Hidden Pony has the largest Online selection of Promotional Products.

Contact Hidden Pony Marketing for all of your product specialty and marketing needs! i.e. branding, logo creation, fundraising, marketing, web development, social media and more…

Check Out PonyUP4 Fundraising for any organization, with no money up front, no risk, no frustration. PonyUP4 makes Fundraising Easy. To Get Started, Fill out our contact form or call us at 405.740.7004.

Hidden Pony Marketing and Promotions 

]]> http://hiddenpony.com/2011/10/18/rapid-shine-polish/feed/ 0 http://hiddenpony.com/2011/08/12/breast-cancer-awareness/ http://hiddenpony.com/2011/08/12/breast-cancer-awareness/#comments Fri, 12 Aug 2011 19:12:53 +0000 admin http://www.hiddenpony.com/?p=526 Share this with friends!

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

Listed are US stats for Breast Cancer.  Below you can find great products available through Hidden Pony to raise support and awareness!

• About 1 in 8 women in the United States (12%) will develop invasive breast cancer over the course of her lifetime.
• In 2010, an estimated 207,090 new cases of invasive breast cancer were expected to be diagnosed in women in the U.S., along with 54,010 new cases of non-invasive (in situ) breast cancer.
• About 1,970 new cases of invasive breast cancer were expected to be diagnosed in men in 2010. Less than 1% of all new breast cancer cases occur in men.
• From 1999 to 2006, breast cancer incidence rates in the U.S. decreased by about 2% per year. One theory is that this decrease was partially due to the reduced use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) by women after the results of a large study called the Women’s Health Initiative were published in 2002. These results suggested a connection between HRT and increased breast cancer risk.
• About 39,840 women in the U.S. were expected to die in 2010 from breast cancer, though death rates have been decreasing since 1990. These decreases are thought to be the result of treatment advances, earlier detection through screening, and increased awareness.
• For women in the U.S., breast cancer death rates are higher than those for any other cancer, besides lung cancer.
• Besides skin cancer, breast cancer is the most commonly diagnosed cancer among U.S. women. More than 1 in 4 cancers in women (about 28%) are breast cancer.
• Compared to African American women, white women are slightly more likely to develop breast cancer, but less likely to die of it. One possible reason is that African American women tend to have more aggressive tumors, although why this is the case is not known. Women of other ethnic backgrounds — Asian, Hispanic, and Native American — have a lower risk of developing and dying from breast cancer than white women and African American women.
• In 2010, there were more than 2.5 million breast cancer survivors in the U.S.
• A woman’s risk of breast cancer approximately doubles if she has a first-degree relative (mother, sister, daughter) who has been diagnosed with breast cancer. About 20-30% of women diagnosed with breast cancer have a family history of breast cancer.
• About 5-10% of breast cancers can be linked to gene mutations (abnormal changes) inherited from one’s mother or father. Mutations of the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes are the most common. Women with these mutations have up to an 80% risk of developing breast cancer during their lifetime, and they are more likely to be diagnosed at a younger age (before menopause). An increased ovarian cancer risk is also associated with these genetic mutations. In men, about 1 in 10 breast cancers are believed to be due to BRCA2 mutations and even fewer cases to BRCA1 mutations.
• About 70-80% of breast cancers occur in women who have no family history of breast cancer. These occur due to genetic abnormalities that happen as a result of the aging process and life in general, rather than inherited mutations.
• The most significant risk factors for breast cancer are gender (being a woman) and age (growing older).

See these products and more on our online catalog under “Featured Products”

Call us and we can help you find the perfect item ~ 405.740.7004

Get In The Game – Football Promotional Items offer good thru Sept 30th, 2011

The excitement of a new Football Season is kicking off, and to stimulate the fever, we have some  great items for you to logo up with your company, school or team. Hidden Pony Marketing and Promotions is your one stop mall for all of your promotional and marketing needs. Have a great season!

Contact me or click on image and go to our Online Store, We’re fast and will help you to find exactly what you want!~405.740.7004

Biggest Marketing Mistakes Companies Make…And How To Recover!

When marketing efforts are not successful, many companies wonder why…They sent out direct mail, or refreshed their website, initiated Google Adwords, or attended a trade show, but are left disappointed and frustrated with languishing sales and under used resources.
Why isn’t the phone ringing? What went wrong?

Hidden Pony Marketing and Promotions can help!

The high level answer to this question is that marketing efforts must be more than a disconnected series of tasks. Effective marketing is not a single activity, but a well choreographed effort that takes planning, consistency, and fortitude to accomplish. The deeper answer comes from analyzing the top five biggest marketing mistakes we’ve seen companies make.
Are you making one or more of these mistakes? If so, how can you recover?
#1: MARKETING WITHOUT A STRATEGY IN PLACE
Common Mistake: Believing your product does everything, your target market is anyone who has money to spend, and/or you don’t have competition.

Because companies are frustrated by a lack of revenue, they often equate limiting their target market with limiting opportunity. The fact is, for marketing efforts to succeed, you must define a target market segment where your product has the most relevance and the best competitive advantage! Most of us can simply not afford to market everything to anyone with the delusion we are the only option for our customers to consider.
Recovery Plan: You need a marketing plan —and fast. Stop all marketing activities immediately and take the next three to six weeks to plan your new approach. Build a brief overview description of each product and service you offer, including features and benefits—concentrating on the differentiating features only. Research your competition and document their offer, pricing structure, strengths and weaknesses, along with your competitive advantage. Once you identify your key advantage (value proposition) over the competition, play it up consistently in every marketing vehicle you produce. Recognize you can’t afford to market to everyone and define your target markets by grouping and categorizing the characteristics of your current customer base. Then choose marketing vehicles that only cater to that defined group of potential buyers. Finally, create a calendar of events and associated budget that will act as your road map to success!

