Digital Print

Wide Format Printing — In your future?

April 1, 2013 Ai Marketing
Digital Print, Marketing
Leave a comment

As the economy continues to get a bit stronger, companies of all sizes are starting to re-start their marketing and sales efforts. A key component to building brand awareness and visibility is large format printing. Who uses wide format?

      • Event Coordinators & Planners — Banners, directional signage, etc.
      • Engineers & Architects — Architectural plans and elevation drawings.
      • Universities, Colleges & Schools — Research details, Department informational signs, event signage
      • General Business Use — Storefront identification, On-site promotions, QR Code display

Some things to keep in to keep in mind? Can your provider handle all of your wide format needs and other graphic needs in one place to ensure consistent color and brand maintenance? Can your provider handle other marketing communication needs like email blasts, direct mail, etc?

It is possible to find cheap vendors, but it is your brand that is at risk.

Read More

Eco-friendly Direct Mail Marketing Ideas

February 22, 2013 Ai Marketing
Digital Print, Direct Mail, Marketing, Multichannel Marketing, Offset Printing, Print Campaigns
Leave a comment

With the advent of online marketing, the world of direct mail marketing has taken quite a hit. Also, most people think that direct mail marketing is very harmful to the environment, and switch to paperless forms of communication. However, direct mail marketing is on the comeback as marketers can send more personal and creative messages via direct mail marketing. So can a marketer continue sending bulk direct mails and be eco-friendly at the same time? Here are a few ideas that will help any direct mail marketer go green!

Use reusable envelopes

One type of eco-friendly envelope is the reusable envelope. This envelope is approved by the United States Postal Service. First and foremost, these reusable envelopes are made from recycled paper. These envelopes can be used to send and return documents, thereby making them useful for both shipments. The receiver removes the old label, attaches the new label, places the documents to be returned, uses an adhesive strip to seal the package, and sends back documents in the same envelope.

Eliminate plastic windows on envelopes

Apart from reusable envelopes, marketers can use window-less envelopes for their eco-friendly direct mail marketing campaigns. The elimination of those small clear plastic windows on envelopes means that less plastic will be passed into the environment as waste. Some companies are even manufacturing bio-degradable plastic windows for envelopes. The windows on these envelopes are made from non-petroleum, corn-based materials that make them completely bio-degradable. Additionally, direct mail marketers can even use envelopes with film-free windows as they are still within the guidelines of most postal services.

Utilize eco-friendly poly-wrap

Sometimes, direct mail marketers cannot steer away from clear plastic or poly-wraps. Magazines, catalogs, etc. look attractive in poly-wrap envelopes but these are not bio-degradable. However, there are some companies that are manufacturing bio-degradable poly-wrap covers made of polypropylene and direct mail marketers are advised to use these.

Encourage recipients to recycle

Firstly, direct mail marketers must make sure that the envelopes they are using are sturdy enough to be reused by the recipients. Placing a “please recycle” message or symbol will encourage recipients to use the same envelopes when they are sending mails later on. It is recommended that marketers place clear directions for recycling on the envelopes so as to remind the recipients about the recycling process.

Make the design greener

This is perhaps the most easily implemented eco-friendly idea. Printing on both sides of the paper, using lightweight paper, choosing designs that require less paper, eliminating plastic envelopes as much as possible, using recycled paper, etc. are some basic processes that every direct mail marketer can follow to make his direct mail marketing campaign more eco-friendly

Read More

Myths on Environmental Impact of Printing Busted

February 18, 2013 Ai Marketing
Digital Print, Direct Mail, Offset Printing, Print Campaigns, Web to Print
Leave a comment

Businesses that deal in paper and printing are constantly battling to change the misconceptions people have about the industry. Through fractional information and exaggerations, this industry is now believed to be destroying the environment. A popular misconception about printing was started by the media and environmentalists without considering the truth. Here are some facts about the misconception that printing has a damaging effect on the environment.

Myth 1: Printing leads to deforestation

It is common belief that the paper-making process requires cutting down of trees. While the cycle of making paper starts from wood, it doesn’t mean that they cut down trees whenever they need to make more paper. Two out of three papers produced in the United States comes from a mixture of wood chips, recycled paper, and saw mill scraps. This reduces the need to cut down trees for every paper-making process.

