Should I DIY or Outsource My Brochure Design?
If you’ve ever received a quote from a graphic design company, and sat looking at the screen, a low whistle escaping you, wondering incredulously how people afford to market their businesses … you have probably also considered just doing your own design! The most common corporate printed material (after business cards) is the company brochure – it’s a necessity for many businesses. Today we are looking at whether it is more cost effective to outsource the design for your brochure printing, or do-it-yourself, and the extra benefits and disadvantages associated with each strategy.
Brochure printing as a corporate identity
Your brochure is the key to your corporate identity. Even more than your business card (which will be used mainly in B2B situations), your printed brochure is often the main physical point of contact for your customers when they are considering your products or services. It is vital that it be professional, attractive, and say everything that you need it to in a compelling way.
Five Ways to Use Calendar Printing to Market Your Business
Calendar marketing seems like a sure thing at face value. After all, everyone needs a calendar, and who doesn’t like something for free? The problem is, you’re competing with Anne Geddes’ babies in giant peapods and Australia’s most beautiful landscapes … it just isn’t a level playing field! You need to have a strategy for using calendar printing to marketing your business – a well-defined method by which you’ll be promoting the use of your business. Branding is tough in the world of calendars – but there are plenty of other ways to make your printed calendars count! We check them out.
As giveaways – insert your sale periods in the calendar
With just a little planning, you’ll be able to tell customers the best times to shop at your store, and make the most of loss leader promotions. Don’t shade out the squares of your sales periods completely – compromising the usefulness of your calendar could cause it to be tossed out completely. You can design a little reminder into the main picture area of the calendar as well, to help ensure it isn’t missed.
Six Ways to Use Greeting Card Printing to Market Your Business
Everybody loves getting a card in the mail. That slightly higher weight and extra thickness sort of makes you feel like it’s your birthday – no matter how old you get! Helping people get into a good mood is excellent practice for marketing your business to them, which is what has helped greeting cards stay in the realms of direct marketing for so long. Before there was email, there was greeting card printing … and when email falls by the wayside, physical greeting cards will still retain their marketing value. Here we give you six ideas for using colour card printing to get customers through your doors.
Customer-controlled blanks
This is a great way to guarantee that your cards will be kept, thought about in the future, and reach more than one person. There is little opportunity for direct marketing with this form of greeting card printing, but plenty of branding opportunity for branding. DO you want to send out company cards for people to use at Christmas? Think of a quirky way to connect the company and the event, and you have a card which is valuable to three people all of a sudden – you, the person you give it to, and the person THEY give it to.
Six Ways to Use Sticker Printing to Market Your Business
Many companies see stickers as an item best left behind in childhood … all those messy residues! In fact, even if the target market for your business extends past age 12, there are plenty of ways you can use stickers to help brand and build your business. Stickers ’stick’ around … and if you can manage to get over all of their associated puns you can actually do some great marketing work with custom sticker printing for a tiny price.
1. As in-store giveaways for kids
The only promotional giveaway that kids would pay more attention than stickers, is chocolate. And it is easy to see which of those wins in the longevity stakes! Kids will pop your stickers on their toys, books and furniture, keeping your company in theirs, and their parents’, memories for quite a while.
2. As in-store giveaways for adults
Customise Your Business Christmas Cards
It seems like the holidays come around a little sooner each year, but you don’t have to let them sneak up on you this year! Prepare for the holidays ahead of time by doing a little advanced planning. Make room in your corporate budget to be able to have some Christmas cards printed especially for your company. What better way to show business associates and clients how much they are appreciated than to send them a Christmas card?
Greeting cards are more affordable than most of the other items used to extend a friendly gesture this time of the year, such as gift baskets. Affordability is especially important for the new business owner. You can make an excellent impression and build goodwill at the same time with the use of business Christmas cards.
However, you do not want to run down to your local greeting card shop and pick out the number of pre-printed Christmas cards you are going to need. Nor would you attempt to print them yourself on your office or home printer. Retail cards can be expensive, and printing your own cards would call for card stock, lots of printer ink, and a good bit of your valuable time. So, what should you do to accomplish your goal of sending out business Christmas cards?
The most logical and the least expensive solution is to have your greeting cards printed by a good online printing company. Online companies are usually the best option as far as the price for a greeting card printing job and the quality of the finished product. When you use an online printing company, you are able to choose what the cards look like as well as the exact message they convey to others. You can’t do this with retail cards, and a reputable online printer can do it for you at a better price than what you would pay to print them yourself, saving you both money and time.
Customized Invitations for Your Event
Customized invitations have the ability to add a touch of individuality to your event. No matter what type of event you are planning, invitations that you have planned and designed yourself are unique. They are definitely attention grabbers, and let’s face it – you want the people who will receive the invitations to read them! Often, with the rather generic type of retail invitation that is available in stores today, the recipients do not bother to do much more than glance at the front of the card before tossing it into a pile of junk mail, or worse, into the trash.
