PsPrint Blog » Flyer printing

Shocking places for flyers

Brian — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:20:35 +0000

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

Spring Into Marketing

Jennifer — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 14:48:02 +0000

The start of spring may not be until March 20, but that doesn’t mean you should delay on your seasonal marketing plans. You don’t have to let Punxsutawney Phil’s prediction of six more weeks of winter get you down. Take advantage of the torrential weather during the next month to huddle indoors and plot out an attractive promotional campaign! Here are a bunch of resources and tips to help make your small business bloom.

You can always count on PsPrint for free resources. Need ideas, links and inspiration? Here’s a host of graphic design tips for specific spring holidays:

St. Patrick’s Day – March 17
April Fools’ Day – April 1
Easter – April 4
Earth Day – April 22
Cinco de Mayo – May 5
Mother’s Day – May 9
Father’s Day – June 20

Of course, the best design means nothing without good execution.

For St. Patrick’s Day, print green die-cut flyers in the shape of shamrocks.

Use humor in your flyers, postcards and banners for April Fools’ Day.

Whether your customers are Christian or not, Easter symbolizes renewal, so remember that theme when creating postcards and brochures .

Want to do good and get your business name out there? Adopt a highway for Earth Day!

Throwing a fiesta is a fun idea for Cinco de Mayo. Be sure to include lots of bright colors and Mexican icons in your promotional items.

Take a good look at your mailing list when get around to Mother’s Day. Pay close attention to your demographics and keep your marketing tuned in to those clients.

Memorial Day (May 30) and Flag Day (June 14) call for pride. Flags and the use of red, white and blue are obvious, but be sure to keep the right mood and theme for these holidays. Have fun, but be respectful.

Father’s Day may be for dads, but don’t forget that women do a lot of the shopping. Giveaways are always a big hit, but be aware of your clientele when deciding what product to give away.

Five marketing tools you can print on the cheap

Brian — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 16:53:11 +0000

Cheap printing is perhaps the savior of the small business marketing environment; since contemporary technologies have made it more affordable than ever for even micro-businesses to compete with the big boys. Direct-mail marketing remains the best way to reach your customers one-to-one without distraction, and it doesn’t cost you an arm and a leg to do it.

I’m not sure why some businesses believe they can slap up a yellow page listing and rake in millions. Maybe this works if you’re the only plumber in town, but if there is more than one competitor in a given area you’ll need the edge only direct marketing can provide. But it’s so expensive, right? Not with cheap printing! In fact, marketing should be considered an investment that brings a return – a profit – and not an expense at all.

Let’s say you have 1,000 customers on your mailing list. For less than $350 each, you can leverage the power of today’s cheap printing (yet high quality) technologies to:

Print 1,000 postcards to drive traffic to your website ($118)
Print 1,000 newsletters to brand your company and promote special offers ($350)
Print 1,000 invitation cards to get attendees to your sales event ($125)
Print 1,000 brochures to brand your business and deliver introductory discounts ($335)
Print 1,000 flyers to do all of these things at once ($164 for 2,500)

Even if it costs you $200 to $300 to mail your materials, a total $650 investment is a dirt-cheap way to reach 1,000 well-targeted customers: assuming a 1 percent sales rate (10 sales) and a profit-per-sale of $100, you would yield at least a $350 profit. For a postcard campaign, your profit would be even higher at around $580.

I’m not opposed to the yellow pages – not at all – but you have to be aggressive when it comes to establishing your business as the No. 1 choice for your target audience. Passive marketing might get a few sales, but aggressive marketing creates captains of industry.

Think: What if you printed 10,000 instead of 1,000?

Image use Creative Commons license via Flickr.

Poster and Flyer Design Inspiration

Britt — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:05:16 +0000

If you’ve ever had to lay out pages and pages of text and design for a brochure or a direct-mail campaign, a poster design project may seem simple by comparison. A poster is just one surface with one image and a smattering of text, how hard could it be?

But don’t be fooled, there’s a lot at work behind the surface simplicity of a poster’s design. Successful posters need to have their own sense of symmetry and logic, and capture a complex idea or an emotion in one glance, using one image.