Many people believe that printing leads to deforestation because of the huge paper requirement involved in the process. However, the paper industry mainly uses wood from trees that are harvested in renewable tree farms. This gives the landowners financial support to grow the trees on their land. The tree population in the United States has increased by 20% since the first Earth Day, which was held in 1970.

Printing is not the real cause of deforestation. According to a research conducted by the U.N’s World Rain forest Movement, unsustainable agricultural practices contribute to 90% of deforestation.

Myth 2: Printing is a waste

Some people believe that paper is a wasteful product and that the processes of making paper and printing only consume our natural resources. While paper-making and printing processes do require a significant amount of resources, most of them are renewable. The end products are renewable and can be recycled to create a new product. Paper is, in fact, one of the most recycled products in the world.

Thousands of businesses have decided to skip direct mail marketing mainly because of the environmental issues, they believe, it causes. Since direct mail requires paper, they assume that they will make a bad impression upon their customers if they choose to market their products through this process. However, if you learn all these facts about printing, you can understand that direct mail marketing does not pose a threat to the environment. It is one of the most personalized and affectionate ways to show your customers that you care about them.

Read More

Creating Your First Direct Mail Marketing Campaign? Here’s What You Should Know

February 14, 2013 Ai Marketing
Digital Print, Direct Mail, Marketing, Print Campaigns
Leave a comment

The cost of advertising is not cheap, especially when you hire the services of some of the best publications and advertising agencies. You don’t even know how well people will respond to your campaign. This is a risk that many businesses like small or start-up companies can’t afford to take. Direct mail marketing provides you a way to market your product or service effectively and at an affordable rate. Find out how direct mail marketing can benefit your business, and learn some quick tips on how to make it work.

How you can benefit from direct mail marketing

Direct mail marketing is a great way to test the market and see if your product is worth the money you are planning to spend on other advertising channels. This is an ideal start for many companies who wish to expand their business. Since direct mail offers numerous advantages, it is highly beneficial for smaller businesses and emerging companies. The main advantages are:

  • You can target your audience more precisely.
  • It gives you the option to create a campaign according to your budget.
  • You can easily test which words, phrases, and offers appeal most to your target audience. If you send out pieces with different offers to a random group of recipients, you can find out which offer works best.
  • It can happen very fast. Most direct mail marketing campaigns are faster than the traditional advertising campaigns.
  • You can avoid getting an overwhelming amount of responses. This is especially beneficial for smaller businesses because there might not be enough staff and resources to handle a powerful response. If you start out with a modest number of recipients, you can study the responses and prepare yourself for the next campaign.

Helpful tips for beginners

The entire process of direct mail marketing is not complicated but has to be planned carefully. When you are interested in targeting a specific demographic, you need to devise a strategy to win over your audience. Note down all the benefits of the product you’re selling, and then create your content with a focus on the features that are most likely to benefit your target audience.

For example, if you are targeting working mothers for a new beauty product, your mailing pieces should address their needs in particular. Include attractive pictures and clear descriptions of what your product does. If the product lasts for long hours without the need for constant touch-ups, stress on that part because the audience is likely to have a hectic schedule

Read More

The Essentials of Direct Mail Marketing

February 7, 2013 Ai Marketing
Digital Print, Direct Mail, Marketing, Multichannel Marketing, Print Campaigns
Leave a comment

In this age of Internet, people think that direct mailing is a waste of time and resources. So it has become one of the least used techniques of marketing, though it is one of the most effective.

Benefits of Direct Mail

There are numerous benefits of direct mailing, the prime ones being that the mailers can be targeted to specific customers and thus customized to be made attractive specifically for each customer; they are tangible and thus, if the right objects are sent through the mailer, all the senses of the customer can be engaged; the outcome of direct mail can also be computed with no trouble. Direct mail also lets you be more focused with your customer group than mass media.

The Basics of Direct Mail Marketing

There are three basic components of direct mail marketing. The first is the target market for your product. You have to decide on the correct audience to whom you are going to send your direct mail. All you have to do here is prepare a list of the names of your customers. You will get better response if you can make your list more specialized. The second basic component is the content of your mail. Your offer promoted through mail should contain the exact elements that your target audience is looking for. This would compel your prospective customers to take your campaign seriously. The last, but not least, is the presentation of your campaign – it should be able to rouse enough curiosity of the would-be customer so as to make him take a look at what you are offering.

