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3 Logo Makeovers: 3 Reasons for a Brand Refresh

Autumn must be the time of year for updating brands – there seem to be several high profile changes recently. As companies evolve and markets change, brand gurus try to reflect new attributes and appeal to new market segments through relevant upgrades to their corporate identities. Often companies that are approaching a milestone, such as an anniverary, will deem it time to update their image. Changes in the nature of the business, the marketplace, public perceptions, trends, or the company’s mission also can justify a change. Below are three recent examples of corporations that recently responded to change with just such a makeover.

Changing Consumer Demand: Arby’s

I recently wrote about Wendy’s upcoming image remake and their accompanying planned changes to their restaurants and menu. Arby’s, in the same fast-food market, has similar updates planned in their attempt to appeal to health-conscious consumers looking for fast food choices that are also healthy, organic and interesting. Responding to competition from other chains, both Wendy’s and Arby’s see the importance of updating their menus and the importance of reflecting positive changes in their image. (Read more on these changes at Arby’s in a great article from NPR.)

I’ve always enjoyed the cowboy hat in the Arby’s logo, but am not a fan of the new bevel or extruded filter on the shape now. It seems unnecessary and a little dated. The typography of the name “Arby’s” has changed to all lower case, and the apostrophe now has an odd design in it, one I assume MIGHT be representative of a meat slicer? It’s hard to tell. The new tagline, however, is “Slicing Up Freshness™.” All this emphasis on sliced meat is perhaps due to the popularity of fresh-sliced meats such as Boar’s Head and an appeal to the postive image of fresh deli sandwiches.

 

Changing Technology and Marketplace: USA Today

USA Today, approaching its 30th anniversary and in the midst of a comprehensive sea change in the very nature of newspapers and print media, has redesigned its logo/masthead in a fresh, minimalistic remake that references the original logo yet moves ahead in a versatile, modern and concise way. I really like the simplicity of this change and the appropriateness of the symbolism. The new mark evolves the dated blue globe of the original logo into a simple, large circle that will vary in color to encompass diverse news sections and topics. It has a sleeker look, similar to many website icons. The new brand and the fresh page design reference a future for the newspaper that is open to all the electronic avenues into which media will flow. (Read an excellent review of the USA Today changes at The Branding Source.)

 

Changing Internal/Corporate Structure: Duke Energy

A third inspiration for a brand redesign is when a corporation’s structure changes and grows. Duke Energy is updating its logo to reflect the acquisition of another power company, Progress Energy. You want an image that remains comfortable to consumers of both brands but relevant to the evolution of the overall business. When you view these two logos side by side with the new one, you can see the attempt to retain characteristics from both marks. The most drastic change overall is in the color palette – moving to blues and greens, probably to reflect a more earth-friendly, sustainable image in a marketplace that is increasingly attentive to such concerns.

These marketing changes illustrate the importance of keeping your brand fresh. A total redesign is generally not necessary, but unless your logo is established as a thoroughly iconic image (by that I mean you are Coke or McDonalds!), most logos and marks need to consistently be evaluated and evolve over time to avoid becoming stale and giving the public an impression you do not want. Time to get started?

ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
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Weird Media: Art Created from 9 Strange Raw Materials

Art and sculpture created from unusual media

 

If you can paint with it, paint on it, sculpt it, or in any way configure it into an image, someone has probably already done so. At times inspiring and at times revolting (the woman who paints with vomit seemed a little too extreme for me), strange and weird media are being used by artists to create both interesting art and interesting discussions about what art can be. The list below piqued my curiosity about how such items could be used and what the results would look like. Which ones intrique you enough to follow through to the image? (Click on the link within each item to see what the artists have created and to read about their reaons why!)

Pantone® Swatches

British graphic desginer David Marsh recreates iconic album cover art using Pantone® swatches – interesting results for Nirvana’s 1991 album “Nevermind,” Patti Smith, U2… many favorites.

Bacteria

Zachary Copfer developed a photographic process that uses bacteria in a petri dish as the emulsion. Don’t worry, the photos are irradiated when finished to kill the bacteria and placed under a layer of acrylic for display.

Chewing Gum

Italian artist Maurizio Savini creates sculptures out of chewing gum. Unchewed. The pink artwork is supported on fiberglass frames, and has been exhibited all over the world.

Hands

Turning the tables on the hand creating the art, Guido Daniele uses hands themselves as the canvas to create amazing images. Daniele, an artist working in Milan, is famous for his technique of body painting, and his images are used in advertising, commercials, fashion events and art exhibitions.

Blood

Dr. Rev Mayers, an Australian tattoo artist, has created artwork done completely in his own blood.

