Postcard Printing Templates
More and more businesses are using postcard printing as their primary go-to marketing method. A great way to save time and, therefore, money is to use postcard printing templates. These templates ensure that the layout of your postcards is exactly as it should be so that your final product looks great every time.
If you have never worked with postcard printing templates, at first glance they can be intimidating. Templates use a series of guides and lines to make sure that the important information is included while also preventing extra white space along the edges. These guides and lines represent the bleed area, cut lines, and safety lines. (more…)
Creating a Unique Indicia with Postcards
For those of you looking for the ultimate way to customize your postcard printing campaign, you should consider creating your own unique indicia. The indicia is the actual sticker or ink stamp that will go on the back of your postcard in place of a postage stamp. This is a great way to add an extra touch of professionalism to postcard printing. If you do not want to take the time to create your own indicia, you can even work with current versions available and just add a little extra touch of your own.
What To Consider When Designing From Web to Print
For Web-only designers, you know what platform you’re going to be working on. You know that no matter what you do, it’s going to be on the Web. In the print world, you need to first decide what kind of print material you’re going to design. Does the company need a direct mail postcard, brochure, poster or flyer? (more…)
Marketing Photo Know-How
Marketing materials look better with photos. Period. “A photo is worth a thousand words.” From the beginning of the first printed photograph in the 1820s, people have known the value of a good photo. But with megapixels, color and photo effect jargon floating around everywhere on the Internet and in photo studios, how do you know when you have a good photo? It all depends on the lighting, the megapixels and the photographer.
When you create a brochure or flyer that has an intriguing message and a blurry photo, people are only going to remember that blurry photo. “What was in that photo? Was it supposed to be like that?” A photo can make or break your marketing materials. And the most important factor of the blurry photo is the number of pixels.
Pixels – The Building Blocks of Photos
To have a clear photo, you need to take the picture with a digital camera that has a decent amount of pixels. A decent amount means at least 2MP (more about MP in a minute). Anymore, it’s hard to find a low-end digital camera with 2MP – most start at 3MP or more. This is good news for you that digital cameras are getting more affordable.
What is a Pixel?
A pixel is a dot of information, a dot of color, in your photo. Photos today are made up of millions of these dots, or pixels. Mega means “million” so whenever you talk in megapixels (MP) you mean X million pixels. So, a 2MP camera will provide 2 million pixels when a photo is printed from that camera. That may sound like a lot, but really 2 million pixels will only get you as far as a clear 4×6 photo.
If you are printing a poster and need to take a photo, you’ll want to take the photo with a camera that can produce a print size of 12×16 or maybe even 18×24. The bigger the MP of the camera, the more expensive it is. A 12×16 print, to be printed clearly, needs to be taken with a 10MP camera. An 18×24 print, to be printed clearly, needs to be taken with a 14MP camera.
Now, with a 10MP camera, you can make photo sizes up to 12×16 clearly. Anything smaller will come out equally as clear.
Camera Quality
Most amateur digital cameras on the market today, the ones you can get at Target or Best Buy, range from 5MP to 8MP. The largest clear photo you can print with a 5MP camera is 8×12. With an 8MP camera you can get up to 11×14. This is good enough for most people and most small businesses as well.
If you print photos larger than the maximum sizes given here, you’ll end up with a blurry, pixilated photo. So check out the MP size of camera before you buy, keeping in mind what you’ll use the photos for. If your photos will just be for regular-size flyers, brochures and postcards, you can get a great 5MP digital camera for an affordable price, between $100 and $300.
Use Direct Mail Postcards to Help Your Web Site Traffic
Postcards are a great way to promote your Web site. Postcards are easy to read and can be hard to ignore since there is no envelope masking their message. Here are some ways you can advertise your Web site through postcard marketing:
Offer a free report on your Web site
Whether you do your own research and write a report of interest to your target market or if you buy a report, make it only accessible through your Web site. Then get the word out by mailing postcards. To make your postcards more enticing, you could use stats or a small graphic from the report on the postcard. Make sure you have some kind of system in place on your Web site that makes the visitor submit their name and email address to download the report so you can build up your mailing list or customer base.
