I thought not. You run a small business, and you already know success takes a lot of hard work. What you might not be aware of is the proven power of personalization. When each individual prospect feels as though you really have them in your thoughts, your overall response rate will skyrocket. It’s a proven fact: make them feel special, and they will respond.

Whether you’re hosting a conference or you’re simply inviting new clients to a free consultation, personalized invitations will go a long way toward making your campaign a success. It starts with sending your invitations to a specific person (and not a title or the dreaded “current resident”). But there’s more to personalized invitations than a printed address label:

• print stationery and hand-write your invitations
• hand-sign all invitations
• print matching envelopes and hand-write the addresses (this will fetch far more opens)
• print greeting cards or response cards with a spot for you to hand-write an individualized note

All of these take extra work, but they all yield big results. Yes, I know: You don’t have the time. I counter with this: You’ll actually save time because you’ll land more sales. That’s less work you have to do per customer in the long run. In addition, you can recruit co-workers, spouses and employees to help hand-write your personalized invitations. Unless your customers would recognize your hand-writing, the effect will be the same.

Personalization equals profits, ask any marketer in the know. Try it out and see for yourself.

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

While it is true that the mail-order business witnessed a 3.4 percent decrease in 2009, it really isn’t clear whether that is a permanent trend or more the result of an economic repression that has hurt just about every other business on the planet.

What’s more, catalog printing accounted for more than $133 billion in sales last year. Hardly what you’d call a dead industry, eh?

There are certain trends that you should pay attention to if you market with catalog printing. The most successful companies in the Internet-age have mailed specific niche catalogs. They’ve learned that the more in-tune you are with your customers, the better your sales figures will be. Mass-market catalogs are giving way to specialty-niche catalogs, and even the big chains are breaking their formally large catalogs down into smaller, niche-oriented catalogs.

Catalog printing can reach a target audience that can be difficult to engage online, and your marketing campaigns will work best when your catalog printing and online e-commerce store work together. Catalogs can get you the attention you need and give a healthy sampling of what you sell, then lead customers to your website to buy additional items as needed.

Catalog printing is growing, especially for the niche companies I mentioned earlier. Outer Banks, for example, has more than tripled its customer base in just three years, a 309 percent increase. And that’s not the only mail-order catalog enjoying phenomenal growth!

Catalog printing isn’t dead, but it is fair to say that the catalog’s role in the purchasing process changed. Take advantage of these changes and you can print a powerful catalog that brings in massive return on investment.

Image use Creative Commons license via Flickr.

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

The "Kick Me" sign concept draws on the same impacing power as the flyer printing and distribution strategies listed here. BONUS: You can get your own "Kick Me" sign here.

Flyer printing is perfect for marketing to the masses, yet it still allows you to control your targeting. Everyone who has studied marketing will tell you that you have to get attention first, and so you have to have a compelling image, a powerful headline and on and on.

Spare me the Marketing 101 lesson, right?

The best way to guarantee your flyers will get noticed is to focus on placement, and the more shocking the better. People remember the unexpected; it catches them off-guard and forces their brains to recognize, analyze and remember. Isn’t this exactly what your flyers should be doing for you?

So let’s establish that flyer placement is just as important as flyer printing in the first place. Let’s also acknowledge that shocking your audience with creative placement will be far more effective than, say, tacking your flyer to a community bulletin board (where everyone is competing for attention). Additionally consider that sometimes context and placement work together to make a flyer shocking. For example, a flyer inside a grocery store is not shocking. A PETA flyer inside a grocery store, on the other hand, has the potential to be rather shocking indeed.

Thus, here are my five favorite shocking places to post flyers:

1. Restroom stalls – Shock your target audience by giving them something to read while they’re taking care of business.

2. Ceilings – Anywhere your customers are forced to look up is a great place to catch them off-guard. Good examples include the ceilings in dentist and chiropractor examination rooms, and you can also pull this off in hair salons and in tandem with a wall-based flyer that says “Look up!”

3. Inside books – Work out an arrangement with a bookstore or library to stuff targeted books with flyers. Imagine your customers’ surprise when they flip open to your “page”!

