Print 4A Purpose

Marketing Conversation - Envelope Marketing

Envelopes Gone Wild - Here are some cutting edge examples of envelopes use to their fullest.

 

The X's and O's of Effective Postcard Marketing Design

 Contact: David A Moore - Advantage Printing is a commercial print and marketing service provider serving churches, nonprofits and small businesses.

 Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidamoore

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4 Ways To Do B2B Direct Mail Marketing Right

 Today, I recieved a piece in the mail from one of my suppliers and it was a perfect example of a B2B company doing marketing and directly mail in an interesting and engaging way.  My hat is off to Appleton and www.TeamAppleton.com.

 Advantage Printing is a commercial print and marketing service provider serving churches, nonprofits and small businesses.

 Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidamoore

 www.facebook.com/davidmoore.me

 

 

Finding the Right Printer

Finding the right printer for your project is determined by:

• What are your job specifications or requirements?
• Is your job "print-ready"? Or do you need any pre-press services?
• Is the printer experienced in your industry or project type?
• Do you trust them?

What type of printing press does the job require?

Printing is a hugely complex industry with endless combinations of equipment, skills, and levels of quality results. For the purposes of this discussion, processes will be limited to printing of only black or color inks on paper.

At the most basic level – if you are printing black and white alone – a high-quality, highspeed DIGITAL PHOTOCOPIER may provide you with perfectly adequate results. Systems such as Xerox 4112 print at 600 dpi (dots per inch) on two sides of paper up to 11 x 17 inches and paper stocks up to 110# index.

If in need full-color project, a high speed DIGITAL PRINTING PRESS like the Xerox 700 Digital Press can deliver very high "photo" quality full-color results on two sides of paper up to 13 x 19 and a wide range of paper stocks. The digital process is perfect for smaller projects of less than 1000 and sometimes up to 5000 – 10,000. The digital process requires very little set up and there are not the offset "plate" costs. However, unlike offset jobs, it costs just as much to print the first copy as it does the 10,000^th. Due to a fixed "click" charge from Xerox, for example, the job costs are the same throughout the job.

If you are printing one or two "spot" colors only (and black is considered a color), your piece includes high resolution (1200 dpi and up) output, you are printing on heavy or rough paper stock, and/or you need quantities of 1000 or more – you should consider moving to SHEET-FED OFFSET PRESS (DUPLICATOR). The offset press can handle sheet sizes up to 11 x 17 and some print one color at a time while others print four or more colors. The number of prints is important because of the time it takes to set up each printing job and the printing "plate" required for each color and side. Therefore, the cost to print the first copy is very high while the cost to print the 10,000^th is very small. All the costs are incurred on the front-end.

If you are printing more than four colors, quantities greater than 10,000 and sheet sizes over 11 x 17, search for large SHEET-FED PRESS or WEB PRESS.

Therefore, price depends on the process, the equipment used, the number of colors and the speed in which the job can be printed. Generally, the more colors involved and the longer it takes to print, the more the job will cost. More specifically, a special order color, high-quality paper, perfect registration, a printer must charge more to run the job.

What other services does the printer offer?

Graphic Design / Prepress - If your files are "print-ready," you may not need the services of a graphic designer on the staff. But if you need some help with your design or any unforeseen technical problems arise, you will need help in the prepress department. Without support in this area, it is totally your responsibility to have the file ready to go to press. If the file is not ready, the printer will not accept it. And when the file is accepted, it will be printed exactly as presented. So you had better be confident that you file is just as your want it.

Bindery / Finishing – Some projects are simply printed and ready for delivery. Others need to be cut to the desired finished size, folded, or bound together in some type of "book" format. Many of these additional services require specialized equipment that not all printers have in-house. If a printer has to send out your printing project to have it finished, it might cost you time and money. Generally speaking, a printer can do the job cheaper and faster in-house with the proper equipment.

Does your printing require a specialist?

Would it make a difference if your printer knew your industry? You bet it would. Don't be worried if your printer prints for your competition, it's to your advantage. If the printer is familiar with inner workings of your industry or project type, they can save you money, time and perhaps give you insights you might not have considered. Ask for samples of projects similar to yours.