Seminar sign-up
Seminars are great tools for many industries, like real estate, investing, technology, etc. If you host or sponsor a seminar, you can create a registration form or sign-up “sheet” on your Web site and send out postcards to let people know where they can register. Announce the seminar, along with the vital info such as place, time, cost, etc. on your postcard. Be sure to also include a benefit-laden headline. What will people learn or receive at the seminar that they can’t get elsewhere? You might even want to add some kind of incentive for people to sign up through your Web site, like a free product (that has your logo and name on it!).
Offer a free digital trial
If you sell anything digital like e-books or software, you could offer a free trial period or a sample download through your Web site. You could mail out a postcard to let people know where they can get their free trial and give them some kind of access code or coupon code. Make sure to put a time limit on your offer to prompt people to try your product sooner rather than later, because people are more likely to forget later.
E-newsletter subscription
Create an e-newsletter that you send out at consistent intervals, like once a month or once a week. Whatever schedule you come up with, stick to it! Your e-newsletter should contain helpful and interesting info that your customers possibly wouldn’t get elsewhere. Include info about your company’s doings, but also about what’s going on in the industry that customers might not be aware of. Mail out postcards announcing your e-newsletter and create a landing page on your Web site with a short URL so it’s easy for people to type. “Yours.com/newsletter” is much easier to type and remember than “yours.com/newsletter/url12685/3652-signup-i-am-making-this-up/.”
Which Marketing Mix of Strategies is For You?
There are so many different ways to communicate to customers through marketing – you’ve got everything from postcards to billboards to television commercials. Generally, companies divide themselves into who they sell to – businesses or consumers. Business-to-business (B2B) companies reach their customers differently than business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. Here’s an outline of which kind of marketing mix is best used for each type of business.
In B2B selling, customers are reached through the following channels:
• Mass media: print, fax, email, Internet, broadcast
• One-on-one: presentations, email
• Trade shows
• Customer referrals
In C2B selling, customers are reached through these channels:
• Mass media: commercials, Internet, print
• Display: building, signage, billboards, location, counter or shelf displays
• One-on-one: door to door, letter, telephone, email
• Follow up: in person, email, letter, telephone
You’ll notice that there are some overlaps. That’s okay – when it all boils down, you’re still selling to people. Businesses are made of people and the people are who make the buying decisions.
Let’s talk about a few of these options in greater detail:
Mass media: Many marketers think mass media is the end all and be all of marketing. And don’t get me wrong – mass media is one of the main marketing channels for B2B and B2C companies. But, mass media is generally reserved for sales (meaning discounts) and to introduce new products or services.
Display marketing: This works best for B2C marketing because most consumers will travel to your store to buy your product. Many businesses will not. Businesses are too busy to travel from store to store to pick up goods, which is why they generally have everything shipped to them. Displays also encourage impulse buying, which businesses are somewhat immune from because everything they purchase is preordered.
One-on-one marketing: One-on-one marketing works for both types of companies because it’s the most personal way to build a relationship with customers. You talk with them and there’s rapport there. You can also personalize your presentation or lineup of products for each consumer or business. This tactic is most time-consuming, but it can pay off in ways that impersonal marketing can’t.
Speaking of impersonal and personal marketing, these broader categories can also determine your marketing mix:
Personal marketing
• One-on-one: presentations, email, letters, telephone, direct mail
• Your selling environment (your store atmosphere)
• Networking
• Trade shows
Impersonal marketing
• Mass media: print, broadcast
• Display: billboards, location, signage
• General email
Generally, personal marketing is aimed at current customers and impersonal marketing is aimed at prospects. You don’t want to get all up in a prospect’s personal space (real and virtual) because they don’t know you yet and aren’t comfortable with you. If you send an email that has the prospect’s name on it, like “Dear Molly,” Molly’s going to think “You don’t know me so don’t call me by my first name.” However, Joe who is your customer already, will welcome your email opening of “Dear Joe.” He’ll think nothing of your personal greeting.
