Useful Printing Info & Some Other Stuff

How to choose between UV and aqueous coating on your printed materials

There are three types of coating that can be applied over printing; varnish, aqueous, and UV.  I am going to discuss aqueous and UV. Aqueous of course is water-based and available in a matte and gloss finish but, when compared to UV gloss aqueous gloss is more of a semi-gloss. Aqueous coating can be applied in-line over wet ink.  The coating dries immediately which allows the printer to finish the product (cut, bind, hole punch etc) right away.  These coatings are typically used on paper stocks such as 100# text when printing marketing materials such as flyers and brochures. Printing with an aqueous coating can normally be written on using ball point pen, but as you know there are a lot of different types of pens so it is not guaranteed. If you are having a mailing service address your postcards their ink jet printing will work fine.  Address printing from some home mailing equipment may smear. An address label will definitely stick.

UV coatings dry immediately by ultra-violet light.  UV coatings are available in gloss and matte but gloss is more common. These coatings  create a tough, almost scratch resistant surface. It is not easy to write no printed piece with gloss UV coating. Some pens may write on UV coating but they actually just leave more of an indentation than they do write.  When writing on UV coating, a permanent marker is your best bet.  UV gloss coating is mainly used on business cards, postcards, door hangers and other products printed on heavier 12 or 14 point stock. When printing with UV coating on postcards that are being mailed the address side must be uncoated. If you tend to write on the back of your business cards as my car dealer customers do remember to order them with an uncoated back.

Both coatings will enhance the color but gloss UV really makes the colors pop.  When selecting your coating options be careful to take into consideration the end use of the product.

Add 7 cents to your networking investment

Networking events are great opportunities to meet new people and build relationships that may turn into business.  You've decided to invest the time but are you investing wisely?  There are plenty of books, articles, and blogs dedicated to the art of networking and I'm not an expert in that field so I am not writing about how to network.  My question is do you have the proper equipment  to enter the playing field, and is your equipment better than your competitions? During the event you are going to strike up several conversations, some of which will end with the exchanging of business cards. Is your business card going to get a quick glance before being shoved in with the rest of the evening's collection? Or is the person going to take note of your card, find it interesting, and even show it to friends, colleagues, and associates? A custom designed full color business card is guaranteed to do the latter.

After a networking event everyone does the same thing, they find themselves with a stack of business cards that they don't know what to do with.  What happens next?  They rifle through them, keep a couple, and pitch the rest.  Lets hope they keep yours. The picture below shows the back of a business card that belongs to one of my clients.  Chances are that when he gives you this card you will turn it over and read it, remember it, and show it to others. To answer my original question, are you investing wisely?  How much is your time worth?  I would argue that investing 7 cents a business card will substantially increase your networking effectiveness.

Using color increases readership,recall and desire to act

Every year around this time I receive a postcard in the mail from about four different companies that want to service my sprinkler system.  I also receive about the same amount of postcards from companies that want me to hire them to maintain my lawn. FACT: I don't give any of them any consideration and throw the postcards in the circular file. WHY?  Most are a plain white flimsy card that looks like it was printed by a 1970's duplicator that my teachers used to print pop quizzes. They look kind of like the reminder cards that I get from the dentist.  I didn't like taking pop quizzes in school and I don't like going to the dentist, so immediately the postcard conjures up bad memories. Sometimes I'll give them a quick glance but there is nothing to keep my attention, no picture, no offer to save money, no mention of the benefits I'll receive.

It's a pretty good bet that these companies are not sending me a postcard because they had nothing better to do with their time and money, they mail out postcards to get new customers or retain customers and to make money. This is why I'm confused. I called my local copy center (a national chain) and was told that to print a 4x6 black and white postcard on an index card stock would cost 20-30 cents per 8.5"x11" sheet depending on quantity, plus $12 for cutting. I'll be nice and use the low price for this example.  To print 1000 4x6 black & white postcards on flimsy index card stock would cost $62 not including the time of driving back and forth. 2500 postcards would cost $137.  To order the same quantities printed in full color both sides on a quality 14 pt. stock including shipping would cost $71 and $131. They both cost the same to mail whether you are using bulk mail or mailing them yourself.  So, call it even on the printing and mailing cost.  But, as indicated on the above graphic full color printing increases readership, reader recall and desire to act 20%-40%.

Now you can understand my confusion.  If the goal of mailing postcards is to make money, the cost of flimsy black & white postcards vs. quality full color postcards is a wash and full color increases your chances of making money by 20-40%, why would anyone mail out a black & white postcard?

Nothing beats a great testimonial

One of your greatest challenges in business is to inspire trust in your prospects. Using testimonials can help you accomplish it. Your prospective clients expect you to endorse your product. But when other people say good things about your product or service it’s much more powerful.