4. Coat racks – Coat racks are perfect for a “what’s this?” moment between you and your customers.

5. On people – Remember the “kick me” signs of our youth? We’ve been compelled to read anything taped to another’s back ever since.

Image use via Riding A Buttertub

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Photo cards are a great way to share with family and friends.

Are photo cards addictive? I’m just wondering because I see them everywhere anymore. Every Christmas our mailbox is full of photo cards of family and friends. Every time one of her four children takes a new school photo or joins a sport, my cousin sends us a photo card commemorating the event.

Not that I’m complaining. I love photo cards. They’re so much better than off-the-rack greeting cards, especially since I can tack them on the fridge and build my own wall of family and friend portraits with little effort whatsoever.

My grandma loves receiving them, too, and it’s a cheap way to send out new family photos that can be used in frames and on fridges alike. My mother has a curio cabinet that she sticks received photo cards in; my sister-in-law frames them in a large display on her kitchen wall. My son tacks them to his bulletin board.

Ten years ago, photo cards were virtually non-existent. But today it seems as though we receive a photo card every other week. I’m considering sending one of my own every year – Grandma would probably like to get one of the kids – but I’m a little concerned. With the proliferation of photo cards (they’re obviously extremely popular), I don’t want to get hooked into something I can’t get out of.

I mean, I already have hobbies – like aimlessly surfing through television stations when nothing is on – so I’m a little afraid that if I start sending photo cards I won’t be able to stop. I could get hooked, unable to do anything else until I get my photo. It’s already has a hold on nearly everyone in my family!

So, are photo cards addictive? Either that, or… they’re simply fun.

Image use Creative Commons license via Flickr.

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

Rock star posters serve as excellent inspiration for unique baby announcement designs.

Let’s start with rock poster baby announcements by Rattle-N-Roll. Based on the premise that some of us are just born cool, you can design similar baby announcements that practically guarantee you’ll have the most popular kid in daycare.

Commemorate your special deliver with baby announcements inspired by magazine covers.

If your baby is destined for stardom, you could design a magazine cover birth announcement to commemorate her birth. Or make it a booklet, with interior pages that offer background on parents, grandparents, siblings and plenty of photos from your baby’s first few days. It will be a keepsake you’ll have forever … as long as the paparazzi don’t steal it!

Design a baby announcement like a B-movie poster.

If you harbor a penchant for B-movies and have a great sense of humor, take a cue from Brandon Buerkle. The artist created this birth announcement when his baby was born, and you can use it as inspiration for your own creative birth announcements.

Make your baby a star with movie poster birth announcements.

Five Star Baby designs custom baby announcements based off of popular movie posters, and you can use these as inspiration for your own theme-based baby announcement design.

Now it’s your turn. Use the inspirational sources listed here, add in a dash of creativity, and you can design some really cool birth announcements. When you do, send me a link!

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

It’s my turn this year, so I’ve been researching St. Patrick’s Day party invitations online to see if I can glean inspiration from others’ designs. Here, I thought I’d share with you a few of my favorite designs from the search.

I love a festive theme for St. Patrick’s Day party invitations, and this design takes the cake with patterned shamrocks that seem to pop out of a translucent shamrock background. A unique font that seems to mimic the outer edges of four-leaf clovers and the multi-hued green wave accents add class to this incredible design.

Unique and elegant, the suede background of this St. Patrick’s Day party invitation is the perfect backdrop for a faux embossed shamrock. This is one of the best party invitations I’ve seen for any holiday.

In my St. Patrick’s Day party invitation search I stumbled across the website of Erin Condren, and if you haven’t had a chance to check her designs out you simply must. Erin’s work is absolutely amazing, and even more so when you learn that she is a stay-at-home mom with twins! Here’s one of her party invitations…

… and here’s another. What I love about Erin’s designs is that they’re quirky and fun. She knows how to turn fonts into design elements and use a minimalist layout to make a lasting impression.

Last but certainly not least is this St. Patrick’s Day party invitation design that can’t be ignored. Risqué yet classy, this reminds me of those World War II era pinups sometimes seen on the side of planes, always seen on man walls and definitely a killer party invitation idea!

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.