How Do You Get Started With Direct Mail Marketing?

Like any other technique of marketing, direct mailing has its own set of steps. If you want to carry out direct mail marketing, you have to plan your campaign properly first. This involves identifying your target market in terms of what kind of people are in need of your product, and laying down your objectives in terms of what you want to achieve through this campaign.

While planning the campaign for your direct mail marketing, remember that being creative is the key to drawing the attention of the customer. Not only the content matter, but also the presentation of the mail needs to be creative. Your creativity can also extend to the type of offers you include and how interesting you can make them. Be sure that your would-be customers will read the matter ardently once you have grabbed their interest. So it’s important to include the things that would rouse their fancy. There is also a chance that they will tell their friends and family about it and you will get more buyers.

Once you have planned your campaign properly, you should execute it just as perfectly as possible. This includes preparing your mailer and sending it to the right audience. Make sure that the mailer is attractive enough for your target audience. The last step is to record and analyze the results of your campaign. This will not only help you in future campaigns but also enable you to realize how successful your current campaign is.

Read More

Have You Discovered These Direct Mail Marketing Secrets?

February 6, 2013 Ai Marketing
Digital Print, Direct Mail, Multichannel Marketing, Print Campaigns
Leave a comment

Direct mail marketing is a very good choice for promoting your goods or services. There are several secrets of direct mail marketing, though, that expert marketers have been exploiting for decades. If you haven’t yet started exploiting the advantages of this, you might find the points below quite useful.

Don’t Underestimate Your Prospects

If you think that direct mail marketing is just about sending out some boring postcards with a picture of your product or service and a matching caption, you are mistaken. In today’s busy world, you will have to do a lot better than that to engage your prospective customer’s attention. A regular mail which has a picture and a matching caption will probably make your customer toss it right into the dustbin without a second glance.

In order to grab the would-be customer’s attention through your product advertisement, you need to get creative. Developing a humorous story about how your product or service can solve their problem will catch their attention better. If you are not so creative, a simple photograph with an intriguing caption can do just as well. Remember, the longer you are able to make the prospect look at your mail, the better the chances of his response. And never go for the clichés of direct mail marketing. They will never help to engage anyone’s attention.

Apply the Results of Your Past Campaigns

If you have carried out previous campaigns, then you probably have a record of what kind of campaign or what patterns got the most response. Gather the statistics from there and create your new campaign. If you have any competitor’s data, you can also draw some ideas from there. You may also have an abundance of junk mail in your email inbox. Go through them and note down their unique characteristics and you will know what to avoid putting in your campaign.

Make the Most of What You Know

Knowledge about your market and your customer is the most important thing in direct mail marketing. Make use of whatever you know about the customer and generate your correspondence list accordingly. Being specific will help you reach out to the right customers and cut down the costs. Demographics and customer statistics are a key to getting your mailing list right.

Get Your ‘Call to Action’ Right

In direct mail, you can provide no hyperlinks as a call to action. But that doesn’t mean you can’t provide a call to action. If you have a phone number, highlight it and ask your customers to call that number. If you have email addresses or websites or any other contact details, be sure to highlight these throughout the mail, too, and ask the customers to use them.

Pay Attention to the Medium

The medium on which you print your mailer has a direct impact on the responses you get. Ideally, there should be no obstruction between the customer and your mailer, so envelopes are not desirable. If your product is expensive, then cheap paper should certainly not be your option. You should keep in mind the impression to create, and accordingly choose the quality of paper. You can use cheap paper for bulk items, though.

Read More

A Look at the 5 Top Benefits of Direct Mail Marketing

February 5, 2013 Ai Marketing
Digital Print, Direct Mail, Marketing, Multichannel Marketing, Print Campaigns
Leave a comment

One look at anyone’s email inbox will tell you how many unwanted bulk emails or spam mails we get every day. These are generally desperate attempts at promotion or push selling, but we hardly ever take a look at these emails before deleting them unceremoniously. Unlike the email inbox, however, direct mail very rarely contains spam. This ensures that customers will definitely look at your mail and not throw it away as spam. This is why you should consider, if you haven’t already, direct mail marketing to promote your company products.