The problem is that while your clients may love your product or service writing a testimonial for you is not first on their mind. So what do you do about it? Ask. Call them and ask if they would write you a testimonial that you can use in your marketing materials. Next send them a letter thanking them in advance and enclose a self-addresses stamped envelope. If they respond better to email send them a thank you email and ask that they simply reply with their testimonial. Be careful, not often will a testimonial have the impact you were hoping for. So, when you request the testimonial there is nothing wrong with asking your client what to include in the testimonial. Here are some keys to a good testimonial.

Ask for specifics. "Bill did a great job remodeling our kitchen" does not have the impact of "Bill took the time to understand our needs and budget.  He then designed our dream kitchen and was very open to our ideas and to changes. He cleaned-up each day and the completed job is beautiful".

Edit lightly. It's okay to correct grammatical errors and shorten wordy statements but don't change meanings.  Don't edit it to where it sounds scripted.  People want to read testimonials that sound like they talk.

Short vs. long.  Use several short testimonials but a few long ones won't hurt if they are really good.

Use quotation marks. Studies show that people respond more to quoted copy and their eyes are drawn to it.  Quotes make it more believable.

Use full names and location. Ask your client for permission to use their full name, title and location. It makes the testimonial much more powerful.  Using initals or just a first name and city (Jim, Cleveland) looks fake. Below their location include their web address.  If the testimonial is being used on your website, create a link. This will give the testimonial much more credibility.

Group testimonials together. If I am designing a printed piece to market full color business cards than I want to use testimonials about full color business cards not about envelopes and letterhead.

 

EXAMPLES

I use Full Color Resources for all my marketing projects.  Mark has been extremely friendly and helpful.  He is quick to reply and stays on top of a project until it is finished.  When I receive the product it always looks fabulous!  FCR has reduced my printing costs too.  I highly recommend FCR.  They are reliable, cost effective and great to work with.  I wouldn't go anywhere else.

 

Michelle Cook

Cady Reporting Services, Cleveland OH

www.cadyreporting.com

 

 

 

I'm so glad I found Mark and Full Color Resources. My printing needs are met simply by emailing Mark and letting him know what I need. The items arrive at my door or the door of any of my branch offices without any further follow up.  I love not having to worry about the status of my projects, and the prices are great too.

 

Diane Edmiston

Resource Title Agency, Independence OH

www.resourcetitle.com

 

 

The Right Words In Your Brochure Or Postcard Can Make A Difference

Full color is guaranteed to pay off for landscapers and everybody.

It's that time of year when the warmer weather means business for landscapers, and landscaping is definitely an industry where there is a lot of competition.  That's not bad, there is probably plenty of landscape to go around. I have several landscapers as clients (that have really nice printed marketing materials) and there are a lot of them in the area.  As you can see by the Google map below, within about a fifteen minute drive there are 38 (a least that's how many Google knows about).  So what does that mean? That means if you are a landscaper and I'm in your geographic target market, chances are a lot of your competitors are marketing to me too. It means that homeowners are getting a lot of printed marketing materials from landscapers.  These printed materials come in all shapes and sizes. At my house we have received postcards that are delivered in the mail, postcards stuck under my mailbox,  door hangers, flyers and business card magnets. Some good, most bad and I don't understand why.  If you are going to spend the time driving mailbox to mailbox delivering your flyers, is the cost savings of cheesy black and white (poor quality) copies really worth it?  One thousand full color flyers 2-sided cost about $150 or 15 cents each.  I called my local copy center (a national chain) and 2-sided black & white copies are 20 cents each. For this argument lets stick with 1-sided which are 10 cents each.  Mr. Landscaper has saved a whopping $50 using cheesy 1-sided black & white copies instead of 2-side full color flyers to market to 1000 potential customers. So if he used full color flyers how many more jobs would he need to sell to make up that $50?  Based on the cost of the landscaping that I had done last summer he would need about .1% of a customer.  That's right it's not a typo, I said point one percent. Look at the graphic below about the impact of color and do the math.

I've also received some very nice printed full color postcards and full color door hangers. The problem was they didn't offer me anything, not so much as a free pack of seeds. The point is that if you are going to market you had better make an offer to entice your prospect to act and give it a deadline so that they act right away or they're going to get another marketing piece from your competition before they call you. If the competition's piece looks better and has a better offer their getting the call, not you.

Competition is fierce, make your marketing materials stand out from the crowd.  Give your prospects a reason to act.  It will pay off.

 

            

'Cheap does not mean 'good' when buying printing.