It all boils down to TRUST?

You can find a printer with the exact equipment to print your project. They can have all the support staff you need for design tweaks or technical glitches. You've checked the samples and they have industry experience. One final question: Do you trust the printer?

• Trust is something that you can't put a price on or fit neatly into a timeline.
• Trust in your printer can relieve anxiety about deadlines.
• Trust in your printer can give you confidence to push the envelope on future projects.
• Trust in your printer will help you serve your members, clients, customers in new and different ways.

Advantage Printing is a commercial print and marketing service provider serving churches, nonprofits and small to mid-sized businesses.

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidamoore or www.twitter.com/churchprinter

 

4 Tips to Improve Your Carbonless (NCR) Form Printing

Did you know that carbonless paper ages? If you've ever used a carbonless form that doesn't print very dark on the second or third sheets, the problem is most likely caused by old paper that contains dried-out micro ink capsules. There are "deals" out there to buy the old carbonless paper which helps competitors' lower input costs and therefore be the cheapest supplier. But that's exactly what you get…cheap.

At Advantage, we only purchase fresh carbonless paper!

Carbonless Form Production and Design Tips:

1. Give yourself 1/2" of white space at the top of any carbonless form. Occasionally, the padding compound that is used to bond the multiple parts will bleed down from the padding edge and cause the top 1/8" of the paper to wrinkle slightly. White space makes it very hard to notice the wrinkling.
2. Just because carbonless forms are practical doesn't mean they have to be boring. Experiment with bold graphics to add pizzazz to your next project. In addition, two colors of ink can make a dramatic improvement in the appearance of carbonless forms, most of which are printed in black ink.
3. Since many carbonless business forms are saved or filed for record keeping, why not consider designing the form so it includes three-hole drilling on the left side for those who want to archive their forms in three-ring binders?
4. Consider shrink-wrapping the finished carbonless forms. They'll look nicer and actually last longer.

    

For more production and design ideas, visit our Idea Page.

 

Advantage Printing is a commercial print and marketing service provider serving small to mid-sized businesses, nonprofits and churches.

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidamoore

 

 

How to Handle Price Objections

Have you ever had a customer ask you to lower your price? Have you ever heard, "Is that the best you can do?" We all have.

Just today I had a customer who has been printing with us for many, many years. Not a big account by any means and much smaller than it used to be. However, he is very loyal and there certainly is value in that. But his business has slowed and he was looking for a price break for a recent reorder.

It was a very small order to me, but it wasn't to him. Sometimes it's hard to remember that the $100,000 and $1,000,000 revenues are made up of many, many smaller sales.

So he was asking for a break. What did I do?

A few months ago we installed some new software which gives us a much better handle on our costs involved in jobs. It has helped me be more competitive and taken out a lot of guess work in pricing jobs. It has tons of other management tools where I have barely scratched the surface.

So here's what I did. I was able to pull the job I priced for him and look at the hard costs involved. For example, let's say he wanted some NCR forms and the quoted price was $135.00. He was asking of we could reduce the price "since times were slow for him". (Apparently he's not reading the news about how bad things are for printers!) With the job details in front of me, I told him that my hard costs were $100.00 in this job. I told him, "I'm making only $35.00 on this job, what do YOU think I should make?"

That changed the dynamics of the conversation. Being a businessman himself, he could recognize how thin margins were. So then the discussion became a joint effort in how the job could be changed to reduce my costs and his price.

We changed some of the specs. I reduced his price. He was happy and my margins remained intact.

And by the way, if you need 500 to 500,000 NCR Carbonless Forms, I'm your guy.

Advantage Printing is a commercial print and marketing service provider serving small to mid-sized businesses, nonprofits and churches.

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidamoore

Die Cut Business Cards

Business cards are the ultimate marketing tool. Or at least they can be if it stands out. Think about it, 9 out of 10 business cards are the traditional shape and size. What makes yours different? I am personally considering a complete redesign of my business card. One of the ways to be different is with something called a die cut.

