Marketing BEEP

Tips for Distributing Booklets

Completing booklet printing is only half the battle in a print marketing campaign; you have to get the booklets into clients’ and prospects’ hands so they can complete their purpose. Here are some ideas for distributing booklets to those most likely to read them.

Ideas for Generating New Customers

It is a lot easier to keep your current customers than to draw in new ones, but every business has to generate new customers at one point or another. If your business is needing to expand your customer base, here are some ideas for making your business irresistible.

Offer Something New
Brainstorm about what you are not offering that would make your customer's lives easier. Think about related services that you could combine to make your business a one-stop shop. Then offer packages of services or products at a lower price than each would cost individually. Make sure you advertise these new packages all over the place, and you will probably steal plenty of clients from your competition.

Market to Prospects with a Great Introductory Offer
To get new people to take a chance on you, make them an offer they cannot refuse. Offer your services or products at a greatly reduced price for the first X weeks. Then give customers a guarantee that if they are not satisfied, they can get a refund. Tell people about this offer through telemarketing, when you hand out business cards, and on your website.

Use Testimonials from Loyal Customers
Ask your loyal customers to write out testimonials of how your business has helped them in the past. Include the customer's name and occupation along with the testimonial so people know it came from a real person. Put these testimonials on your print brochures, business cards, and posters to make your business look more credible and attract new customers.

Sell Static Inventory Online
If you have stuff just sitting in store rooms, get it to generate cash by selling it in online auctions. With a world-wide pool of people, there is bound to be someone who can use your unwanted items.

Attend Trade Shows Armed with Materials
Go to every kind of trade show, business expo, job fair, and community event you can find. Prepare ahead of time by printing business cards and brochures to take with you. Practice what you want to tell people about your business. Be sure to include information about how your company benefits people because people are only looking to do business with those who can improve their lives.

6 Marketing Materials Every Small Business Needs for Start Up

Before you launch your small business, you should have several marketing materials ready to go. If you generate interest in your company before it even opens, you will have a strong beginning to build on. If you are already doing business, you should get these materials as soon as possible to help your business thrive.

Marketing with Door Hangers

One of the forgotten direct marketing methods that many businesses neglect to consider is door hanger printing.  Other direct mail formats, such as fliers and postcards, have the potential to go unnoticed altogether.  But a customer cannot ignore your door hanger.

There are some very specific considerations before door hanger printing is a direct marketing method you are ready to utilize.  This article highlights just a few ideas you should think through before launching your own door hanger printing campaign.

 

Choosing the Right Grid for Print Catalog Pages

Using grids to lay out a print catalog can seem confusing at times. They can however be a useful tool in creating a page that makes sense. Remember that the grids are there to help guide your design, but don't let the grid force decisions on your page. Instead, choose a grid that compliments your content.

A few things to keep in mind...

There are a few elements that will determine which grid to use. Page elements, including graphics and text and whatever else you put on the page, will determine the grid. The type of text, whether you are using short or extended articles, will also be a factor. Lastly, the photographs and illustrations, what size and shape they are, will help you choose which grid to go with. 

Some guidelines for grids with different projects:

Books with mostly text and a few graphics would require a 1-3 grid only, while catalog printing with lots of picture would require many more grids. The more grids you use, the smaller each individual unit would be; therefore, you can insert more graphics and text. 

Newsletters use columnar grids more often. 1,2, or 3 columns work nicely for a newsletter with long articles with lots of text. Four or more columns give you a wider range of possibilities to mix it up with graphics. Keep in mind that even-numbered grids can make the page seem too symmetric. 

Suggestions for making grids versatile:

Instead of forming your content to fit into a grid, mix up the uses of your units. For instance, you can use two columns for text and then the third and fourth combined for a picture. Or you can leave some grids blank for extra white space. Be flexible with the use of grids to add interest to your print catalog. 

An idea to add variety to your print catalog pages:

Instead of using the same grid for every page, choose two and alternate them as is appropriate. Use one grid for short articles and the other for more lengthy ones. Or, use one for text-heavy pages and a different one for pages with lots of pictures. 

Once you are familiar with the different styles of grids, you will be able choose them more easily. Once you are comfortable with grids, your page design will be a breeze. 

Marketing Basics for New Companies

When starting a new company, it can be overwhelming deciding just where to start with your marketing campaign, and then there's the tricky part of keeping marketing going strong.

