Five March Winners Take Away Promotional Prizes from a $42,000 Give-Away Contest

Idea Cafe and AmsterdamPrinting.com are pleased to announce March small business winners in the $42,000 Advertising, Marketing, and Promotional Products Give-Away contest. End Quote

(1888PressRelease) May 10, 2011 - Idea Café, an established online community for entrepreneurs, and AmsterdamPrinting.com, one of the country's oldest and most reputable Promotional Merchandise companies, are pleased to announce March small business winners in the $42,000 Advertising, Marketing, and Promotional Products Give-Away contest.

Winning! That's what Idea Café's visitors are doing. Each month, a few of the small business owners who have entered the $42,000 Give-Away Contest win promotional merchandise and/or free advertising packages to enhance the marketing and promotion campaign for their own business.

To be eligible, businesses can enter the contest with new and unique story as often as they wish until the end of the year by visiting www.businessownersideacafe.com/business/merchandise-giveaway.php . The winners are determined by the applicable and innovative approach of using Promotional Merchandise described in their submission.

The March winners impressed the judges with their outstanding, clever, and unique ideas for advertising and/or using promotional merchandise to promote a business. Winning entries (and all entries) are posted online and made available so that other businesses can be inspired and/or adopt these ideas to promote their own business: Growing every day, there are currently 1,500 ideas posted. Following are the five selections from the March entries!

• Jenny Downer-Tse won $500 of AmsterdamPrinting.com free promotional merchandise for her business with this winning entry: "The most interesting way I've see promotional merchandise being used is Bruegger's Bagels when they sell the bottomless coffee mug. It has their logo on it, it is a promotional material that they actually sell, but give unlimited refills of coffee and tea when people bring the commemorative mug to the store. It's a great way to encourage customers to use their promotional merchandise!"

• Paula Sacca won free advertising for her business with this winning entry: "The best way I have seen promotional items being used was by a company called Autism Toys who sells sensory types of items for children with disabilities. At an Autism Speaks walk, the company had sensory light-up balls with the company name flashing that was included in the goodie-bag for children. An object like this would be great for any child, but for a child with autism it is brilliant. If parents did not know what that company sold or what that company can do for their child, thousands upon thousands, after the many walks that Autism Speaks held that year, were sure to know now."

• Susan Priebe won free advertising for her business with this winning entry: "I purchased a completely bio-degradable watch recently and the company included information on the product, the battery, the packaging (how it could be recycled or composted at the end of its life) and also included a seed pad that could be watered and which would become grass. Since I am always looking for "sustainable" ways to purchase goods, this type of promotion was a wonderful way to grab me as a customer and helped me make the purchase initially. I would probably not have purchased the watch without all of this promotional information that was included."

• Erin Kozak won free advertising for her business with this winning entry: "While attending a local festival, I came across a booth for an insurance company. They had a camera set up and were taking souvenir pictures. The picture was free and each person in the picture received a lanyard with the company's name on it, which had a tag connected to it. The tag listed a code that when entered on the company's website would lead you to your picture that you could save and/or print. I thought that this was a very creative way of distributing a lanyard, which is a common promotional item. Instead of just distributing a lanyard, that people may just throw away, it forced people to keep the lanyard so they had the online access code for their picture. Then, when people went to get their picture online, they had to go through the company's website, which provided them with even more advertisement."

• Kevin Mackell, owner of Athlete's Touch won free advertising for his business with this winning entry: "I own a solo Sports Massage business. I invested in standard business card magnets and went to all the triathlons and 5K road races in my area and would place them just above the driver's side door handle, knowing that when the driver returned they would 100% be exposed to my logo. To this day I still have new clients come in and comment that they still have my magnet hanging on their refrigerator, even after all this time."

All visitors to BusinessOwnersIdeaCafe.com have the opportunity to review hundreds of contest entries and find some fresh and effective marketing ideas to promote their own business: www.businessownersideacafe.com/business/merchandise-giveaway-browse.php .

The contest is co-sponsored by DevStart Network/BusinessOwnersIdeaCafe and AmsterdamPrinting.com.

To learn more and to enter the contest, please visit www.businessownersideacafe.com/business/merchandise-giveaway.php.

About AmsterdamPrinting.com
AmsterdamPrinting.com (www.amsterdamprinting.com/) has an extended history of providing quality printed business products to satisfied customers. Originating in 1898 Abraham Singer began his one-man print shop in the rear of his Amsterdam, NY apartment. By 1925, Amsterdam Printing & Litho was producing bridge score pads, personalized with an advertiser's name on each page. The business evolved and was constantly innovating to create new business channels. As the business expanded through the decades, so did the product selection. Today Amsterdam is a leader in bringing innovative promotional products to market to help businesses creatively promote their company and retain their customers. Anything from personalized pens, pocket calendars, desk calendars and all types of promotional products have become the essentials of the Amsterdam product range.

About Idea Café
Idea Café (www.businessownersideacafe.com/) provides an extensive range of free services, well-written articles and other information aimed at helping small businesses get started and succeed. That includes everything from how to start a business and obtain financing, to tips for accounting, marketing, finding and keeping customers, marketing on the Internet, and much more. IdeaCafe.com has been online since 1995 and is known for its popular CyberSchmooze forums, where small business owners, startup entrepreneurs and experts share questions, information and provide objective feedback. They have a well-established base of contributing business experts, plus a large base of loyal readers, who rely on them for new ideas and practical help running their businesses. To find out more about Idea Cafe, visit http://www.ideacafe.com.

About DevStart, Inc.
DevStart, Inc. is the parent company of IdeaCafe and a leading online provider of unique IT related content and powerful tools. Attracting a monthly audience of more than a half-million unique visitors, with decision makers at its core, our strong portfolio of media properties provides a uniquely collaborative environment for readers, writers, and advertisers. Since 1998 the DevStart Network has been a popular and trusted source for information and resources for webmasters and entrepreneurs. In addition to BusinessOwnersIdeaCafe.com, our major properties include HostReview, PromotionWorld, DomainInformer, and other websites that cater to webmasters and business owners.

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