LabelValue Label Blog

Feature Friday: Dymo LabelManager PnP

This is the last day to get a great deal on our LabelManager PnP “plug n play," compatible with both PC and Mac.

With the LabelManager PnP, printing labels has never been faster and easier. Simply connect your LabelManager PnP with your PC or Mac and instantly begin printing Dymo D1 labels. Unlike other printers, there is no need to install software, as the printer comes with the software already built in.

This lightweight, compact printer is perfect as a desktop labeling solution, since its lithium battery charges while it is connected to the computer, allowing you to avoid cluttering your workstation with wires. Print fonts, graphics, and logos already on your computer, or even batch labels from database files stored on your computer.

Wedding Favor Ideas

While Christmas is on the minds of most people, weddings are also weighing heavily on the minds of many who may be planning spring weddings or who may have become recently engaged. Of course, every bride wants to have a wedding compete with unique touches and personalization, one that will be enjoyed and remembered by all. If you are searching for suggestions for wedding favors, look no further than these ideas from Martha Stewart.

1. Candy boxes. A variety of colorful candy in clear rectangular boxes makes for a stylish favor. You can also personalize the boxes by adding a custom label with your monogram or names.
2. Lollipop trees. Cones holding brightly colored lollipops encourage your guests to tap into their inner child.
3. Favor bags. Fill his and hers grab bags with candy and other treats. This is also a great place for custom labels with your monogram.
4. Personalized candy favor. Purchase stackable containers with custom labels with your name and filled with your favorite candy, giving your guests a taste of your palette.
5. Personalized candy bars. Chocolate bars with the faces of the bride and groom offer a sweet personalization to your wedding. Choose a few favorite photos and print them using an ink-jet printer or photocopy onto lightweight paper (you may need to shrink or enlarge images). Trim the photos so they are slightly shorter than the candy bars. Remove the outer wrapper, leaving on the foil, and replace with the photo. Secure it on the back with double-sided tape.
6. Colorful bags. Dress up cellophane bags with decorative bags to hold candy for favors or guest-room gifts.  Cut your decorative paper as wide as the top and as long as the bottom, plus 1 inch for the front and the amount you want for the back. Embelish with your own personal message or monogram. Slip the decorate paper into the bag and fill with candy. Tie it with a decorative ribbon. Simply center the ribbon along the top of the bag, fold the bag down over the ribbon twice and tie.

Shop Made in the USA this Christmas

Do you have your Christmas presents all picked out for your family and friends? Consider helping to boost our economy by purchasing items that were manufactured in the U.S.

Approximately four million manufacturing jobs have been lost in the U.S. since 2001 as a result of outsourcing and plant closures. If you look back as far as 1981, that number jumps to seven million. Try to support our economy with U.S. made presents this year.

In the last 17 years, small businesses have generated 65% of all new jobs in the U.S. Purchasing American-made items almost always means supporting those small businesses.

Americans seem to be recognizing this as well, since 61% of Americans in a poll from 2010 report that they are more likely to purchase an item if it is advertised as Made in America, with 57% making a conscious effort to buy products produced in the U.S.

With purchasing from American companies, there is also a level of accountability. If there is a problem with a product, you can call and speak to the owner. If the product was created overseas, there is no guarantee the problem will be rectified. This is especially important for parents purchasing toys for their children this holiday season. If a product is flawed or a chemical put in a toy illegally, there is a substantially increased level of accountability, complete with repercussions. This not the case with toys produced in China.

Shoppers are encouraged by buy American-made this year to help create jobs and actively help our economy.

If you are a small business owner, consider purchasing Made in the USA labels for your products to improve sales.

Gifts for Wine Lovers

With Christmas less than 2 weeks today, you should be thinking about what you are going to get that wine lover on your list. Yes you could go to the grocery store and pick up a bottle of wine…or you could look for something a little more unusual. Check out these ideas for gifts for wine lovers.

1. Wine charms. While not an usual gift, with more people choosing to drink from stem-less wine glasses, the wine charms of the past (where the charm fits around the base of the glass) will no longer work. Instead, pick up some magnetic wine charms. These updated wine charms come in a variety of styles to fit the personality of the recipient.
2. Rapid beverage chiller. If you are looking to spend a little more money, consider purchasing a rapid beverage chiller. Everyone has, at some point or another, been faced with putting a bottle of water in the freezer, running the risk of forgetting about it and having the bottle break as it freezes. A rapid beverage chiller will allow your family member or friend to never run that risk ever again.
3. Wine barrel furniture. Craftmen are converting used wine barrels into all kinds of furniture today, including bar stores, coat racks and tables.
4. Chocolate wine. While, if your friend is a purist, they might cringe, chocolate lovers will be thrilled with chocolate-flavored wine.
5. Personal wine of the month club. Share your knowledge and love of wine with others by creating a personal wine of the month club. Select a bottle of wine from your own collection and pair it with a note on why you selected it and explaining that you will be selecting a bottle each month for the next year.
6. Wine club membership. If selecting a wine each month sounds like too much work, consider purchasing a one-year membership to a wine club from your favorite winery.