Rat Poison Packaging

American artist Jason Clay Lewis uses d-CON rat poison and its yellow packaging to create three dimensional works of art.

Ants

Chris Trueman used over 200,000 ants to create ‘Self-Portrait With Gun’, an art work that has had offers of over $35,000.

Human Ashes

Val Thompson mixes the the ashes of a cremated body into her paint to add texture to a memorial painting. Her business is called “Ash 2 Art.”

Toast

New Zealand-based artist Maurice Bennett converts ordinary slices of toast into art. The images and portraits are striking.

As it turns out, MANY artists have been inspired to create artwork from food –– you can check out an interesting list of such ventures here. This is not a new trend.: in the 1500s, Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo created portraits by forming collages of fruits and vegetables and then painting them onto his canvas.

And on a less savory note – someone, somewhere is using or has used just about every fluid the body can produce as media for their artwork. They are also using just about every body part as their brush (We’re not including the link on this one, but you can use your imagination and google what you decide on).

 

ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

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5 Tips for Customized Holiday Greeting Cards: Keep Up the Tradition

Personalized Holiday Cards

E-cards make an impression – often not the one intended. Email messages lack the physical impact of a traditional, printed holiday greeting card sent the old-fashioned way through good old snail mail. Even with a dancing flash elf that sings your name, an e-card generally says, “This is easy, cheap and (worst of all) impersonal.” The traditional mailed greeting card can be viewed as just another piece of “junk mail,” but with personalization and a targeted approach, will be a pleasing personal reminder of gratitude during the holidays. Here are a few tips to encourage you to print and mail your holiday greetings rather than e-blast them – and hopefully save both time and money in the process since both are at a premium during the holiday season.

  • Order EARLY for the best prices AND to free up your busy schedule. Your time is even more valuable during a rushed holiday season so plan ahead, ordering by the end of October. You can also reliably schedule when the cards will be mailed out to avoid any last minute confusion.
  • If time permits, consider actually SIGNING your cards. I know, that could be a lot of work! But if your list is not up in the hundreds, a signature is manageable if you decide there is not enough time for a personal note. The extra effort can go a long way in making a card memorable and appreciated. Maybe just think of yourself as a celebrity signing autographs!
  • DESIGN a customized card that is uniquely your own. You can choose online from many high-quality cards and personalize them with your business name and your own message. If you want to invest more, design your card from scratch to fit your brand perfectly and even include variable data where each card is individualized for its recipient. Also consider branded gifts for your best customers to show your appreciation.
  • For large LISTS, save time and money by mailing with your printer or a professional mail service. You can send your snail mail at First Class rates, or realize even more savings with bulk rate postage. For a more personalized look, ask your printer or mail house about using precancelled stamps in lieu of a preprinted bulk mail indicia – the cards will look more personal and less automated.
  • CONSIDER the public’s wide variety of feelings about religious holidays. Some folks will be offended if you assume they would appreciate a card with a Christian, Jewish or other specific religious sentiment. A safe way to avoid any unintentional offense when sending to a large number of people is to choose a card and greeting that simply wishes gratitude for their business at the close of the current year, or a wish for good health and happiness in the new year.

To browse customizable designs and place your order online, visit www.imagesmith.cceasy.com, or give us a call at (828) 684-4512 to discuss more money-saving holiday options.

Print is a vital component of any successful integrated marketing campaign. It works in tandem with your website, email, signage and other outreach – yet the unique power of print lies in physically reaching the hands of your potential customers. Rely on your printer for advice and direction in the creation of all your marketing materials. They should be able to guide you in everything from copy writing to the latest technology to help get your message out… if they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
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The John Lennon Letters: When Your Whole Life is on Paper

Lennon and Life on Paper

“I don’t keep a diary and I throw away nearly all the paper I might have kept. I don’t keep an archive. There’s something worrying about my make-up that I try to leave no trace of myself apart from my plays. “
– Tom Stoppard

 

Our lives on paper live on after we are gone. And if you are famous, every scrap of paper will be saved. A newly released collection of correspondence entitled The John Lennon Letters, edited by Lennon biographer Hunter Davies, contains over 400 pages of annotated correspondence from Lennon. (Hardcover, Little, Brown and Company,  list price 29.99) Most reviewers, however, note that practically all informative correspondence from Lennon had already been published, and Davies collection is being skewered by the critics as a “scraping of the bottom of the barrel” – an attempt to profit from anything written by the hand of the famous Beatle. Here is a painstakingly organized collection of letters, notes, post-its, postcards and paper scraps that seems in total to reveal very little others than mundane details of the former Beatles’ daily life and some not-so-flattering personal qualities. Reviewer Neil McCormick of The Telegraph says all we really learn about Lennon from this mountain of paper is: “Well, he couldn’t spell. He liked to doodle. And he had way too much spare time on his hands.”

