Internet may have lessened the need for printed business tools, but it hasn’t completely eliminated brochures, business cards, sales flyers and catalogs. Clients need something about your business to put in their files. Plus, printed materials can help drive customers and clients to your site. When you’re ready to write your next brochure, these tips may help you get focused.

1. Target the best markets for your services and write the brochure to that specific market.
2. Decide what you want to achieve with the brochure.
3. Narrow the objectives of the brochure to no more than 3.
4. Stay on a narrow course of action. Don’t stray from the objective.
5. Increasingly build the case for your objective from the beginning to the end.
6. A brochure is drama; a flyer is action; a catalog lists ALL your products and services. Brochures are not flyers or catalogs.

Keeping these tips in mind, you’ll be on the road to a beautiful brochure!

Holiday color trends are all over the board this year. Instead of mega categories, trends in 2008 are micro-centered -- as electic and diverse as the fragmented U.S. consumer demographics. Some of the influencing themes and motifs are:

1. Concern for the environment
2. Retro-to-the-’60’s (peace and love)
3. Fair Trade merchandise
4. Old world opulence (Russia)

Earth-driven color tones dominate the environmental color trend. Sky blue, fern green, sand beige, bark brown, and vibrant wild flower brights; with copper and nickel as strong metallics. In the peace and love category, wild, vivid, visionary colors splash holiday theme merchandise. With the Russian and old world, think deep jewel tones and dazzling metallics. Fair trade color trends tend to reflect the dark tones of mahagony and ebony, with splashes of blackened primary tones (red, orange, green and blue), livened up with tropical blends.

It’s great to read about color trends, but with gift baskets, designers don’t have to think too much about it, since industry manufacturers and distributors have already stocked the latest for the holidays. Just open the catalogs, think about your own customer base, and order the trendiest packaging and supply colors in every style and motif!

Just because budgets are tight doesn’t mean corporations stop sending gifts throughout the year. At Christmas, the pressure to send gifts to good clients is intense for service-oriented businesses. You can help them keep thank you gifts on a tight budget -- and that will earn you a HUGE thanks from the corporation.

Corporations often ask for imprinted ribbon or boxes. That’s good for you, because one simple wrap of an imprinted ribbon is all the wrap a business gift may need. Here, chocolate ornaments are boxed in a clear acetate box. The only wrap required is the imprint tie-around ribbon, with a bow topping the box. The look is stylish, elegant, and efficient.

Can a drop ship company help your business during the holidays? Some gift businesses say, “yes”. For those who may not be familiar with the term, a drop ship company allows a gift business to advertise and promote a line of merchandise that the gift business does not have to keep in stock on their premises. Orders are taken for the merchandise from the gift company’s customers, and the items are shipped directly from the drop shipper’s warehouse. The gift company earns a commission from the sale.

How can a drop ship company help? In addition to allowing the gift company to offer a wider variety of merchandise without investing in the inventory, a drop ship company sometimes helps with other areas of business. Some companies may help with search engine optimization, pre-printed catalogs (for a fee), shopping carts, better payment options, and overall web image.

There are pro’s as well as con’s to signing on with a drop ship company. For one, monthly fees may be associated with the drop ship company. Lost or delayed shipping and delivery are the most common problems, along with disputes over quality of the merchandise.

Find a drop shipper with a sterling reputation and your business could reap a harvest of commissions. Maybe.

What kind of merchandise can you buy that will last from the summer through the holiday season? The obvious answer is non-perishables, but beyond that, veteran gift basket business owners and designers suggest planning seasonal color groups that can transition and overlap.

Plan a color theme that can be transitioned through the seasons. For example, white is great in summer and a staple for the holidays. Bold ladybug red looks super in the summer, paired with white, black and green. And so on. A base of colors can be transitioned from one season into the next through primary themes such as summer ladybug, fall witches (black and green), and Christmas candy cane motif. As you shop you can look for general category merchandise in these base colors.

In the photo above, the designer used the same container from Valentine to Christmas. How many other products can you find that are identical, from one basket to the other? Only the florals and one focal point item were changed to move the Valentine basket into Christmas. The base color group of red, green, and white remained the same.

Wow -- what a wild gift basket! The jungle theme is fun, eye-catching, but . . . is it profitable? This design was created for a competition, where points are earned more for presentation than practicality. Even so, this design would still turn heads AND generate a profit by doing just one thing: scaling back a bit on the enhancements.

