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.

It seems everyone wants to chip in when there’s a newborn. From the minute they receive the birth announcement, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends and colleagues feel a desire – if not an obligation – to shower the baby (and parents) with gifts.

Thus, as a father of two, I’ve come up with three ways you can get more stuff by leveraging birth announcements to subtly tell potential gifters that yes, you are in need, and to direct them to buy what you want.

Tell your story – Most birth announcements simply state when the baby was born, who the proud parents are, siblings and perhaps list extended family members. But why stop there? Offer a brief background of the parents – how you met and how your love culminated in your new bundle of joy (leave out certain details, of course). This establishes your situation, which is especially useful if you’re living out of a half-bedroom apartment above a crack house on the wrong side of the tracks.

Share your plans – You have a philosophy for how you’re going to raise your child, and sharing this philosophy can earn huge brownie points with wealthy benefactors. Briefly explain how you’ll give your baby a foundation upon which he or she can develop into a successful adult. Start with your plan to move away from the crack house.

Direct buyers to what you need/want – Take a small portion of your birth announcement to place a URL or two that lead to baby gift registries. Don’t openly request items, but definitely mention where you’re registered. And make sure a 50-inch HDTV for the baby isn’t on the list.

If you don’t have a gift registry (or already have everything you need from the baby shower), open a college fund for your baby and detail how contributions can be made to that fund. Trust me – you’ll yield handsome contributions from even the unlikeliest donors when they know their money is going toward the education you shunned.

Be tactful in your approach; under no circumstances should you come across as needy or expectant. Instead, subtly nudge those who want to give in the right direction. And, of course, everything should be in the best interest of the baby … Remember, the fewer diapers you have to buy the sooner you can get that HDTV!

Image use Creative Commons license via Flickr.

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

This blank card is your canvas for any personalized message.

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog about new uses for business cards, such as printing cards that identify you as your child’s parent for classmates’ mothers and fathers, ordering cards that list your specialty if you’re unemployed or freelancing, and having cards on hand for when you meet someone who strikes your fancy. The latter led to a discussion about fun gift ideas involving business cards.

The first concept was to create an ostentatious title for your mate. Rather than go for the obvious “World’s Greatest Lover,” print out a batch of business cards for your significant other with a title that’s part of an inside joke between you or within your circle of friends. “Marsupial trainer” was tossed around in my conversation, but there’s also “rocket scientist,” “trainer to the stars,” “heartbreaker,” “girlfriend 2.0” and so on.

On the other hand, what if you have a friend who’s single? A personalized business card makes an excellent gift – your lonelyhearts pal can use it as an ice breaker, and it shows that he or she has a sense of humor, especially if the cards are a gift from a creative friend like you. In addition to including your friend’s name and contact information, add some fun, light-hearted stuff, such as references, testimonials and likes and dislikes. Then the singleton can hand them out at a bar, the supermarket or anywhere else he or she sees someone who strikes their fancy.

Business cards don’t always need to be for business, all stodgy and professional. What other nontraditional uses have you seen for business cards?

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.