July 2011 :  What's INSIDE

•      Know the Code
   
• ROYGBIV: Be Fit, Fabulous, & Formidable!
   
• Five Tips for Effective Marketing with Twitter   

UPCOMING HOLIDAYS: 
In honor of Labor Day, Sentinel will be closed for Mon day, September 5th.

 

PROOF POSITIVE

Gloss coated papers have a high shine and a very smooth surface, ideal for producing printed items for promotional work. The finish of the paper gives the ink a high degree of “lift,” creating vibrant color and definition to printed images in particular.

New on Tuesdays:
Gutenbird's Green Tips

 

Know the Code

If you haven’t noticed QR (Quick Response) codes yet, keep your eyes open — you’re going to start seeing them everywhere, including magazines, flyers, tabletops and conference materials.

These little black and white markings are two-dimensional bar code images that, when scanned by a camera on a smartphone, open a link to a website, send an SMS or dial a phone number. QR codes are becoming widely used to supplement marketing efforts, and they’re being used in ads in newspapers, magazines or even in the windows of businesses. They can basically link everything in the physical world to electronic information immediately. 

The cool thing is, you can create QR codes for free. Do a search on “QR codes” and you’ll find several websites that will generate a code for a particular website address or piece of text, at no cost to you. This means that the only cost associated is the printing, and if you’re creating an ad or direct mail, you’re likely printing anyway.

Here are some effective ways to use QR codes:

• On business cards: A fast and simple way to use QR codes for your own professional purposes is to place them on business cards. Generate a bar code that directs scanners to your online resume, Facebook page or website.

• On marketing materials: You’ve got fliers, brochures, programs, white papers and a myriad of other materials in your media kit. Add QR codes to direct viewers to a particular how-to video, send them to a Flickr photo set, invite them to follow you on Twitter, or point them to a mobile-friendly landing page that promotes a new campaign.

• For freebies: If you really want people to pay attention to your QR codes, make them good for something fun. Say you’ve placed a QR code decal in your storefront window—why not reward those who scan it with 10 percent off their purchase or a free pastry? Give them something small to thank them for their patronage.

If you use QR codes, keep in mind that they and the apps that scan them are still foreign to most people. Make it a point to spell out how to scan the code and help instruct customers on where they can grab scanner apps.

 

ROYGBIV: Be Fit, Fabulous, & Formidable! by Mary Fugle

We really enjoyed this article by our friend Mary Fugle who writes each week on healthy topics (you can follow Mary on Twitter @FandFbyMary).

Particularly fun is how she used the acronym for the colors represented in the visible light spectrum – ROYGBIV. The creation of light is due to the result of the primary additive colors, Red, Green and Blue which when refracted through a prism reveals the visible color spectrum, Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo and Violet; just like a rainbow. Because color is everything in the world of print, Mary’s article struck a central cord.

Enjoy the article, stay healthy, and if you would like to hear more about color theory please give us a call or contact Mary at maryfugle@wisewomensworkouts.com.
 

Spring flowers are starting to make a most welcomed appearance, and I'm already imagining the Farmers' Market in a few weeks with baby lettuces, spring onions, and other treats!

Two weeks ago, I took a number of Continuing Education courses, in order to renew my Personal Trainer Certification. One course was about eating a whole-food, plant-based menu. It led me to read "THE CHINA STUDY" by T. Colin Campbell, PhD. this past week, and change a number of my menus.

Dr. Campbell spent his career in research and policy making, working at MIT, Virginia Tech, and Cornell. The China Study was a 20 year joint project between Cornell University, Oxford University, and the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine and surveyed diseases and lifestyle factors in rural China and Taiwan. The findings - people who ate the most animal-based foods got the most chronic diseases (cancer, diabetes, heart disease) and those who ate most plant-based foods were the healthiest and tended to avoid chronic disease.

If, like me, you took a number of physics courses, you might remember ROYGBIV is a way to remember the colors of the light spectrum. For this issue, ROYGBIV denotes the various colorful, fresh plant foods you should be eating in abundance every day.

