haleyfrost, Author at Marketing, content, & technology to help printers sell more printing

Marketing Ideas For Printers, Double Color Management: An Extraterrestrial Experience, Tip

Seeing the world through rose-colored glasses sounds like a good thing, right? It sure can be, except in print. When your printed images start taking on an extraterrestrial hue, it’s time to take the glasses off and see where this mystical glow is coming from. Recently, one of our customers experienced a rather “rosy” view of the images in our Direct Mail For Printers’ Business Forum newsletter package. Frustrated with the magenta casts and poor quality images, they contacted us looking for a solution. Our team suspected that double color management was to blame for the less-than-great print quality images our customer was experiencing. So, what is double color management? Simply put, double color management occurs when both the software and the output device are trying to control the color output values assigned to your document as it goes through the production cycle. This often causes hiccups and frustrations along the way. Double color management is a silent killer of good print quality because the settings are incredibly easy to miss and no error message is produced when the settings are incorrectly applied, The telltale sign of double color management is an unnatural pink or magenta cast to your print, in addition to very

Who do your customers turn to for advice about which marketing pieces will get the most bang for their buck? You want your customers and prospects to rely on you for advice and guidance instantly. Providing expertise that will lead to more print projects is the ideal outcome, and we’ve just uploaded a new white paper to the websites provided by Marketing Ideas For Printers that can help you do just that. It’s All About the Content The best marketing pieces are all about great content, and what better content is there than successful case studies? A well-done case study proves the value of the products and services provided and is an absolute necessity in today’s marketing climate. Help your customers create amazing stories about their product or service with this new white paper. It will lead them to take advantage of your design and print services to spread the word about their success. Here’s a little excerpt from “Writing A Successful Case Study”: A great case study will target a particular business goal or industry with a highly-tailored solution. It will be focused down to a specific area or a specific type of customer. The key is to simplify the

Our newest direct mail package, the January edition of Local Edge, helps your customers get out of the big-box mindset and thinking local. They Don’t Know What They’re Missing Our inaugural issue of Local Edge (available for download November 15) highlights what a print buyer is missing when they choose to purchase their printing from a large, global, faceless print company. What are they missing? Real people, a better quality product, personalized service, … the list goes on. So why would potential customers choose to give these up? The main reason print buyers decide to purchase from these big-box, cookie-cutter companies is to save money. But, is the savings really worth it? Especially when inferior quality fails to make that great first impression? It brings to mind that old saying, “you get what you pay for.” Why Local Matters Alex Gladu, in his article “Five Reasons Not to Shop at Big Box Stores” had this to say about the importance of local small businesses: Local Edge will highlight the key benefits of keeping business local and communicate to your customers and prospects that they don’t have to sacrifice quality for price. Also included in the Local Edge design is a

Proclaiming the many benefits of doing business with a local printer will be the theme of our new Direct Mail For Printers postcard offering. We are proud to announce the introduction of….wait for it…Local Edge! Hooray! Have you been waiting for an opportunity to showcase the benefits of keeping things local and working with a local printer, but just haven’t had the time to promote this yourself? Well, good news! We’ve heard your desire and understand how difficult it is to compete with the low-margin, high-volume printers around the country. We understand how precious of a commodity time can be to local printers, and that’s why we created Local Edge. We all know the benefits of working with a local printer and we want to make sure your customers are reminded of those benefits as well. Give Your Customers a Reason to Buy Local Focusing on “The Real People Advantage,” “High-Value Printing Because We Care,” and “Experience, Dedication, and Reputation,” these are just some of the local-oriented themes we will be promoting through the Local Edge postcard. Your print buyers want to know why they should do business locally and Local Edge will provide that monthly message delivered right to

I truly can’t get enough of graphic design. There’s always something new to learn, and often times it seems there’s more than one way to get successful results. Some routes save more time than others and, incredibly, the time saved using Adobe Illustrator’s Symbolism Tool can be measured in hours. Wow! That’s pretty amazing, no matter how you look at it. The Symbolism Tool helps you create elaborate, professional designs that use the same graphic element with varying colors options, sizes, positions, opacities, and tints. It takes something tedious and frustrating and condenses it down to a few simple, easy steps. No matter what your experience level is with Adobe Illustrator, this tool is incredibly quick to learn and user-friendly. My first exposure to the Symbolism Tool was in creating the design for the newest Design Tip added to each Websites For Printers website’s Ideas Collection: Add Some Sparkle to Your Next Design With the Illustrator Symbolism Tool. As I was working on this Design Tip I was pleasantly surprised by the versatility and power found in the Symbolism Tool. With a few simple clicks I was able to create visually stunning design both quickly and easily. It was exciting for me to learn about this new tool. I have