Content Archives - Page 6 of 9 - Marketing, content, & technology to help printers sell more printing

Show your business some love with all-new content! What goes around comes around! Plant some seeds with vibrant marketing, and grow your influence in the year to come. Check out the wide range of insightful content options available to you this month: Printer’s Press The February Printer’s Press features creative fold techniques in print, most “pinned” Valentine recipes, and emphasizing encouragement as a way to build emotional stability in kids. Your readers will also discover seven design tips for increasing envelope open rates, like teaser text with engaging keywords, time-bound offers, or size and color alternatives that add prestige. Position yourself as a printer who is personable, approachable, and helpful with this upbeat, direct-mail newsletter! Business Forum How would you feel if you showed up for work one day and your most valuable employee handed in their resignation? This month’s Business Forum offers practical advice on taking care of your “stars,” including stats on the cost of employee turnover and leadership incentives that can fuel motivation. Keep your own clients motivated by featuring five reasons a focus on print can help you build a connection with your audience. Coffee Break Coffee Break encourages your client to pair their vision and

As fall fades to winter, we’re reminded that December is just around the corner. Hard to believe it’s almost the last year of the decade! It seems like only yesterday we were all in a kerfuffle about the pending Y2K. Well, time ticks on, and so does the content from Marketing Ideas For Printers that will inspire your customers to create bigger and better things. Preview our December content today! Speaking of winter, the December editions of our direct mail packages and a new Ideas Collection tip are now available! Here’s a peek at seasonal goodies coming your way soon: Printer’s Press Appealing to all audiences, our most popular newsletter, Printer’s Press positions you as a well-informed, good-natured business. This month features ways to give back (during the holidays and beyond), awesome employee wellness ideas, a delicious guacamole recipe, and stuffer/insert options that bolster sales without increasing postage. Business Forum Along with funny workplace tweets, family and education app reviews, and rich business content for crafting consistency in customer service and branding, you’ll want to check out our Business Forum featured book, “The Creative Curve.” Just released in July 2018, Allen Gannett’s book teaches customers how to launch the right product

Branding is a buzzword in all industries, not just printing. “Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.” – Steve Forbes For most small businesses, the importance of a good, consistent brand gets lost to the tyranny of the urgent. But, when you come to consider the benefits of a brand, such as increased credibility, the appearance of being well-established, and improved stability, you’ll quickly come to realize that your brand should be very near the top of your priority list. Here are several reasons why branding is important for your print business. A good brand improves business recognition. Your brand is all about one thing: being recognized. “No branding, no differentiation. No differentiation, no long-term profitability.” Imagine walking through the aisles of your local grocery. Can you picture how many different brands are in front of your eyes at any given moment? Each one of those companies is vying for your attention and looking for ways to stand apart from everyone else in that vast brand sea. To build better brand recognition, focus on these things: Great customer service Ways to keep your name in front of your market Providing on-going value Using the

Making emotional connections with your customers and prospects can have a tremendous impact on your business. If your brand can generate an emotional response, you will sell more, gain greater customer loyalty, and be able to charge more than other companies that are selling an identical product. But, how do you do it? Using emotions in marketing is the latest topic covered in the White Paper Content provided by Marketing Ideas For Printers. “A brand that captures your mind gains behavior. A brand that captures your heart gains commitment.” – Scott Talgo Your Mission is Gaining Trust Emotional connection is the key to gaining and building trust. If your marketing fails to connect with your audience and make them feel something, you will be quickly forgotten. To create a connection, you first need to understand what’s motivating your buyers. What are they hoping to achieve? What feelings are they searching for with your product or service? Typically, there are three things that motivate all buyers: trust, confidence, and empathy. When you develop your message and brand to speak to one or all of these, you’ll have a message that sticks. Tools, such as targeting benefit triggers or choosing certain colors in

What makes a printed piece leap off a page? Some say it’s the dimensions of the designs, the vibrant hues of the ink, or the dazzling gloss finishes. But part of the beauty is the way the layout itself captures your eye. When white space is appropriately utilized (or eliminated completely), the contrast can be breathtaking. But often clients don’t understand the technical details of planning for appropriate margins, through the use of full or partial bleeds. A Common Mistake Worth Correcting One of the most frequent amateur design mistakes is allowing for insufficient bleeds before sending a project to print, causing the effectiveness of the design to be weakened or essential parts of the layout to be cut off unexpectedly. This month’s print tip, added to the Ideas Collection of every website provided by Marketing Ideas For Printers, coaches your clients on the basics of bleed techniques in print. The August print tip article trains your customers on eliminating unwanted white space and understanding trim and fold markings as you build a print proof together. Though today’s software offers default values for creating bleed margins, here are a few tips to coach clients on when to use them: Bleeds