Before you map out your next poster or flyer design, spend some time learning about the history of poster design and looking at other great posters. Check out the inspiring poster archives below and take note of the styles, layouts, fonts and color combinations that you find striking, and don’t be afraid to go vintage by imitating classic poster design elements.

InternationalPoster.com
This archive of real vintage posters is searchable by keyword. There is also a section of the website called “About Poster Art” with helpful history lessons on poster design. One area, called “Style Primers,” takes you through the history of poster design giving examples and explanations of certain styles, including art deco, futurism and post-modern.

DesignHistory.org
This page shows iconic examples of posters as they evolved from the late 1700s, when they were made with wooden letter presses, through the 1990s. The examples range from advertising to propaganda and provide an inspiring look back at historic posters.

GigPosters.com
This site has more than 8,000 designer-members who submit their work on concert and band posters. Try searching by band, or click on the “Top Posters” link to see the best new submissions. Whether you’re designing a promotion for a band or for a local small business, these colorful, creative designs are an inspiring breath of fresh air.

DesignWasHere.com
If you are creating a poster to promote your own graphic design services, check out this batch of 50 posters, all focused on promoting graphic design. There are some crazy uses of pixels and typography at play in these samples.

Three important direct-marketing musts

Jerry — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:00:21 +0000

I realize that direct marketing has been discussed ad nauseum on the Internet and in the classroom. You can read until your eyes burst and your stomach turns and still not understand what is going on. Things change quickly and everyone has their opinion, but no one seems to agree on much of anything. When they do agree, it is never spelled out simply and directly. What I want to do here is offer three simple, easy direct-marketing musts that anyone can use.

1. The first thing that you are going to need is a good design for your direct-marketing pieces. Whether they are flyers, postcards or brochures, you have to have a consistent and memorable design that does many things at once. Your design has to catch the eye, send a message, brand your product and build trust. Not much to expect out of a design is it? Your next question is ”How do I make that happen?” Your best bet is to hire a professional graphic designer. I’m not stumping for any one in particular, but a good one will accomplish all of your goals quickly and expertly.

2. You have to have good copy on your printed pieces. Each piece of direct-marketing material has to capture the benefits of your product, the benefits of using your company, and convey a convincing call to action if you are ever to see sales conversions. Again, you will be better off if you hire a professional.

3. Lastly, comes the printer that you will entrust your campaign to. This will take more research than you think. Any printer can get the job done, but will it fit your needs? Will they ship where you want? Do they offer a direct-mailing service that you can plug your mailing list into? The best printer for you can answer yes to all of these questions, then followup by performing to their word.

To me, these are the three most important aspects of a direct-marketing campaign. Do you have any other ideas or points that you think should be addressed?

Business marketing for the holiday season

Jerry — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 15:00:53 +0000

Business marketing is a very broad topic and to cover it from one end to the other would require a large book. I have covered many different aspects of marketing in this blog during the past year, but there are always a few new ways to look at things that need to be reiterated. Here are a few aspects of business marketing that you should keep in mind going into the holiday season.

Postcards are an important aspect of business marketing at any time of the year, but are more so during holidays. Each holiday brings a different set of sales goals and items that you want to push out the door. Remember to maintain a good quality for each design and refine your call to action with each passing holiday.

Flyers work great at this time of year. A flyer gives you more space to get your idea across than a postcard, but it is a less targeted marketing tool. The lack of a targeted market and a higher cost per piece makes them less effective than a postcard, but if you are wanting to push a one-time deal to a localized group, flyers work very well.

One last business marketing tip to keep in mind this time of year is the use of a direct mailing service. A lot of small- to medium-sized businesses do not have the manpower to maintain a database and direct mailing service in-house. A good online printing company can take a lot of that hassle off of your hands. A direct mailing service puts you in control, but lets an expert take care of the minute details.

Business marketing is an ever-changing world to work in. The excitement of a successful campaign can be followed by the agony of a bad one. Try to keep some of the tips I have given you during the past year in mind and hopefully you will have more success than anything else. Happy holidays.