Don’t let this happen to your invitations. Put a little of yourself into the design and the copy as well. The friends and colleagues you will be sending the invitation to can’t help but pay attention to such a personalized design. Consider the fact that your invitations are really just the start of your party. They set the tone for the whole affair. Words and pictures, even the colours that are used in these invitations can make a difference in whether or not your event is a hit or a bust.
However, what if you are at a loss for words, and do not feel very creative when the time comes for you to sit down and plan what you want your invitations to look at, and the message that you want them to convey? It is not necessary to feel tempted to run to the nearest store and purchase a supply of boring invitations to use. It is also not a requisite to head to your local “brick and mortar” printing shop to see what their advice to your dilemma would be. This really is not a dilemma at all, for the only thing you need to know how to do is an online search.
Promotional Brochures They’ll Want to Keep
Brochures continue to be one of the most multipurpose marketing tools that have ever hit the business community. Why is a well-planned brochure multipurpose? Simply because it can fill so many of the needed advertising niches so well! A brochure can be used to help a company promote any planned events that may interest potential and repeat customers.
A brochure can do a fantastic job of advertising a new product or service. This type of promotional literature can advise your customers of any changes that your company has planned for a popular product line. A brochure can also help your company to become recognized in the community or district you serve. This helps immensely to build up the image of your business in the minds of those who have previously or will potentially be your customers.
There are many other reasons why a specially printed brochure makes good sense for your business, but those are the main ones. As you can see, the versatile brochure is one promotional item that people will definitely want to hang on to for future reference! Your contact information, informative text, and attention-grabbing photos with equally appealing, relevant captions will please the eye and pique the interest of everyone who encounters them.
You might be surprised to realize just how many different types on industries use these printed leaflets to advertise their business services as well as the products they sell. Just about any business you can name has at one time or another used the multipurpose aspects of a brochure to inform and impress the buying public.
Your Self Designed Pre Folders
Anyone who does business presentations knows that a nice looking and well-designed folder can go a long way in helping your colleagues to sit up and take notice of the information you are presenting to them. Though this type of folder is most often seen in an executive meeting, presentation folders are also very usable in all sorts of business situations. The company that takes care of your business card printing can generally print these folders to your specifications.
What does a presentation folder look like? Generally, a presentation folder will contain your company’s name and logo on the outside, as well as any other information that seems essential. These folders are designed to have a refined, tasteful, and professional appearance, which of course reflects well upon your company. The right kind of presentation folder can make you look extremely organized to the other people in your organization. This is definitely a good thing, for there is nothing better for your career than to make a good impression on your peers.
In the business world, image is everything! That is why presentation folders can be one of your best friends. If part of your job is making presentations, you should know that around 90 percent of your presentation is the image you have created for the people who have gathered. That’s right! How you look is more important than the information you have to present. You could have groundbreaking info to share, but if you don’t look sharp and professional, no one is going to pay too much attention to you.
Personalized Notepads Serve As A Customer Reminder
Most people use a notepad on a daily basis. In fact, some people keep two notebooks going at once; one for home and one for work related issues. There is no better or less expensive method of keeping the name of your business in front of your customers, whether they are potential customers or those who have been loyal to your company for a while.
Notepads are used for so many things, like grocery and other lists, personal reminders, messages to other people, and just short generic notes. They come in many shapes, sizes, and a rainbow of colours. Some even come in a plastic holder, which makes it very simple to display on a desktop or counter. Notepad cubes have also become hugely popular.
When you use a professional printing company to bring your notepad idea to fruition, you’ll discover that they already have notepads with charming or clever designs that just need to be personalized with your business name and information.
Or, you can start from scratch and design your own unique notepads. There’s nothing wrong with a plain black and white notepad, either. Often, what we may think looks rather stark may be just the thing that catches people’s eye. An overuse of bright colours in today’s world makes this more than just a possibility. Any company who does a good job at custom calendar printing or similar can do a pleasing job on an order of notepads for you.
Logo Envelopes Make a Statement
Envelopes as we know them have been around since the early to mid 1900s. Nowadays, the basic white, business size envelopes of today are pretty close to the original model. The main difference is that they have branched out into many shapes and sizes. You can purchase envelopes that are coloured, plain, windowed, and made of different types of paper. You can also purchase envelopes that have had information printed on them in a wide range of coloured inks.
Companies that do envelope printing also can print them with a business logo on the outside. This option is becoming more and more popular as professional business owners discover just how effective it can be to use envelopes that are printed with their logo. They find that their mailings bring results that are more positive when they use these logo envelopes as opposed to plain white ones.
Almost everyone has had the experience of opening his or her mailbox and taking out a handful of mail. What is the first thing most of us do? We flip through the mail, stopping when something catches our eye. And, what is it that usually causes us to stop and pay attention to the mail we are holding in our hands? That’s right, a cleverly designed logo on the envelope. Distinctive colours can play a role in this attraction, but often a plain black and white logo can be quite eye catching.
Often, the piece of mail that we notice in this manner is the first piece that is opened. Team a good logo envelope with matching letterhead stationary, and you have a winning combination. The person’s interest, first stirred by the design on the envelope, is now transferred to the stationary inside, and the message that is on it.
