed will help you with your survey questionnaire design and help you write effective surveys.

1. What is the purpose of the survey?

Questionnaires are conducted for many reasons. By correctly phrasing the questions and structuring the answers surveys can be used in many ways and for a variety of reasons. When compiling a survey don't lose sight of the survey's purpose.

2. Give the survey a good title

The survey title is an opportunity to instantly summarise a survey's objective and encourage respondents to participate. Respondents are going to invest time in completing the survey so make them feel that their investment is worthwhile.

3. Try to keep the survey as short as possible

Every question asked should be asked for a reason. Minimize the questions providing you with 'nice to know' information and concentrate instead on the 'need to know' questions.

4. Use plain English, maintain consistency and avoid jargon, acronyms and asking questions that could result in ambiguous answers

Care must be taken in wording a question. Ambiguous questions run the risk that any analysis of the resulting survey data will be worthless or at the very least suspect.

5. Don't have long questions

Try to use concise sentences wherever possible. Long questions can cause a respondent to lose concentration and lead to them abandoning the survey.

6. Ask one question at a time

Avoid confusing the respondent with a question like 'Do you like tennis and football?'

7. Avoid influencing the answer

It is important to avoid loading the question. 'Should irresponsible shop keepers who sell alcohol to children be prosecuted?' is unlikely to have any value.

8. Make sure that the chosen answer format allows the respondent to answer the question being asked

Allow the respondent to answer how they really feel or they may be inclined to abandon the survey. As a last resort consider the benefit of including a "No comment", "Don't know" or similar response option.

9. While you are compiling your survey consider how the survey results are going to be analysed when the survey is complete

When asking questions that allow for a free text open ended response, such as when asking the respondent for their comments, appreciate that such information is likely to be difficult to score and/or summarised. Consider grouping answers. For example "Indicate your length of service?" - 'less than 1 year', 'between 1 and 3 years' and 'more than 3'.

10. Try and ensure that the questionnaire flows

When asking questions group the questions into clear categories as this makes the task of completing the survey easier for the participants.

11. Target your respondents

Sometimes you will want to target a specific group, in others a cross section. If you can't easily control the respondents consider including questions/answers that will allow you to filter out respondents that don't match your target profile.

12. Allow the respondent to expand on their answer or make comments

Allowing the respondent to make additional comments will increase their satisfaction level and will also give valuable feedback on the specific questions and/or the survey as a whole. Remember that for large sample collections that free text open ended responses may be difficult to analyze.

13. If the survey you are conducting is to be confidential ensure that you honour your pledge

If you have assured respondents that the survey is to be confidential you need to ensure that the collated data is not shared with anyone or used for any other purpose. Confidentiality must be maintained at all times and any identifying information destroyed once the survey has finished.

14. Consider the benefits and disadvantages of allowing respondents to be anonymous or identifiable

If your respondents are to be anonymous then you will be unable to follow up or match "pre" or "post" surveys. In some cases allowing people to remain anonymous will however allow people to respond without possible peer pressure.

15. Carefully consider what the best response format will be

Maintaining a consistency in the format used for responses is good practice. Keep in mind that when analyzing the data radio buttons are easier to analyze than check boxes that offer the respondent multiple responses. If a radio response format can be used do not use a check box format.

16. Give the respondent an estimate as to how much time the survey will take to complete

If the survey appears to be a stream of never ending questions then respondent drop out can occur. It is a good idea to give an indication as to how long the survey is likely to take so the respondents can choose the best time to complete the survey.

17. Advise the respondents of the survey end date

Try and encourage your invited respondents to complete the survey as soon as possible but advise the respondents of the survey’s end date so that they have the opportunity to schedule the necessary time.

18. Pilot the survey

Before publishing a live survey publish the survey as a trial to check for questions that are ambiguous or confusing and to ensure that the survey is aesthetically pleasing.

19. Before publishing the survey check the survey several times

Check more than once that the survey is grammatically correct and makes sense. If possible get someone else to proof read the survey before you publish, if you are unable to do this then take a break before checking again.

20. Thank the respondents

To complete surveys respondents will need to invest their time and therefore should be thanked either at the end of completing the survey or in a follow up letter. You may even want to provide an incentive such as entry into a prize draw or a reward.

Getting started is easy and there are many survey software websites to choose from.