For more tips or to purchase custom wine labels, visit us at LabelValue.com.

Daily Habits for Facebook

With just a few weeks left in 2011, many are looking ahead to the New Year and what it will hold for them and their businesses. While none of these predictions holds any guarantees, experts anticipate social media playing an increasing role in search engine optimization, over the more traditional link building of the past. Facebook is anticipated to continue having privacy issues and may, as a result, lose many of their users. Still, Facebook is going to continue to dominate the world of social media, and it’s important to maintain good daily habits for your Facebook marketing.

1. Be a problem solver. When you regularly solve problems your fans are having and offer expertise an insight, you gain the trust of your fans and establish yourself as the go-to place. Encourage your fans to ask questions on your page and show them they will receive a response quickly in return. Consider adding a resource tab directly on your page that you can keep updated with the latest information.
2. Talk to individual fans daily. Comment on other people’s posts 3-5 times every day. Look to see who has written on your wall or commented on your posts. When they comment on your page, you can click on their avatars and be taken to either their pages or profiles. If they have commented as a page, you can comment on their page (or if you are also a friend through their profiles you can comment on their profile as well). 
3. Track activity. While it may seem like a tedious task, consider tracking your Facebook activity on a weekly basis to learn what works and what doesn’t. Try tracking: number of total fans, number of new fans, fan growth from prior week, number of unlikes, number of weekly actives, and actives growth from prior week.
4. Make changes and move on. While it’s important to remain patient and wait for results, it’s also important to make changes when you aren’t seeing results. Knowing when it’s time to act and time to wait can be difficult. However, the same approach has not been getting responses, try something new. Make sure your questions require only short answers, as they are going to get the highest responses. The most important thing is not to dwell on what you are doing wrong. Make changes and move on. 
5. Fresh content. Your goal is to educate, entertain and empower your fans. To help yourself publish fresh content, create a six-month digital calendar with your blog and social media ideas for topics. Choose the specific dates, topic, and delivery method. While it may be time consuming, it will save you time in the long run and you will be well prepared with fresh content every day.
6. Share and be shared. Share the content from influencers in your industry to help build relationships. Acknowledge your fans who are producing great content.

To purchase Facebook labels to help promote your page on all your products, visit us at LabelValue.com.

Increase Sales with Sample Products

Looking for new ways to encourage customers to try your products? Try setting out samples for them to try. Grocery stores and cosmetic departments are notorious for this type of marketing...because it works!

Place our eye-catching Demo labels on your products for clients to sample. This is a great marketing tool that will draw in customers and win them over with your high-quality product. Perfect for label in retail stores where the product can be tested in small quanities, the permanent adhesive will hold the labels firmly in place on the sample. Use these point of sale labels in retail stores, supermarkets and other sales booths.

These 1.5" Point of Sale labels come 500 labels to the roll. With their bright yellow color, they are sure to encourage the sampling and, inevitably, purchasing of your products.

For more information on the Demo labels, visit us online at LabelValue.com.

I Voted Stickers: In Demand on Election Day

It’s hard to imagine the impact that a small piece of paper can make. But ‘I Voted’ stickers can make a substantial impact on voters and are highly sought on Election Day.

The stickers invoke a passion in Americans, as they let others know they have completed their civic duty and voted that day. People would rather lie than admit that they did not vote on Election Day. The stickers declare to the world that that person did the responsible thing and voted.

In addition to proclaiming a civic duty, however, the stickers also provide peer pressure to get out and vote. The sticker serves as a reminder to co-workers that they must vote when it is worn into the workplace. It can compel debate around the election. Children see their parents wearing the stickers, reminding them of the importance of being a responsible citizen in the future and teaching the importance of voting. With the rise of social media, Americans are now posting pictures of themselves online proudly displaying their ‘I Voted’ stickers.

The ‘I Voted’ stickers are an American phenomenon and are an important part of Election Day, likened to fireworks on the Fourth of July. If not offered, citizens will make a point to ask for them so they can proudly display their civic duty.