Your branding and marketing are the lifeblood of your business, and they are worth your time and energy to learn to do right. If this is new territory for you, sometimes the best way to make sure you’re on the right path means simply learning to recognize the wrong one. Check out these top ten mistakes printers make with their branding and marketing below. 1. Not Selling Your Differentiator If the message of your brand is “We’re the best print company ever!”, you’re not going to sound much different than your competition or make it very far. I mean, have you ever seen a company advertise, “We’re not the best, but we try really hard!”? Probably not. This is why it’s so important to focus on what makes you unique. Voice your differences and learn to think outside the box of mediocrity. Build your message around what makes your customers keep coming back to you. Is it your customer service? Your referral program? Aim narrow and hit hard. 2. Thinking Locally Instead of Globally Remember, you’re reaching an online audience now, not just your local customers. Thinking you’re unique by using CMYK colors in your branding or trying to be

While there are many powerful software suites available on the market today, few are as accomplished as Adobe InDesign. But with its large number of buttons and gadgets, this publishing software can be intimidating for novice designers. The June Ideas Collection tech tip, available on every website provided by Marketing Ideas For Printers, will walk your audience through six “best practices” for Adobe InDesign. Here are three points to preview from this month’s article: 1. Begin at the End Ever complete a design only to find you were missing proper fonts or that your images were improperly linked? InDesign offers “Live Preflight,” which allows clients to see problems with the file before it is sent for printing. 2. Thread That Text Often we get bogged down and frustrated by tasks that were supposed to be simple. Placing long blocks of text can be a headache, but InDesign allows users to “thread” text, flowing content from frame to frame. This allows for effortless changes to text boxes, layouts, and a more cohesive story that evenly breaks across pages. 3. Keep Formatting Consistent Even experienced designers can find their font, sizing, and colors losing consistency throughout a printed piece. InDesign overcomes this

So far in this series of crafting your perfect marketing message, you’ve learned about the who and the what in order to craft the messages your prospects need to hear. To recap: The “who” reveals the stories you should tell by knowing your audience. The “what” helps you craft an overall voice that ties directly into the prospect’s motivation to buy. Once these two parts are nailed down, you’ll be able to deliver the perfect metaphors and anecdotes that make your ideal prospect view you as the only choice. This messaging and content will be a clear combination of messages that are persuasive, compelling, and powerful for them to hear and read. You Are Not Your Audience Armed with the “who” and the “what,” let’s turn our attention to look at the “how” of attracting your ideal buyer — one who shares your values. When you’re just getting started executing your “how,” it can be tempting to overly identify with your audience. While you’re going to have things in common, it’s dangerous to think your ideal customer is similar to you in other ways. You’re a subject matter expert at what you do, for starters, and they are not. Make sure to

Let’s be honest, sometimes entrepreneurs and small business owners just don’t know where to start with their print resources. They get their business cards, maybe a sign, some flyers and brochures and then they don’t know what else to do – or think they don’t really need anything else. The Tool You Need for Your Customers The Ultimate Print Guide for Running a Small Business is a compact and useful tool for understanding what new business owners need to market and run their business. It is the perfect guide for inspiring your customers and simplifying their print needs into something they can understand and get excited about. The Perfect Guide The guide covers everything from PR needs and traditional marketing materials to forms and employee manuals. The Set, Camera, Lights! section dissects the need for great images of products and what to consider if taking the photos themselves vs. having them professionally done or using stock photos. After all, nothing ruins a great flyer like an amateur photo. The section on direct mail and other direct marketing materials lays out a good foundation to increase exposure and sales in simple steps with the potential for big results. Combine that with the section

What scenes are so arresting you simply cannot look away? Peter Friederici of Orion magazine listed nine apprehending images including these: A single star shining through low clouds lit orange by the glow of streetlights. A ship interrupting the smooth expanse of any horizon . . . because a vessel on the water is a story whose arc you simply have to follow. How to “Lure” Your Audience Want to equip customers to apprehend viewers with their own arresting images? Sleek, compelling designs can make it difficult to look away! This month’s design tip, added to every website provided by Marketing Ideas For Printers, offers a few tricks for luring in viewers: “Good design understands that your eyes are sending information to your brain at an astounding rate. But because your brain cannot possibly capture every detail, sometimes it sees the edges of a particular image and fills in the missing pieces of the puzzle based on your previous life experience. By capitalizing on this thought, you can use clever design ideas that will gently encourage viewers to follow your lead.” Here are a few keys from the article to educate your clients: Fancy Brain Tricks Use optical illusions, colors,

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