I’ve always believed in karma more than luck – I follow the simple Buddhist theory that if I’m a good person, good things will happen to me. Indeed, there’s a belief that good luck is something people create for themselves by being optimists, therefore creating their own fortune.

A lot of PsPrint customers are freelancers or are employed by small businesses, so we’re all aware of how cutthroat competition can be. But in order to survive and even grow your company, you need more than luck – you need gumption and drive. You need to make the effort by developing a solid marketing plan. Rather than pout that you lost another customer to your nemesis, think about why that happened. Was it bad luck, or did you not offer a good-enough value to the prospect?

Going back to karma – it really is a beneficial practice to consider for your business. Join groups, clubs and charitable organizations. Network. Make referrals. All of those things help your community as well as get your name out there. People will remember you when it comes time to making a business decision. The cliché “what goes around comes around” is true, as luck would have it.

©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.

In honor of St. Paddy’s day, I want to give a shout-out to my local liquor store. This is not just a gratuitous plug for alchohol, my local liquor store is actually behind one of the best flyer printing campaigns that I’ve seen in a while.

I frequent this liquor store because it’s close to my house and has an immense beer selection and a make-your-own six pack policy, so that customers can sample many different kinds of beer at once.

The store is owned by a guy named Mark, who I feel like I know. The reason I know Mark’s name, and talk about him like he’s a friend of mine, is because of the flyer that his cashiers hand over with every purchase.

The flyer is a simple double-sided 8.5-inch by 11-inch paper that acts as a newsletter of sorts. It is written by Mark and advertises for the store itself, recommending great wines under $10 dollars, or different sales throughout the week, like the 10 percent off liquor on “Thirsty Thursdays.”

But Mark goes beyond plugging his own merchandise and includes recommendations for other local businesses. For example, he recently purchased a new grill at a mom-and-pop barbecue supply store. He wrote up his experience at the store in the flyer and even let folks know to “ask for Bill.” This information makes me feel like an neighborhood “insider,” and I want to pass along all of these tips to other neighbors and friends.

Somehow there’s always something noteworthy or relevant to me in the liquor store flyer, and when I come home with my six-pack, I always post the flyer on the fridge. The flyer acts as a sort of newsletter, communicating with customers and supporting other small, independent businesses with word-of-mouth referrals.

Flyers are an inexpensive way to better communicate with your customers and show how your business is integrated with the community and its customers. They can be distributed at the cash register, through the mail or in person. And with only two pages (front and back) to fill, it is relatively easy to come up with content weekly, monthly or even quarterly, depending how frequently you interact with customers.

Talk to your print vendor about the unique die-cut shapes, paper colors and other printing options to design your own flyer and make it a success!

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.

1. Offer a green discount

The beauty of the Internet is you can post news quickly and take it down just as easily. If you advertise a sale on your company’s website today and then promote it immediately via social networking such as Twitter or Facebook, you still have time to catch people’s attention. Come up with something that will attract search engines, since “St. Patrick’s Day” is always popular this time of year. One idea is to offer a “green” discount – let your customers know that you’ll take a dollar off their purchase for each green item they wear on Wednesday.

2. Play up your greenness

The color green symbolizes St. Patrick’s Day as well as the environment. Combine those two for one promotion that casts attention on your business in a positive light. On your website, mention your eco-conscious efforts. Perhaps you’ve swapped out light bulbs or chosen an environmentally friendly printer. Let your customers know they can be comfortable spending their hard-earned green with you!

3. Know the reason for the season

Other companies might throw shamrocks and leprechauns all over their marketing collateral and store, but you can be different. Do a little research on the history of St. Patrick’s Day and then pass it on to your customers via the company website or in the shop. You can create a box on your site with St. Patrick’s Day facts, such as the origin of the shamrock and the pot of gold, or you can have an in-store contest with trivia questions.

So let this be a lesson to you: Even though you’re now armed with some quick marketing tips, don’t dawdle on future holiday promotions! Now is the time to plan for upcoming special occasions, such as Easter, Earth Day, Cinco de Mayo, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Then promote the heck out of it!

©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.

Here is a quick roundup of online resources to help with your next postcard marketing campaign. If you are looking for postcard design templates, postcard layout ideas or marketing and printing advice, check out the links below:

Postcard templates and layouts
Maybe you know what you want to say, but just don’ t know how to say it on a postcard? Then visit www.postcard-template.com for a few basic templates that will get you started. For postcard layout ideas that are guaranteed to make an impression, check out this article. There’s also stocklayouts.com, which has more than 100 fully designed postcard layouts organized by industry. You’d only need to drop-in a logo and business information for any of the $69 designs.

When you are ready to print your cards, check out these postcard printing templates, which include guidelines for live areas and bleeds. There’s also an accompanying article explaining how to use the technical postcard printing templates.

Postcard design and marketing articles
Postcardsmart.com is a great resource for all things direct mail, especially postcards. There are articles on response, custom printing, design inspiration and more.

I also published an article on successful postcard design in Print Professional magazine and another article on postcard marketing on the PsPrint blog. Valerie also wrote two more great postcard articles on our blog. The first post is about whether to use digital or offset printing for postcards, and the other post details mailing regulations that may affect your postcard design.

©2010 PsPrint Blog. All Rights Reserved.