To be practical, this gift basket needs just a touch of jungle greenery, and it would need to be placed so that the basket could be wrapped for delivery. Placement options:
1. Put a pot of live tropical plants to the left or right. Gather cello over the middle of the basket, leaving the plants outside the wrap.
2. Attach a permanent spray of jungle-themed enhancements near the front side of the container. The cello can lightly cover over the permanent spray during delivery.
3. Save the greenery for the bow on the cello, and only use just enough to get the theme across.

It’s a jungle out there with competition at every turn. One sure way to move ahead of the herd is to keep looking for innovative presentations. This basket was created for a gift basket competition some years ago (sorry -- designer is unknown), but the presentation still looks fresh and exciting. Look at all the techniques:
1. layered solid and patterned ribbon
2. zebra patterned tissue/fabric textural accent at the rim of the basket.
3. a striking product (tiger packaging) at the focal point of the basket. (You could wrap a product in an animal print found in scrapbook supplies, or a greeting card for example)
4. tiered height with placement of gift basket components
5. interesting angles of component placement

Good gift designs can hold their age -- and this one was great!

Gift totes are affordable alternatives to woven baskets. But, because most are made of paper, laminates, and lightweight plastics, the totes need a little support to hold products. A new video is available for download at www.gbreview.com. In it, you’ll see three ways to add support to a paper tote. The video download is free to members.

Wow! Cellophane dramatically magnifies the presentation of a gift component. Here, a patterned cellophane (Nashville Wraps) is used to wrap a tin of gourmet coffee (Don Francisco from Gaviña). This wrap is achieved by placing the coffee tin on the front third of a square of cellophane. Pull up the cello and tie it off. Next, tug and twist the cello to create the even, snug presentation shown here. Simple - quick - and WOW! What a presentation!

Towel origami has practical applications for gift baskets. Not only has towel origami proved itself as a hit with cruise ship guests, it is fast becoming a craft gift basket designers are using to help clients save money. The towels can be shaped into functional basket containers, complete with handles and a bottom that will support lightweight gift and/or gourmet components. Shown here, a kitchen towel is folded into a basket that can hold packets of coffee and a mug -- a perfect and inexpensive house warming gift.

Download the video to learn how to make the towel origami gift basket at www.gbreview.com. The video is free to GBR Online members, and available for a nominal charge to non-members.

What kind of shred do you use in your gift basket? Hopefully, your answer is “it depends”. Shred is available in different textures, material type, and weight, in addition to all the rich assortment of color and style.

Which shred you choose to use depends on three factors:
(1) the container
(2) the products to be packed
(3) preferred style

To determine the type of shred you may need, here is a brief overview of shreds and usage.

Types of Shred

1. Wood Excelsior: heavy, coarse shred with great support for heavy gift components.

2. Crinkle Shred (other trade names may be used, but the shred has a zig-zag appearance): medium weight with good support for moderate to heavy gift components.

3. Parchment Shred: medium weight with good support for moderate to somewhat heavy gift components.

4. Tissue Shred: light to medium weight with good support for light to moderate gift components. Best for totes, small gift packages, and shallow baskets, or to add texture and color as a decorative top layer over a more supportive base layer of shred.

5. Cellophane Shred: light weight with less support than other shreds. Good for totes, small packages and shallow baskets, or to add texture and color as a decorative top layer over a more supportive base layer of shred.

6. Metallic Shred: similar uses to cellophane shred.

8. Shred Blends: mixes of shreds that combine support shreds with decorative elements, such as cellophane and/or metallic.

Hot off the production line are 5 new video downloads hosted by Debra Paulk, editor of Gift Basket Review Online Magazine. The newest additions feature styles and themes for the holidays, from fall to Christmas, with themes focused on saving money, stretching resources, and using inexpensive enhancements for better perceived value. In response to member request for quicker downloads, most of the videos are 2 to 5 minutes in length.

GBR editor and video host, Debra Paulk, says this set of videos addresses retailer concerns for presenting stylish gift designs, but on tighter budgets. “Early indications for the holidays are that consumers may opt to spend less on individual gifts,” says Paulk. To offset what could become a drop in revenues, retailers will want to adapt strategies for INCREASING PROFIT MARGINS. And that is exactly the focus of this new set of videos.”

Watch for the video release date, expected to go live by late July.