Now that you know the categories of marketing, you can make your own marketing mix based on whether you want to go personal or impersonal, or based on your type of company. If you’ve already used mass media to reach your customers, you can try some one-on-one marketing to mix it up. There is no right way to market to a group of customers because each group is different. But you can find your own effective marketing mix from these lists and tweak it as you go along.
Basic Copywriting for Non-Copywriters
If you’re an entrepreneur who has decided it’s time to take a crack at writing your own copy for your marketing materials, this article is a great learning tool to help you write that first great marketing piece. There are certain basics that are common to every great marketing piece, from postcards to brochures to your Web site.
Here’s a quick mini-lesson you’ll want to print out and use when you sit down to write your first marketing copy.
Lesson 1: Write directly to the person that will be reading the copy
Although you are marketing to the masses, each mass is made up of individuals. Other than grade school, people don’t read in unison with each other as a group. Ads are seen by only one person at a time. The individuals that make up your target market should share many similarities, so it shouldn’t be hard to write to that individual.
Imagine you have your best prospect sitting across from you at a table. What do you need to say to get that prospect to shake your hand and make a deal to buy your product, right then and there? This is how you should approach writing your marketing material – talk directly to the prospect. The most obvious way to talk directly to someone is to address her with the word “you.” Ask “Do you have XX problem?” Talk right to them.
Lesson 2: It’s not all about you
Don’t talk about yourself and your company in your advertising copy. Take out all of the “we” and “our” instances in your first draft and rewrite those sentences with “you” and “your.” For instance, the sentence “We can deliver our product in 24 hours” is more effective when rewritten to “You’ll receive your new product in 24 hours.” Using “you” and variations of the word is known as “outer-directed” language. You are indulging people in what they like to do best: watch out for themselves and try to get the best deal.
Lesson 3: Talk about benefits, rather than features
This is somewhat of an extension of Lesson 2. People pay attention to messages that tell them something they want to hear. They want to hear how a product or service can solve a problem for them or make their lives easier somehow. And with so many ads directed at people through all kinds of media – newspapers, magazines, television, billboards, the Internet – you need to grab people’s attention immediately before they move on to the next thing.
The best way to grab attention is to tout a benefit right off the bat – at the top of your flyer, on the front of your brochure, at the beginning of your TV commercial, etc. Use benefit-ridden headlines in all of your print materials and make those headlines bigger and a brighter color than the body copy (that’s the smaller copy).
Lesson 4: Keep it short
Good copywriters don’t use a longer word when a shorter one will do. And oftentimes, the shorter word is the more common word in a language so you lessen the risk of alienating anyone who might not know what a longer word means.
Get straight to the point and use words that evoke mental images or sounds. You won’t have more than 20 seconds on average for your marketing materials to be deemed worthy of further reading so you need to get as much info (meaning benefits) as you can in that short of space and time.
Lesson 5: Ask a question or give a command
Many marketing pieces open with a question to get people thinking. Questions intrigue people and get them engaged with your message. Including a command, like “Call now” persuades people to take action when they otherwise wouldn’t. Commanding people to do what you want them to in marketing copy is known as a “call to action.” You tell them what they should do next and make it as easy as possible for the reader to take that action.
Everyone Loves Colorful Stuff in the Mail
Sorting through the mail is rarely a particularly exciting point in my day. Unless I know something is coming I typically don’t put any thought to what I might find, which is the very reason why a colorful postcard can be so successful. I’m not prepared for it, not expecting it, and it can be nice to take a moment to pause and absorb it. The fact that I wasn’t expecting it is part of what makes it so nice to see. I kind of like having the routine of my day momentarily put on hold, and few things can make me appreciate a company more than the ability to put a smile on my face when I least expect it.
Entry by Philip Roberts
