Making Your Business Card a Branding Item
Your business card, just like all of your marketing materials, should project the branding of your business. Branding is basically the personality of your business. Are you traditional? Funky? Cutting edge? Reliable? Whatever the personality of your business is, make sure your business card printing pieces tell people who you are.
Use a Designer
A designer will help your business card printing to look as professional as possible, and since your business card often gives people their first impression of your business, this is an important area to spend a little extra money. The designer will also be able to communicate the branding image that you want.
Choose an Unusual Ink
To enhance the personality of your business card, choose a colored or metallic ink that fits the personality of your business. An unusual ink will also help your card to stand out from others and be more memorable.
Have Colored or Textured Card Stock
The texture and color of your card stock can also add to your image. If you have a playful kind of business, you might go with a bright color. If your company is more traditional, stick to something like a blue gray or another light neutral. You could also use textured card stock which would add to the sensory experience of your business card and help people to remember it. Some print companies will even let you do a business card printing on plastic or metal if you want something really unusual. (more…)
Why Your Online Company Needs Brochures (And How to Use Them Effectively)
Some people are just leery of using an online company they haven’t heard much about and can’t physically visit. One way to help build credibility is to have a set of professional looking print materials. People just expect a successful company to have materials like business cards and brochures.
Another advantage of a brochure is that they are good at selling products and services. A well designed brochure entices customers with the front cover, builds interest in the body, and closes the deal at the end with your contact information. Additionally, a printed brochure can be left on a desk or put on the refrigerator, and every time someone sees it, they are reminded of your company.
Here are a few things you can do to make your brochure an effective sales representative:
Common Door Hanger Marketing Mistakes
Although door hangers can be a highly successful marketing tool, like any other advertisement they can be a big flop when the proper techniques are not followed. As cheap as door hangers can be to design and print, you don’t want any of your hard earned marketing dollars to be wasted with an unsuccessful campaign. Knowing the most common mistakes in door hanger advertising will help you to avoid what could be an otherwise very costly and frustrating experience.
Mistake #1: Starting Too Small
When first beginning to incorporate door hangers into your marketing efforts, it is wise to start small so that you can test for what works and what doesn’t. The only problem is that businesses have a tendency to start too small. With door hangers, a “small” test run requires more than with, say, brochures. Usually, 2,000 to 3,000 door hangers is about the right amount for receiving enough responses for determining your success.
Mistake #2: Giving Up Too Soon
As stated before, door hangers can be a very desirable advertisement, but unfortunately some businesses give up before giving their door hangers a chance. Trial and error, testing, redesigning, rethinking your marketing campaign are all a part of what makes a door hanger marketing plan work. Try and try again and very soon your company will have a precision advertisement for bringing in the sales.
Basic Color Tips for the Amateur Designer
The colors you choose for your print materials will send your audience subtle messages that you should be aware of when you are designing. So, before you even begin designing materials like for brochure printing and color posters, you should know what kind of image you want to project.
General Uses for Color
You can use colors to organize your design; for instance, in a brochure you would want to have all headings and subheadings in the same color. You can use color to draw attention to something; an example would be to have almost everything on your color poster in neutral tones and then put the name of the band in a bright red. Color is also good for illustrating what you say in text, which makes your message clearer. Color generates feelings and associations to the viewer, so it’s important to know some of those general associations.
Colors that Energize
In general, reds, oranges, and yellows are energizing. Use these colors when you want to get people excited about your message. Keep in mind that for some types of messages, excitement is not a good thing. For example, any kind of print materials to do with insurance or finance should not have a lot of reds because you want to project an image of safety and reliability, not excitement.
Posters vs. Flyers: Which One Should You Use?
There are many forms of printed advertising available that can be applied to any advertising need: posters, flyers, brochures, catalogs, postcards, door hangers, etc. The possibilities are endless. But there are several factors that direct most printed advertising campaign designs, namely, budget constraints. For events or general awareness advertising, how do you know which one you should use? Here we will discuss the uses of posters versus flyers and to know when to use them.
Poster Details
Poster printing can be used to advertise any business, organization, or event. Poster printing is good for advertisements that will be valid over a long period of time because they are securely mounted on a surface. They are also easy to switch out when it is time to update your message without a lot of out of pocket expense. Posters are excellent for advertising a new business that is “opening soon” as well as established businesses that want to keep and broaden their customer base. Poster printing campaigns are the perfect method to get a message to a large group of people. All your audience has to do is pass by your posters’ locations. Poster printing is an excellent choice when you want to keep your company in view of your target audience.
Flyer Details
Flyers are the quick and easy to use form of print advertising that can be customized for absolutely anything. Flyers are smaller than posters. Their smaller size lends them to a greater variety of distribution methods: left in stacks for anyone to take one, handed out personally to passersby, direct mailed, and even hung or posted. Flyers can be used in conjunction with poster printing campaigns. For example, when your business opens, print up “now open” flyers and slap them over your “opening soon” posters. You still have the large space of the poster and the advance notice, but now with very little trouble you have changed the message of the poster with the simple addition of a flyer. Flyers can also be handed out with messages that reinforce a poster campaign’s message. And of course flyers can be used by themselves and often are for events like band concerts, garage sales, school events, church events, etc.
Use posters:
• As a hanging display to reach a large audience on the move
• When you need long term advertising
• To get attention of the general public
Use flyers:
• As a hand out, mobile advertising
• For short term advertising, right before the event
• As the final campaign before the event, to reinforce poster advertising
With this knowledge now under your belt, you can more easily choose which form of advertising is best for your upcoming campaign. Or maybe you’ll decide you need both!
