Character Matters

The last 3 weeks, Artistic Toy has been busy building character with its first Character Marketing Sales Team. The team consists of 23 top salespeople working together to implement Artistic Toy’s Character Marketing Sales Playbook. After three weeks of 1 hour web conferences over 70% of the team members are joined to a private Facebook group where they share ideas, case studies, proposals, prospecting campaigns, and presentations. In addition to sharing and learning, the team members have developed several proposals to introduce characters into existing and new client promotional marketing campaigns.
Character Marketing is a philosophy that leads to success, best stated by Ralph Waldo Emerson:


“Sow a thought and you reap an action;
Sow an act and you reap a habit;
Sow a habit and you reap a character;
Sow a character and you reap a destiny."

While discussing the BINGO sheet (One Page Business Plan) with Jim Nixson, The Vernon Company, he realized the opportunities are abundant with characters in marketing and it would be nearly impossible to exhaust them all.

Leon Davidson, Promoshop – Sacramento, said he has worked with a large university for the last 10 years and he always knew there was an opportunity to develop a plush toy mascot for them, but he just needed some help to get the proposal together.

Walker-Clay Inc. - Amanda Clay is literally going to the bank with a proposal to help her bank client energize a savings program for children.

Cary Romanoff, Ice Box Promotions, is thinking about ways to make their very own “Ping” the penguin a hot character to draw more attention to their brand through the use of a stuffed plush toy miniature.

Ted Davies, Paradigm Partners, reports an opportunity to make a bear an important game piece in a grocery store promotion.

Win Oppel, Ad-Merica, is discussing ways to expand a regional utility company’s energy conservation program with a custom plush toy replica of a character in a coloring book currently being used in their marketing.

Sherrie Rhoads, Success Promotions, Inc, received an email from a hotel client inquiring about plush toys with a Caribbean theme for their children's amenity program and to sell in their retail shops. While responding to her client’s request she asked some key questions and made a recommendation to consider branding themselves with their very own plush toy character that a guest cannot find anywhere else to act as a powerful reminder of the resort. This recommendation landed her an appointment with the General Manager of the Hotel.

Even in the doom and gloom of the economic crisis, this cast of characters has realized that it’s their Character that will pull them through. The team has proven that it doesn’t matter if your client is in a serious business or fun business you can find ways to use characters as powerful marketing tools that can be used in any and all industries.

350 Chef Bear Mailers Sent to Clients

Artistic Toy launched a trial campaign late last year and early this year to all the people that attended the Cliff Quicksell webinar or pre-registered to see us at the ASI Orlando Tradeshow to receive box mailer to 10 clients or prospects for FREE.

The mailer is being being shipped today (Feb 9) to over 350 distributor sales people's clients. We are very excited to learn about the results of this mailer.

It would be our intention that our participants would secure lots of plush toy orders from this mailer; however, our measurement is also on how many:

1. Phone Calls that New Prospects Take from You
2. Appointments You Make with Prospects / Customers
3. Presentation/Proposals Given
4. Quote Requests
5. New Orders (T-Shirts, Bears, Mugs, etc)

Please send us an email or leave a comment on our blog to let us know what reaction or benefits you are getting from the mail campaign.