There are a lot of printers that want your business; google 'printing' and you'll get 169,000,000 results.  Googling 'full color business card printing' will narrow it down to a manageable 22,000,000. Realistically you're not going to go past the first couple pages anyhow. A large percentage of those sites are going to use terms such as cheap, budget & discount. There is nothing wrong with shopping for the best price.  Today you can get high quality full color printing at a very affordable price, often less expensive that 1 or 2 color printing. Not so long ago you would pay much more for full color printing. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know about shopping online, but Caveat emptier, buyer beware.  Here are a few things to look for:

Request samples. Any reputable printer should provide free samples, usually you can request them on their web site.  If they don't offer samples I would be concerned about what the final product is going to look like.

Stock (paper). You certainly do not want a flimsy stock for your business card or postcard,certainly no less that 100# cover. But don't be tricked. Without getting into too much technical mumbo-jumbo, all basis weights such as 100# are not created equal and you cannot always assume paper thickness by knowing the basis weight. Not all WHITE paper is created equal.  Paper is rated on a brightness sack from 0-100.  Paper s also rated by WHITENESS, there is balanced white, warm white, and blue white. The safest thing to do is get samples, the worst that can happen is that it will prolong your placing an order for a few days.

Print Quality. Full color offset printing is actually a series of dots,  see my blog post "Your Full Color Printing is Really Just a Bunch of Dots". The quality of printing is determined buy the screen that is used. While all files that you submit to a printer must be a minimum of 300dpi, screen ruling determines the number of rows or lines of dots per inch in a screen for making the printing plate. For example the photos in a newspaper are produced with a 85 - 100 line screen,  When you read the paper you can see the dots that create the photo.  Most commercial printers use screens ranging from 170 - 220 line screens.  Full Color Resources uses a 500 line screen, our printing is photo quality.

 

Size Doesn't Matter, Postcards Don't Work Anyway - BALONEY!

If I've heard it once I've heard it a billion times: "postcard mailings don't work and are a waste of money".  Your right if you only send a postcard out once, a single mailing doesn't work so don't waste your money.  A mailing campaign works.  But, there's a catch, you can't send out a bunch of postcards to just anyone and hope for business. Target your audience, a postcard campaign to 500 well targeted prospects (see my post on Finding your Bulls-eye market) will create more business than a campaign of 5000 using the shotgun approach.

Size does matter, the bigger the better.  People sort their mail over the trash can, your postcard had better stick out. Postage on a standard postcard no larger than 4.25"x6" is 28 cents.  Postage on anything anything larger, up to 6.125x11.5 is 44 cents. So, if you are going to go large go to the maximum size for the most impact, 6"x11". If you have your postcards bulk sorted and mailed you will save big. I recently mailed 8.5x5.5 postcards for a client @ 19 cents each, that's a postage savings of $125. The mailing charge, which includes data processing, C.A.S.S. certification, de-duplicating your address list, pre-sorting & USPS documentation, ink-jet addressing, and delivery to post office is $85.  You do the math.

If mailing a larger postcard does not fit your budget and you're mailing a 4.25x6 than your frequency should be no more than 2 weeks apart.  A sequence of 4.25x6 postcards with an oversized postcard thrown in is your best bet for maximum impact.

 

In a future post I'll tell you how to design a postcard that works.

        

                            

Find your bulls-eye market before mailing your postcards

The only way for a small business to market effectively is to target market.  The only way to be VERY effective in your marketing is to bulls-eye market.

For example, a target market for a remodeling contractor that specializes in remodeling basements may be homeowners.  But that covers a lot of ground, many of which have absolutely no interest.  A better target market would be homeowners that have lived in their home less than 3 years.  An even better target is people that have built a home within the last 2 years.  Better yet, a two-income household that built a home within the last two years.   But the bulls-eye may be a two-income household that built a home within the last 2 years that has kids.  They need the extra room and they need it now!

If you are not sure of your bulls-eye market do some research.  Search the Internet, the library, do your own market survey.  Determine what your best customers have in common.  What do they read?  What problems do they have?  What problems did you solve?  How did they find you?  What is the biggest benefit they receive from doing business with you?  Just ask; people love to talk about themselves!  Be creative in finding your bulls-eye market. Don't waste your time & money mailing postcards without doing your research, it will pay off.

 

 

                                           

Use colors that your target market will respond to.

There is a lot to the psychology of color, color affects shopping habits. Impulse-shoppers respond to red-orange, black, and royal blue. So if the flyers your having printed are targeting impulse shoppers, use these colors. Shoppers who plan to stick to budgets respond to pink, teal, light blue and navy.  If your target customers are budget conscience (for example if you are selling home improvement) and you are creating a direct mail postcard, use pink,  teal, light blue and navy. Traditionalists respond to pastels. If you're marketing to lower income use bolder brighter colors on your business card or postcard because that's what appeals to those customers. Higher incomes are attracted by more subtle colors so design your brochure with subtle color to get the attention of this target market. A good designer that designs to your target market is worth every penny.