To order I Voted stickers for your district, visit us online at LabelValue.com.

Christmas Card Ideas

For many, Christmas cards were put in the mailbox the day after Thanksgiving. However, it’s not too late to get your family involved in a North Pole workshop of their own this year and make a few personalized Christmas cards for friends and family members. This is also a great way to entertain kids who are off of school for Christmas and in need of activities to entertain them indoors, out of the cold.

Postage Stamp Card

What you need…

• Family photo
• Copy service
• 8 ½ by 11-inch sheet of card stock
• Decorative scissors
• Tacky glue
• Acetate
• Scissors
• Anywhere hold puncher
• Eyelet setter and eyelets

1. Have a family photo shrunk to 1 ¼ by 2 inches and copied seven to a page.
2. Cut an 8 ½ by 11-inch sheet of card stock in half and then fold each piece in half to create two cards.
3. Cut out each picture with decorative scissors, such as pinking shears.
4. Use the tacky-glue to attach the picture to the front of the card.
5. Cut a piece of acetate to fit over the image, cut holes through the acetate and card with an “anywhere” hold puncher, and secure the eyelets to the card with an eyelet setter.

Thumbprint Reindeer Card

What you’ll need…

• Ink pad with nontoxic brown or bronze ink
• Plain notecards or card stock
• Craft glue
• Googly eyes
• Mini pom-poms, brown and red
• Brown marker

1. If you are using 8 ½ by 11-inch card stock, cut the page in half and fold each piece in half to create a card.
2. Dip your thumb or fingertip in the ink pad and stamp three reindeer heads on each card.
3. Glue on googly eyes and pom-pom noses (don’t forget to include a red nose for Rudolph).
4. Draw on antlers.

For more card ideas or to purchase holiday labels for your greeting cards, visit us at LabelValue.com.

Custom Shipping Labels for Promoting Professionalism

It’s important for your business to maintain a professional appearance when dealing with customers. Custom shipping labels are one way you can make an impression, taking your letters and packages from unprofessional or boring to great. Long gone are the days when placing an order requires weeks for shipment, and long gone are the days when there was only one style of font or one color of shipping label to choose from. Today, customers expect fast service and professional packaging that reflects a quality product inside, that reflects the quality of your business.

With the wide variety of software available that can be easily loaded onto your home or business computers, creating custom shipping labels doesn’t have to e challenging. You can make labels using traditional block script in black or choose from a variety of colors to make the labels more eye-catching.

Custom shipping labels also allow you to use your imagination when you are designing the look that is right for you. You can select from a variety of font styles, making the script bold or cursive. Just make sure whatever font selection you do make is easy to read when printed and that it is not too small.

Images are another great customization to add to your shipping labels. Families who select to add imagery to their shipping labels feel it adds a personal tough. Businesses can enhance and promote their brand with an eye catching graphic or logo that builds on recognition.

Another advantage to using custom shipping labels is that you can make them any size you prefer. You have the option to make them in larger sizes than the traditional shipping label, leaving you with space for marketing tools or information. It provides a great location for important contact information, like phone numbers, websites, and even social media sites, all available to make it easier for the customer to contact you.

Save Time with Printable Address Labels

With Christmas just weeks away, many are rushing to purchase gifts and get them in the mail as soon as possible. However, whether you are sending out packages for Christmas or for a business with a high volume of mail, addressing a large number of packages by hand can be a tedious, time consuming process. Printable address labels can save you hours of unnecessary work, especially during the holiday season when you’re already overwhelmed by decorating, shopping, holiday parties, and family obligations.

In addition to saving you time and avoiding a hand sore from writing, handwriting can also easily lead to mistakes and misspellings. During the holidays, an overlooked error on your label can easily result in lost or delayed packages, where gifts don’t make it to family in time.

Labels offer the sender the chance to print the deliver and return address on the package. The labels look professional and clean, unlike the messy, sometimes hard-to-read handwritten addresses. Printed labels also offer you the option of incorporating additional images on your labels. For those sending packages for Christmas, you might want to add a holiday-themed image to your label. Businesses can incorporate their business logo in a legible and professional way.

Software today makes printing to address labels easier than ever. Mistakes are minimal, if not obsolete, on neatly addressed packages. Most software will check your address and alert you if it cannot be found, indicating that you need to double-check your address. You can also weigh packages and print the accurate amount of postage you need for the package, saving yourself time and money in driving to the postal office and waiting in long lines to mail your parcel.

If you would like more information on address labels or on our software for managing all your shipping needs right from your home or office, visit us at LabelValue.com.