Below are 5 basic marketing steps that you can take to put your new business well on its way to established without drumming up a major headache.

4 Questions to Ask Before Making a Travel Brochure

Before spending your valuable time and money investing in a travel brochure printing and design, you should have a clear marketing strategy in mind. The most effective way to design a brochure is to focus its purpose and target audience so that you are more likely to appeal to a group of people; otherwise your brochure will look too generic and may not appeal to anyone.

Question 1: What is the Purpose of Your Brochure?
A brochure should not have so much information on it that it looks too daunting to read. When you narrow its purpose, people are more likely to read it and remember what they read. The purpose of doing a brochure printing project might be to announce the opening of your travel business. Or maybe you are running a special on group rates. Another purpose might be to share with people a few exciting places to visit that often get overlooked.

Question 2: Who Should You try to Reach with Your Brochure?
You will need to tailor your brochure's design to attract a group of people. For instance, if you wanted to focus on people who are retired, you would probably go with a more traditional color scheme, use standard language, and tell about tours that might be attractive to older people. On the other hand, if you wanted your brochure printing message to focus on honeymooners, you might go with a more edgy looking brochure and advertise places that appeal to young people.

Question 3: What do You have to Offer Customers?
Telling potential customers what you can offer them is the most important information to include in your brochure. Are your rates really low? Do you offer quick service? Are you very reliable with a long track record to back it up? Do you offer great, friendly service? Think about what would attract you as a customer and then tell about it in your brochure.

Question 4: How are You Going to Get Brochures to Prospective Customers?
There are lots of good places to leave brochures. To start with, you should hand them out to people who come into your shop. You can also leave them at local businesses, churches, chambers of commerce, and local college campuses. For those who are already traveling, you can leave them at highway information centers and at gas stations. If you can afford to do a mass mailing, you can purchase mailing lists online, sometimes even from your brochure printing company. The bonus of using the mailing services of your printer is the time saving factor in that your brochures get shipped directly from the press to prospective customers.

5 Keys to Effective Catalogs

Whether you are an old pro at printing catalogs for your business, or you are a catalog printing rookie, there are some things you need to know.  Here are five essential items for your mental toolkit.

Catalog Success Key Number One: Ask for Action!

There are far too many catalogs out there that do not include a call to action.  The best catalogs in the world will not be very effective if it does not tell the customer what he needs to do next to buy your product.  Always include several calls to action in your catalogs.  Whenever a customer sees a product he likes, you want him to know exactly how he can buy that product.  So make it easy for him to do just that.  Include your phone number or email address and the specific way to make an order.

Catalog Success Key Number Two: Contact Information

This pretty much goes hand in hand with key number one.  If the customer does not know how to contact you, she can’t order your products.  And if she can’t order your products, she can’t give you her money.  And if she can’t give you her money, your business is going to fail.  Make sure you clearly display your contact information (phone numbers, website addresses, email addresses) in several prominent areas in your catalog.

Catalog Success Key Number Three: Emphasize Your Company

You often hear about your “brand”.  Your brand is (or should be) incorporated into all of your marketing materials, including your catalogs.  Once you design an effective brand, and blend that into an attractive logo, use them!  Put it on the front of your catalog, and find a way to mix it into the contents of your catalog in an appealing way.  The more times a customer sees your logo and the “brand” that you are presenting, the better the chances that it will stick in his brain.

Catalog Success Key Number Four: Consistent Design

Your catalog should have a concept behind it, and that concept should permeate the entire catalog.  If you are going with a holiday theme, stick with it throughout the catalog.  Do not confuse the reader by switching up the catalog’s concept halfway through.  Come up with a theme or an idea that will drive your catalog, and use it all the way through the entire campaign.

Catalog Success Key Number Five: It’s Still About Quality

The word “quality” is thrown around a lot, and it may feel stale.  But when it comes to your catalog printing, it is still vital.  You absolutely must use quality products in the design and production of your catalog.  Anything less than quality will be noticeable to your readers, and will give them the impression that you are cheap.  It is far better to spend more money on a quality catalog than to offend potential customers with a cheap one.  Even if your products are of the highest quality, your customers won’t know it if you hand them a cheap catalog.

 

6 Super Catalog Design Tips

When designing a catalog, it’s important to realize that the catalog needs to be both ascetically pleasing as well as functional in design. Beautiful photos of your highly rated products won’t be effective if there is no organizational theme to the layout of your catalog. Here are 7 design tips that will help to design a catalog that people will want to flip through and will allow people to flip through easily.