Statistics Reveal That a Majority of People Sort Through Their Mail Immediately

As recorded by the United States Postal Service, most people like to check their direct mail as soon as they can. According to their statistics, at least 77% of the people receiving direct mail sort through the mails right away. This ensures that your campaign is more likely to catch the eye of a potential customer without delay.

Reach Out Effectively to Your Target Audience

Promotion is always about Return on Investment (ROI) at the end of the day. Instead of wasting extra money on advertising through the mass media, sending direct mail to selected potential customers who are in need of your product or service could be more profitable, as you would be able to gain more return through less investment.

Different Direct Mail Solutions at Your Disposal

Your direct mail material should be selected depending upon the type of your campaign. If you think that you would be able to grab the attention of your customer through a postcard, then choose a postcard to be sent as your direct mail. If you think a brochure would be better able to convey your ideas, then you should go for it.

Customize and Grab Interest

Everyone likes a touch of personalization. Using names of the customers in your campaign messages makes them feel special, and they become interested to read further into the message. Determine what they need most and address their specific concerns; they are sure to respond. Since your mail is reaching your target customers directly, you can go ahead and include certain special offers or coupons in the mail. This would urge them to use that offer or redeem the coupon, in the process making them respond to your campaign. A customized mail is bound to catch your customer’s interest.

Easily Measurable

Since you are mailing only to specific customers, measuring the effects of a direct mail campaign becomes easier. You only need to keep a track of how many responses you receive with respect to the number of letters you initiated. This statistics might also come in handy in the future when you need to make forecasts for similar campaigns.

No matter what the size of your business is, if you plan it right, you are sure to benefit from direct mail marketing campaign and reach out to your target group of consumers. Direct mail marketing can give you more ROI than most other types of campaign, and help you create greater impact as well.

Read More

Breaking Down Commercial Printing Costs

February 4, 2013 Ai Marketing
Digital Print, Offset Printing, Print Campaigns
Leave a comment

Businesses require a lot of printed material for promotional purposes. The sheer volume of printing required compels them to hire a professional than do the work themselves. While it does relieve them of the burden of printing thousands of brochures, cards or flyers, some business owners find that the costs of commercial printing are quite high. In most cases, the business feels it is paying far too much to the printer.

Yet, they don’t realize that they are getting a superior product than what they can produce on their own. Commercial printing in fact proves to be more economical and cost-effective than doing it yourself. This is because the experts are able to do it with a better quality and in lesser time. This point can be further understood by breaking down the commercial printing costs.

Read More

All You Need to Know About Printing Services

February 1, 2013 Ai Marketing
Digital Print, Print Campaigns
Leave a comment

Print is still in vogue, and not just in the fashion industry, in the business world too. Printing services are used by businesses just as much as they were prior to the digital age. Not only for printing newsletters or handbooks, but they are used for marketing purposes too. So you too have decided to use the services of professional printers to market your business but don’t know where to go next? Following are some of the things that you will need to keep in mind whenever you may need the services of the commercial printing industry:

Choosing the Right Services
There are numerous options available out there, and the first thing you will need to do is choose the one which is most suitable to your requirements. There are commercial printers available online which are the most sought after solutions in today’s times due to their convenience and comparatively lower prices. You can also go for the conventional printing agencies available in your area. There are many service providers that offer custom printing that accommodates their client’s specific needs and requirements. Choose the services which you are most comfortable with and compare prices before deciding on one.

Read More

Digital Printing vs. Conventional Printing: Which is the Best Option?

January 30, 2013 Ai Marketing
Digital Print, Offset Printing, Print Campaigns
Leave a comment

There is no dearth of options when it comes to commercial printing. Over the past few years, the trend has been to get the printed material done digitally. It has become the preferred option for both commercial printing service providers as well as businesses that have material printed regularly. While it does provide a great option in terms of quality, economy and environment friendliness, it doesn’t mean that the conventional options for printing are obsolete.
They are equally effective and viable as they ever were. Just because digital printing is a convenient option doesn’t mean it is the only option for you. You should keep conventional printing as an option till the very end, making your decision based on the needs of the hour. There are some benefits and drawbacks of both the printing methods. The only way you can make the right decision is by weighing up the benefits.

Read More
Page 1 of 612345»...Last »