Ink Inc. Archives - Marketing, content, & technology to help printers sell more printing

We are looking forward to beginning a new year with not just one, but two new looks! Our Coffee Break and FastStart direct-mail packages have undergone a makeover, and both have fresh new contemporary looks. You have come to rely on our Dingbat/Coffee Break package to deliver humor and unveil interesting dates in history ever since 1989. Along with that, our FastStart postcard/mailer has offered the timeless message of “we’re a printer and here is what we print” since 1993. With 27 years of proven results, it’d be easy to think “why fix what’s not broken?” Well, with anything we offer to help you sell more printing, we want to be constantly looking for ways to do things even better and keep you current and in touch with your customer base. So, are you excited to see what’s in the future for these two popular offerings? Coffee Break Keeps Your Customers Smiling! Dingbat/Coffee Break will now simply be known as Coffee Break. The Dingbat name originated by playing off of the font name Zapf Dingbat. That font name might not be as recognizable these days, and we feel that Coffee Break better reflects the purpose of the content, to grab 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

We’ll soon be headed to Chicago for Graph Expo, and we’d like to show off your real-world Ink Inc. direct mail advertising pieces at our booth! We’re giving away up to fifteen $25 Starbucks or Amazon.com gift cards (your choice!) to Ink Inc. customers that send us samples of their Ink Inc. direct mail advertising as it’s being used in the real world. Here’s How to Get Your Gift Card(s) We are looking for customers of each printable Ink Inc. product (Printer’s Press, Business Forum, FastStart, ColorMatters, and Dingbat/Coffee Break) to send 25 to 50 printed pieces. We’ll take the first three submissions in each product lineup. The first step: Contact Rachel Nies (Rachel@MarketingIdeasForPrinters.com, or 800-736-0688 x 7014) to let her know what Ink Inc. package (or packages) you’ll be providing samples for. We’ll take the first three requests for each package. The guidelines: One customer may submit multiple packages. You’ll receive a gift card for each package you submit. The sample collection may all be provided from one issue, but we’d prefer that your samples include several issues. Sending your samples to us means that you’re giving us permission to distribute those samples to visitors at Graph Expo. Samples must be delivered to us by Monday, September 6, 2015.

Graph Expo will be here before you know it … the show runs September 13-16, 2015, in Chicago’s McCormick Place Conference Center. We’ll be there in Booth 457, ready to visit with you. Plus, we can get you in the doors of McCormick Place for free! We have a limited number of free, exhibits-only passes for you (a $45 value), available until August 28, 2015. Marketing Ideas For Printers provides the websites, direct mail advertising, social media marketing, and email marketing technology that helps printers sell more printing. We can help you, too! Graph Expo Show Special Here’s a sneak peek at a show special we’ll be unveiling at Graph Expo. We’ll waive the monthly fee for new customers on all Marketing Ideas For Printers services until January 1, 2016! This show special starts when Graph Expo opens on September 13, 2015. At that time, we’ll waive monthly fees for the rest of the year for all new customers using The Buzz (Social Media Marketing), Ink Inc. (Direct Mail Marketing), ezMail (Email Marketing), and of course a website from Websites For Printers. You can get a head-start on the show special for the Websites For Printers website by starting your own personal Websites For Printers demo website right now!

Congratulations, you’ve started your new direct mail marketing campaign! You’ve faithfully sent out your newsletter for six months in a row. And…crickets. Nothing. You wonder…is it really even working? Self-doubt starts to kick in and you think: Is this campaign even worth it? Should I try to keep this campaign alive? The “Grass is Always Greener” Trap Each campaign you send needs to stand on its own merits, of course, but perhaps all your campaign really needs is a boost of, well … patience. It may be that you’re expecting results from your campaign way too soon. Unfortunately, wanting instant results can trap you in a “the grass is greener on the other side of the fence” mentality. Instant results are nice when you can get ’em, but when it comes to marketing let’s focus on the rule and not the exception. According to Jay Conrad Levinson, author of the hugely popular Guerilla Marketing series, the rule is that a marketing message must penetrate the mind of a prospect a total of nine times before that prospect becomes a customer. Here’s the second part of that rule: For every three times you expose your prospect to your marketing message – via ad, sign, monthly direct mail advertising, whatever – it