Not exactly a glowing review. Often the correspondence of famous people, whether writers, musicians or politicians, contains a wealth of valuable insight and factual data about the person’s life, private thoughts, emotional state and philosophy of life. Successfully published collections include the letters of Emily Dickinson, Winston Churchill, Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, Richard Nixon… and a long list of works that have made many publishers very happy. In many cases, the only hard evidence we have of the private thoughts and feelings of these luminaries are in the archive of their journals, correspondence and personal papers.

However, we are leaving less and less of a paper trail through life. I wonder how in the digital age the role of paper will be different for the famous and infamous. Libraries and historical societies collect the correspondence of great thinkers, artists and politicians to serve as a primary source for further research. Even bar napkins, margin notes scribbled in books, newspaper clippings or anything bearing the subject’s handwriting is considered significant. But we put less of those things onto paper now than ever before. As our ‘footprints’ become increasingly virtual rather than physical, will these archives be data banks rather than stacks of paper? Will they catalogue blogs, emails, Twitter timelines, social media connections and text messages? Will people, wary of a lack of security when “writing” on a computer, still keep private handwritten journals or diaries?

And what about the rest of us? Are we leaving behind us a trail of thoughts, words and feelings that can be accumulated, researched and categorized without our control or input? The days of tossing the diary into the fire or shoving documents through a paper shredder to hide them for eternity seem to be gone. It will take newly refined skills in research and interpretation to assess the changing archive of information we leave behind as everything from our important documents to our shopping lists live on in computer memory.

 

Printer’s love paper. They also love the exciting new means of communication and marketing in an interconnected world. Your printer should be able to provide you with everything from encouragement all the way to the complete design, layout, copywriting, production, multi-purposing and distribution of your marketing outreach. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
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Storm-Tweeting, and 5 Other Twitterbombs for Small Business to Avoid

Twitterbombs to avoid for small business

As a marketing tool, Twitter has proven to be a real gift for small business. Through an active Twitter account, you can reach customers locally or globally, establish your expertise and leadership in your field, promote your business and brand, drive traffic to your website or link your marketing efforts on and offline… and best of all, it’s FREE! However, certain pitfalls seem specific to the small business owner who is overworked, overscheduled and struggling to take advantage of all the digital revolution can provide. Avoid dropping the following Twitterbombs, most being related to time management, that can derail your social media success:

1: Twitter is my soapbox.

Twitter is a conversation, not a monologue. Well, it can be a monologue but people both online and in daily relationships do not enjoy being preached at and quickly tune out. You have a forum to announce your information, but also a great opening to learn what your potential customers are thinking. You want to encourage people to read your posts AND to respond to them. As in any conversation, the process demands both the ability to listen and a commitment of time (a precious commodity for a small business owner). Which leads to the next point…

2: I don’t have time to talk to everyone.

Answer all Replys and DMs (Direct Messages). Ignoring someone’s comment, or forgetting to thank them for a Retweet, is a sure way to generate ill will on Twitter. Check for DMs regularly and browse the @Connect feed, which will give you a history of Retweets and followers. You can respond briefly when appropriate and thank them for their interest even if you don’t agree with their comment! Oh, and remember to wear a thick skin and take the high road… social media communications can often be brutal.

3: I am not here to follow.

For myself, the most damaging signal I see for a business account on Twitter is when they have a number of Followers, but are themselves following no one. This clearly says “I want no contact, I only want people to listen to me.” Again, Twitter is a conversation, not a one-way forum. Follow potential customers, local buisnesses, experts in your field, everyone who has contact with you! They have valuable information to provide you as well.

4: Storm-Tweeting

This habit really irritates many on Twitter: you don’t have a lot of time, so when you get online you tweet multiple times in a row – sometimes dozens! – then disappear until the next day. The timeline of your followers fills up with you avatar over and over. Irritated and feeling ambushed, your followers will at best not read all of that flurry of information, and at worst, Unfollow you. Often it is a time management problem, and for many the solution is a free dashboard application such as Tweetdeck that allows you to monitor, schedule and manage your tweets and replies on your own time. If you find yourself Storm-tweeting, this may be worth checking out.

5: My account is dead.

The worst. If you build up a following on Twitter, you should commit to using and contributing to it DAILY (you can slide on weekends if you must). If you leave it inactive, you have essentially made a public announcement that your business is, well, sort of dead! You’ve left a Twitter-corpse lying in the public domain. If you abandon your Twitter account, by all means deactivate it.