RED - rich in lycopene. Benefits - protection against prostate and lung cancer, cardiovascular disease in women, cataracts, debilitation with advancing age. Found in - tomatoes, watermelon, pink grapefruit, guava, and papaya.

ORANGE - rich in carotenoids, a family of more than 600 yellow, orange, and red pigments, all with different specific benefits. Benefits - beta carotene (most well know) is vital for eyesight, immune defense, DNA repair, learning & memory, control of cell division. Found in - carrots, sweet potatoes, pumpkin. kale, spinach, butternut squash, Swiss chard, cantaloupe, mango.

YELLOW - rich in lutein. Benefits - include protection of the macula of the eye - especially important for women, people with blue eyes and those with a family history of macular degeneration. Found in - corn, kale, collards, spinach, parsley, okra, romaine lettuce, red peppers, Brussels sprouts.

GREEN - rich in isothiocyanates and indoles. Benefits - protection against enzymes that activate carcinogens, DNA changes, hormone-related cancers, growth of transformed cells. Found in - broccoli, kale, cabbage, watercress, cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, turnips, asparagus, bok choy, mustard greens, spinach.

BLUE/INDIGO - rich in ellagic acid. Benefits - stops cancer cells from dividing, kills many types of cancer cells, kills human papilloma virus. Found in - blueberries and other berries, red & purple grapes, pomegranates, cranberries, currents, pecans, walnuts, seeds.

VIOLET/PURPLE - rich in anthrocyanins. Benefits - strengthening capillaries, reducing blood clotting, eliminating free radicals, reducing inflammation, preventing binding of carcinogens to DNA. Found in - eggplant, red cabbage, red bell peppers, red apples, red onions, plums, red wine, cherries.

Finally, the beige onion and garlic family, which is rich in compounds that detoxify the liver and reduce cancer risk, and the legumes which contain isoflavones that lower bad cholesterol and triglycerides, increase good cholesterol and protect against cell mutation.

Eat the rainbow - there's a pot of gold (good health) at the end!

 

Five Tips for Effective Marketing with Twitter

With 8.3 new user accounts registered every second, Twitter has reached more than 300 million users, a number roughly equivalent to the population of the United States. These numbers are worldwide, of course, not just for the U.S. In this country, less than 10 percent of Americans use Twitter. Still, it’s impressive for the short-messaging site, which limits posts to 140 characters and wasn’t much of a blip on the screen three years ago with only about 300,000 users.

With millions of people connecting through social media, marketers are eager to share the love. However, many brands don’t know what to do once they join the social media group hug, so they flounder around until they decide that it’s not for them.

Know this: Marketing on Twitter requires a shift in your mindset. Twitter is all about simple conversations. You can’t use press releases, marketing copy or other one-way communication. Customers want interaction, with you and with each other.

From MarketingProfs, here are four ways to tweet successfully.

1. Connect person to person. People don’t talk to brands—they talk to people. It doesn’t matter how large your company is. On Twitter, people want to connect to a person. Make your updates personable and human, not like a press release. It’s okay if it’s not polished.

2. Promote a dedicated ambassador. Make social media part of your plan and designate a single person internally to act as a social media liaison. Doing so ensures that updates occur more frequently and result in less clutter.

3. Give people a reason to follow you. People love to pass on information, and if they are following your brand they are already showing an interest in your message. Why not reward them? Offer inside information, special offers or one-to-one conversations with customers who follow you.

4. Link Twitter to your website. Twitter is a very flexible technology, which is what makes it so powerful. Twitter can be set up to automatically update your followers every time you post a blog entry, plus any RSS feed can be rebroadcast through your Twitter postings—these are two of Twitter’s strengths.

Also, be sure to check out HootSuite—this tool will allow you to post to multiple social networks, including Facebook and Twitter, from one dashboard. If you get the mobile app, you’ll be able to monitor and message from anywhere at any time.

 

What's INSIDE

Know the Code • ROYGBIV: Be Fit, Fabulous, & Formidable! • Five Tips for Effective Marketing with Twitter