Yesterday we launched MI4P.info for Ink Inc. customers! Everything went pretty much as we had planned. Except for one tiny detail. For a short period of time, Ink Inc. customers logging in at MI4P.info saw this: And that request didn’t go over very well. The request was intended to be presented only to a subset of Websites For Printers customers. We got a wire crossed, we should have never presented this request to Ink Inc. customers. Once we realized the message was being displayed to the wrong audience, we quickly turned off this request for Ink Inc. customers. But the whole incident got us thinking … we need to do a much better job on telling our Websites For Printers customers exactly why we’re making this request when they log in to MI4P.info, and that is what we’ll cover in the rest of this post. It’s For Your Protection It’s for your protection. That sounds like something you’d say if you were trying to make something bad sound like something good. However, in this case, the request for identification truly is for your protection if you’re a Websites For Printers customer. Here’s the rest of the story. We’ve been building websites since 2001, and

We recently announced the passwords are being removed from the Ink Inc. packages. Instead of using passwords, the Ink Inc. packages will be secured by placing them behind the login of your MI4P.info account. If you haven’t already done so, it’s now time to create your account! The following video (4:36) explains how Ink Inc. customers can create an account at MI4P.info: http://youtu.be/vvWzf-PunfM Do you have questions about your MI4P.info account or your Ink Inc. packages? We’re here to help, just give us a call at 800-736-0688.

Starting with the March 2015 Ink Inc packages (which will be released in mid-January), Ink Inc. customers will begin retrieving Adobe InDesign files (and related artwork files) in a brand new way! The learning curve is pretty tame on this change, so if you consider yourself an old dog and hate learning new tricks, there’s no reason to worry. In fact, you’ll probably find this change makes things a lot easier for you, because we’re dropping the passwords that protect the monthly Ink Inc. packages. Instead of using passwords, the packages will be protected by placing them behind the lock and key of the Marketing Ideas For Printers Info Center at MI4P.info. Huh? Info Center? MI4P.info? What’s that? That’s where everything related to your account with Marketing Ideas For Printers is managed. (If you’re a Websites For Printers customer, you may already be familiar with the Info Center and MI4P.info. Now, you’ll find your Ink Inc. account information there as well.) Each month, we’ll continue to send you an email when the Ink Inc. packages are ready. Instead of including your Ink Inc. passwords, that email will contain a link that directs you to log in to the Info Center at MI4P.info to download your Ink Inc. packages. In

Predictable, recurring direct mail marketing campaigns continue to provide an excellent return on marketing dollars. For a limited time, Marketing Ideas For Printers Announces $2 ZIP Codes for Ink Inc. Subscriptions As an Ink Inc. customer you enjoy the benefit of knowing that noone else is allowed to mail the same direct mail marketing campaign into the ZIP codes or postal codes licensed for your use. The marketing territory is exclusive to you, allowing you to be “the only printer in town” marketing to the selected customer base. Now, for a limited time (through December 15, 2014) add licensed ZIP codes/postal codes to any Ink Inc. subscription for just $2 per ZIP /postal code per month. That drops the published price of a $10 ZIP / postal code by 80%, allowing you to easily expand the reach of your direct mail marketing campaign at a very low cost. This offer is available to both current and new Ink Inc. subscribers. There’s no fine print, but here are a few details that will help make sure we’re all on the same page. The $2 ZIP codes / postal codes are available for any new subscribers to add to their new base package. Current subscribers will continue to pay the

Sonny and Cher. Peanut butter and chocolate. Direct mail and websites. All of those pairs really work well together. Here’s one more to add to the list… ColorMatters postcards and Websites For Printers websites. Starting now, Marketing Ideas For Printers customers can promote a new landing page that not only talks about the benefits of color printing, but also includes a clear call to action to encourage website visitors to purchase color printing. This new landing page is built into the website of every Marketing Ideas For Printers customer that uses both ColorMatters and Websites For Printers. Here’s how it works. Produce your ColorMatters postcard just as you always have, but add /ColorMatters to the end of your website address, like this: Now, when your customers see your ColorMatters postcard, they’ll be directed to the new ColorMatters landing page (AcmePrintingUSA.com/ColorMatters, for example). On the landing page, they’ll be greeted with graphics that match the ColorMatters postcard you sent them, along with a strong nudge to purchase color printing from you. But what about customers who might not have received your ColorMatters postcard yet? What if they’re just coming to your website unprompted? You also have the option to display a Home Page Callout Box that