Die cut business cards provide the opportunity to be creative and leave a lasting impression on your customers and prospects. Here are a few ways to use die cut cards:

Choose the best shape

Business card designs can range from the simple to complex and be created to match any type of business. For example, if you want to promote your window business, you can create a card with the windows cut out of it. Or a bakery may be shaped like a cake with a bite or slice out of it.

Maximize your real estate

Remember to use both sides of the card. On the back, put special offers, your mission statement, or upcoming events. It will cost just a little bit more, but you maximize your investment in this tool.

Select quality paper

If your card is too thin, it's flimsy (although some specialty papers will have a unique impact as well). If the card is too thick, it won't fit into wallets. A glossy finish will accent images, while a matte finish will add richness and depth to colors.

Proof it

Always, always, always proof. Its well worth the wait and extra time and trouble to proof your card.

Order volume

After the design and setup, business cards are cheap. After 1000, you're printing for pennies.

Die cut cards can help you develop your brand and strengthen your image. Your customers and prospects will not only hold on to your card, but they'll likely show it off to colleagues or friends. This can exponentially increase the marketing effectiveness.

If you're looking for other unique ways that you can grab attention, give us a call or visit our Idea Page. Our team of creative experts can help you develop marketing materials that stands apart from the crowd.

Advantage Printing is a commercial print and marketing service provider serving small to mid-sized businesses, nonprofits and churches.

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidamoore

 

Capturing Customers’ Lifetime Value through Emotions

I have written recently on the importance of focusing marketing efforts not only on customer acquisition, but on customer retention as well. The comments below were forwarded to me by one of my Xerox representatives, Tami Kolb. The comments are from one of the speakers at a Xerox "Thought Leadership Workshop".

Understanding the emotions behind purchasing behavior is critical to any business, whether in the B2B or B2C space. Once you understand emotional influences, you can then create highly relevant, meaningful messages, graphic presentations and promotions that will draw customers to your brand and capture their lifetime value.

Capturing lifetime value is one of the most important goals of any marketing program.

Research shows that it typically costs $20 on average to gain a new customer and only $4 to retain a customer.

Regardless whether you work in the B2B or B2C space, you must understand the emotions associated with purchasing decisions for your products or services. You must understand those emotions in order to connect with customers, draw them to your brand and build personal value and equity that lasts a lifetime.

Capturing customers' lifetime value is essential to staying competitive and profitable in today's highly competitive and clutter markets.

What's interesting is that the comments apply across all business types but in this particular case very tangible for me. We are in the process of taking delivery of a couple of new Xerox digital presses. We have had Xerox in the printshop for many years, but a comparison analysis is always done in a purchase or lease of this size. But during the whole decision making process, I could "feel" my loyalty to Xerox. The competitors were going to have to beat Xerox. It wasn't even a level playing field because of the loyalty and bond I felt with Xerox from the beginning. And the bond isn't necessarily with a machine of course, it's the people. I have a relationship with the Xerox rep, Tami Kolb; the local distributor, Scott Williams; and the service technicians have been phenomenal.

Combine the relationships with a track record of performance; they have captured lifetime value.

Advantage Printing is a commercial print & marketing services provider serving small and mid-sized businesses, nonprofits and churches.

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidamoore

 

How to Make Your Print Marketing More Affordable

One of my favorite bloggers and top notch nonprofit marketing consultants wrote a blog post yesterday titled the same as above. I really admire and respect Kivi Leroux Miller for her expertise in the nonprofit industry. She should certainly be on your short list if you want consultation from a nonprofit expert.

But Kivi is not a printing expert. While in her "How to Make Your Print Marketing More Affordable" she made some valid points, she also missed the mark a few times. I run a commercial print and marketing company that serves a great number of nonprofit organizations in my community. Combined with fairly good advice I felt like she was throwing printers under the bus. She advises, "Tell him you are considering dropping the newsletter entirely because of the expense." Well, just in case no one noticed, the printing industry has literally been a "nonprofit" over the last couple of years. Printer bankruptcy and closings are happening every day. And any organization, nonprofit or otherwise, trying to negotiate pricing in this way is very unprofessional. The fact is, at least with my company, we already discount pricing to nonprofits from the beginning. This is no margin for further reductions.