For a Marketing Consultation contact us by filling out the Contact Form

Watch your sales begin to climb! But don’t congratulate yourself yet; effective marketing takes patience and persistence. Your journey is just beginning!
#2: BEING INCONSISTENT WITH YOUR BRAND.
Common Mistake: Changing your company’s positioning depending on the audience, marketing vehicle used, or person delivering it.

Although some companies have actually gone through the steps of clearly outlining their company’s positioning language, we find that many individuals within that company still have their own version. And this “customized” statement can change depending on who is receiving the information. The result? A confused audience—unsure of who you are and what your company does—that is unable to convey your offering to anyone else. Brand awareness is only built by CONSISTENTLY communicating your company’s position and identity each and every time, so that eventually your “listeners” will repeat your positioning exactly as you intend them to repeat it.
Recovery Plan: You need positioning language that clearly defines who you are and what you offer, strongly differentiates you from competition, and can be delivered consistently by every employee. Host a brainstorming session with key team-members and craft a statement that everyone agrees upon, understands, and supports. The positioning statement must include who you are, what you offer, for whom, for what result, and why someone should choose you over anyone else. Launch it internally, and define its use and how employees will support it. Then do a full audit of your materials and fix any inconsistencies. Gaining buy-off at the executive level will ensure success from the top down.

Remember all employees must work together as ambassadors of the brand. Understanding this concept before you spend money on marketing activities is imperative to your success!
#3: NOT INTEGRATING MARKETING WITH SALES EFFORTS.
Common Mistake: Developing marketing programs or materials that fizzle out in the sales process and never get used by the sales team.

Often marketing teams spend a considerable amount of time, effort, and perhaps most importantly money to create a collateral kit and sales presentation for a new program or product offering. The sales team rejects the materials because they don’t address the most compelling selling points and produces their own one-off presentations and brochures that send mixed messages to prospects and customers. To further illustrate the point, many times a marketing team will launch a new direct mail program to “generate sales leads” for the sales team, only to find that sales doesn’t follow up on them because they don’t feel the leads are “qualified.”

Not having a clear integration between sales and marketing can only result in failed marketing programs, costing you lost revenue opportunities and wasted expenses.
Recovery Plan: Ask your sales team to participate in marketing planning. Implement a sales advisory committee that is run by marketing and includes both sales management and representatives to participate and provide feedback on proposed marketing programs and deliverables. Also, schedule quarterly customer visits for marketing and sales to call on a variety of current clients together. These visits provide more insight into the customer’s perspective and the sales person’s challenges than any other technique. Bring the lessons learned back to the advisory committee to shape more relevant marketing tools.

Without uniting sales and marketing efforts, your strategies are only realizing one-half of the equation. Integrate now to gain the buy-in and support necessary to generate sales!
#4: MARKETING SOMETHING YOU DON’T ACTUALLY DELIVER.
Common Mistake: Aggressively marketing a skill set, technology, product, or service that has not been tested or validated, or is simply not available yet…the “we could offer that” syndrome. This is a case where the “fake it till you make it” mantra simply does not work!

Your marketing team has created eye-catching materials, compelling positioning, and an aggressive campaign for the launch of a new company product or service. The campaign is very successful, however operations cannot handle the demands. They are either under-staffed, or worse—they do not have the skill sets or ability to deliver on the new program. Or maybe, the product itself is not available in time, or has production problems. This not only upsets your customers, it demoralizes your sales and marketing team. They stop selling and the pipeline dries up.
Recovery Plan: Ask company leadership to immediately realign the efforts of marketing and operations. Perform a gap analysis and assess what needs to happen to fulfill the new business demands, from both marketing and operational perspectives. Then create a plan and detail the specific steps required for each team to support existing sales as well as successfully roll out the offering to new customers. Identify milestones for each group to report on and demonstrate progress. This not only builds confidence within each team, but also fosters a sense of pride across the organization.

You must raise your game to meet the new demand. It is a good problem to have, but take care of it quickly as you won’t be given another opportunity to prove yourself.
#5: NOT USING THE MARKETING MIX EFFECTIVELY.
Common Mistake: Fixating on only one marketing vehicle to promote a company and/or its products.

Many marketing plans we see only focus on one activity like direct mail, advertising, public relations, or cold calling, and do not use several or all of these vehicles together in concert. Putting your eggs in only one basket may generate some leads for your company, but this strategy will ultimately limit your ability to maximize sales opportunities within a target market and optimize your marketing spend. Your customers need to see and learn about your company through a few different vehicles before they will be finally prompted to respond to your offer.
Recovery Plan: Your goal should be to touch your prospects from the many angles they conduct business. Choose a marketing mix that caters specifically to your target market, and then create a program schedule that ensures the right level of coverage across the multiple channels, increasing activities around key product launches or to address seasonality issues. Then be patient and let them work. It takes time, but rest assured, the variety of vehicles, working in concert, will build awareness and generate leads at an exponentially higher rate than any one vehicle alone can accomplish.

Hidden Pony Marketing – Supporting Businesses with Strategies and Products that Work!

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Worried that their son was too optimistic, the parents took their little boy to a psychiatrist. The Psychiatrist showed the boy a room piled high with nothing but horse manure. Instead of displaying distaste, the little boy climbed to the top of the pile and started digging with both hands “What in the world are you doing?” the psychiatrist asked, “With all this manure,” the little boy smiled, “there’s gotta be a pony in here somewhere.”