1. Include clear, crisp photos of your best-selling items on the front cover. Also include page numbers to these items so customers can save time by getting to the “good stuff.” The bad thing about this technique is that customers might not browse through the rest of the catalog, so be sure to spread these items out logistically if possible, to get the customer to look at all the pages in-between.

2.  Use emotions. This includes words and photos. Use text that connects with the reader like “You’ll be the envy of all your friends with this purse.” Appeal to the readers’ emotions, whether that be happiness, fright, envy or sadness. In photos, using a scary image of a burglar breaking into a home incites fright that might convince the customer to order an alarm system.

3. Include a “feature” page now and then. A consistent layout of 8 products per page increases readability, but can quickly bore the reader. Mix things up every four pages or so by including a “feature” page with a different layout than the others. Use larger pictures of fewer items and use different colors or design elements on these pages. If you use a circle as a text box on your “regular” pages, use a star as a text box on your “feature” pages.

4. Use white space freely. I know you want to save money, but cramming 16 items onto one page with no white space in-between the photos will just make customers put the catalog down. People’s eyes need time to relax between text and photos, if only for a second. That’s what white space gives them. White space also makes for a cleaner design.

5. Put your most spectacular, impressive products on the upper outside corner of all the pages. Then put a best-seller in the upper inside corner of all the pages. When people skim through a catalog, they generally keep their eyes to the outside edges of the catalog. This is the best position to catch their eyes.

6. Organize thoughtfully. If you’re selling clothes, put all the shirts together or all the pants together so that readers know where to go to find the clothing pieces they’re looking for. Keep it consistent from one catalog edition to the next. For instance, you could start with intimates, then tops, pants and shoes since that is the order most people get dressed. Choose an organizational theme and stick with it.

Whatever you do, design with your brand in mind. If your brand is serious, you’ll want models that have serious looks on their faces, not smiling goofy faces. A serious brand also wouldn’t use neon colors to design elements, but a children’s toy catalog might. Be sure the tone of the catalog matches the tone of your brand.

 

5 Tips for Creating a Powerful Brochure

A professional-looking, brochure can be a power horse for your sales force. Even if you don’t have a sales force, a brochure can help you sell your product or service in a more effective way than a sales letter or flyer can. Sales letters and flyers have their place in marketing plans, but brochures are wear you get to flaunt your stuff.

Here are some tips for creating a powerful brochure that is sure to bring in sales.

1. Don’t expect your brochure to do all the selling for you. Your brochure should be a component of your marketing plan; a brochure shouldn’t be your marketing plan itself. You still need to meet with the customer and sell your product – don’t expect your brochures to bring in leads, educate consumers and close the sale for you too! If you try to do all that with a brochure, your brochure will end up cluttered and unfocused. Pick one function for your brochure and focus on that for all of your graphics, photos and text.

2. Don’t be afraid of getting detailed. Depending on whose blog you read, your brochure could run too long or too short. I say, it depends on the brochure’s function. A brochure that is designed to introduce a product to prospects can definitely be too long. That kind of brochure needs short, snappy prose. An informational brochure, one that was requested by a current customer trying to find more info, needs to be long. A short informational brochure is like a shot in the foot – pointless and painful. The customer won’t get the info she’s looking for and you have to deal with the pain of losing her to a competitor. Knowing the function of your brochure before you design and write it will help you determine the right length.

3. Talk to the customer. People liked to be talked to. Reading about your product in the third-person is boring. I’ve used a lot “you” in this blog post. Makes it seem more like a conversation, yes? That’s what your brochure needs to do too. Tell people about your product’s benefits by using “you” to include the reader. “Do you need a stronger detergent?” “Do you have a hard time getting out stains?” That sounds much more engaging than “Stains are hard to get out.” Include the reader as much as possible and where it makes sense. Don’t force it where it won’t go.

4. Use power words. Words like “free,” “save” and “secret” get people’s attention.  They even make a dog’s ears perk up. Okay, maybe not, but that’s how people respond to power words. If you aren’t sure what words are power words, just enter that phrase into Google to get thousands of Web sites with power words.

5. Use plenty of white space. Don’t cram your design elements and text on your brochure. People’s eyes need some rest time. White space, or space empty of text and graphics, gives eyes a chance to rest. Always err on the side of too much white space rather than not enough.