Additional points:

Default should be an e-newsletter instead of print newsletters as the primary communication tool. This doesn't bother me too much but that's only because we also provide email marketing as a service. But statistics show that the majority of donors to nonprofits are older. Statistics also show that older givers prefer print. They prefer something to hold on to versus the email. For the donor population in general, print cannot be abandoned. The trend is changing, but for now, print is still king.

One of the best untapped resources is your printer. She's right about this. Hopefully your printer has already suggested ways you can improve the effect of your marketing materials, the quality and the cost basis.

Paper is typically 30-50% of printing costs. Wrong. Not typically. This can be true when very high quality paper is being used. You will see this when attorneys choose a 25% cotton linen for letterhead and envelopes. But I have never seen a frugal nonprofit use anything but basic 20# bond or 60# offset for common print projects. When these papers are being used, paper costs are an insignificant factor. And changing the brightness of whites to save money (10-15%) is ludicrous. For example, I can show any Executive Director a 20# bond 98 Bright that's cheaper than a 20# bond 92 Bright. So while the Brightness can be a guide on price, is certainly isn't the rule. Kivi also suggested a thinner paper to save money. Understand that if a paper is too "thin" you can only print on one side and will have to use twice as much. Look at the real costs. Paper is priced per thousand and please don't print on inferior paper to save less than ½ a penny per page. I can "upgrade" an organization to a nice 24# over a 20# for less than ½ a penny (that's .005).

Don't be picky about colors. Kivi was right on target here. Many organizations will spend a lot of money on a fancy, multi-color logo design. Most anything more than two colors is a waste of money. You'll have to spend a small fortune on printing because every time you use your logo you have to print in full color. You rule out the opportunity to use black only or one or two-color presses.

Prepare your files correctly. Again, great time-saving and money-saving advice here. In fact, seems she is the only that realizes that "it's not as simple as handing over the file from the computer program you used to create the document".

I hope this clarifies and maybe educates on these issues. Kivi, no hard feelings I hope. Better yet, it would be great if this generates more conversations and deepens relationships between quality nonprofits and quality printers. And, please, nonprofit readers; everything that Kivi Leroux Miller writes is worthy of your reading. In fact, she has a new book coming out in the Spring 2010. In the meantime, you can get priceless information on her www. Nonprofit Marketing Guide Blog and webinars. By listening to her, the money you save and additional funds you raise can be spent on quality printing!

Advantage Printing is a commercial print & marketing services provider serving small and mid-sized businesses, nonprofits and churches.

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidamoore

REJECTED! Price vs. Trust

About a week ago I learned that I had lost out on a significant piece of business. What hurts the most is it was a high potential customer in a key market and the printed items were right in our "sweet spot". But get this…I lost the business and my price was CHEAPER.

When it was time to follow up on my proposal, I was told that I lost the business. I was told who got it. I already new the competitor's price was a little higher than mine. Hmmmm? At the end of the conversation, I asked if I could stay in touch and if the buyer would mind me sending my email newsletter a couple times per month. NO.

What? This really doesn't make sense. I lost the business to a higher price and now and I can't even send my newsletter? What's up with that? This bothered me very much initially, but over the next several days I have learned to appreciate it.

Here are the benefits of this rejection:

• I learned a great deal about the printing needs and potential of this prospect.
• I know for a fact that PRICE is not the most important decision factor.
• This buyer is very open and honest. She could have strung me along for weeks by telling me that a decision had yet to be made. How valuable was that?
• She gave me the competitor's price! How lucky was that!
• I know that when she accepts my newsletter, she will READ it.
• I also need to rethink my initial approach, presentation and follow up. Did I drop the ball? Did I offend in some way?

Winning or losing new printing business comes down to TRUST. Price is important, especially in this economy. But price never trumps TRUST. When a buyer wants to look good and can't afford to make the wrong decision, he/she will pick a printer they can TRUST before they pick the cheapest printer.

If you're looking for a printer that will "make you look good", contact me or my staff. I have member of my team that have been doing this so long they are embarrassed to say how long. But I have also tapped into creative talent for fresh, bold designs.

Advantage Printing is a commercial print & marketing services provider serving small and mid-sized businesses, nonprofits and churches.

Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/davidamoore