6: TMI, or “Did you really just say that?”

Up front, you should take some time to decide what voice you want to speak with on Twitter. You can be a completely business-like entity, unlinked to any individual person. You can be a parody account, the voice of your brand or a brand mascot, or a multi-faceted voice of many employees all tweeting under the same name. But whatever you choose, set some guidelines for your approach in terms of what topics to cover and how to handle various interactions. Revealing some personal details or day to day events in your company will interest followers and humanize your brand. If taken too far, this can also work to alienate followers or create an impression that is unprofessional or unpleasant. In other words, while it is not productive for a small business to have a completely robotic, non-human voice on Twitter, it is probably worse to use your brand’s account to announce pet peeves, physical ailments, or “I just ousted @SoandSo as the Mayor of Lolita’s Bar and Grill.” Be aware of the tone and voice you cultivate publicly. And never, ever engage in spats or arguments, no matter how tempting!

If you have been guilty of a few of these, don’t feel bad. There is real social media learning curve for us all and the “rules” are generally in flux as times and technology change. Remember that your Twitter account is a public representation of your self, your company, your brand… have fun and expand your knowledge and contacts as well as seek to gain a solid ROI. If you enjoy the interaction, your followers will as well. Your online presence will be more fully rounded and attractive to your audience, and you will also discover a great deal that you would never have been privy to otherwise. Following people and businesses in your own town and your own field will keep you better informed than any news outlet or nosey neighbor ever could. Being better informed makes you better equipped to effectively market your business.

Follow us! @maryimagesmith (Print, Design, Technology, Sustainability – Asheville & Western North Carolina)

 

Rely on your printer for advice and direction in design, print and integrated marketing. They should be able to guide you through the latest changes and introduce new technology to help get your message out… if they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
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Get On Your Mark: Crop Marks, Bleed Marks, Registration Marks Explained

Marks, bleeds, crops, slug

Our prepress department sees a lot of files from a lot of sources. One of the most common confusions over a fairly simple issue concerns the inclusion of crop and bleed marks and defining the bleed and slug areas of a digital print file. While it’s usually an easy fix, you can save yourself time – and additional prepress charges – by working with a clear understanding of what those little marks mean, which to use and how important their position and function can be.

When you produce a pdf file from your page layout or design program such as InDesign in the Adobe Creative Suite, you will see options on how to control the bleed area and marks on your final file. If your file is to be used on a webpage or other digital output, you generally want the file to include no marks or bleed area, naturally. But for printing, either digital or offset, if any graphic elements extend to the edge of the finished piece, you must design them to continue off the “page” and then include an extra border area to accommodate some trim. Presses and digital printers cannot truly print all the way to the edge of a finished sheet reliably over a run; the piece must be printed on larger paper and then trimmed down for a good finished product. Understanding the following terms will make it clear which boxes you need to tic on the “Marks and Bleeds” window when creating your pdf.

Defining bleed and slug areas, registration marks, crop marks

Crop Marks: are small lines offset from the edge of the finished piece that instruct where to cut or trim the final page to a finished size. These will not appear on the finished piece. You definitely need to click these on. There will be some default settings that decide how these marks look… their stroke weight and offset distance. As a general rule, do not change these defaults unless you know a specific reason to do so. Adding crop marks at this stage WILL INCREASE the dimension of your pdf – ie, you have to have extra real estate on which to place the marks. It is helpful to stay aware of the final dimensions of your pdf.

Bleed Marks: They look just like crop marks, but instead of defining the finished cut size, they define the alloted bleed area of the document. The bleed area these marks define is itself part of the printed area. Note that just like adding crop marks, they increase the dimension of your eventual pdf even further, as it now must accommodate both the bleed area and the offset bleed marks. With each set of marks you add, the dimension of the pdf increases.

Registration Marks (and Color Bars): These sit outside the printed area and are used to correlate the different colors or plates used in offset lithography. Every type of printing uses a different, or many different, versions of the registration mark. This alone is a good reason not to add it on yourself when making the pdf. My advice is to not include these marks or color bars unless your print provider prefers that you do. Your service provider will add onto their press sheet the type of mark they need in the location they need it.

Bleed area and crop marks

Bleed Area: the space you define outside the finished edge to hold the printed bleed. When you first set up your document, you can define the bleed area, but again when making the pdf you have the chance to either use or override that original definition. Many printers require at least 1/8 of an inch (.125″) minimum of ink coverage for a suitable bleed, however the defined bleed area itself can be wider. We always ask for 1/2 inch bleed area (not necessarily ink coverage, but area – meaning you do not have to fill this entire .5″ with color or images, these can stop at the 1/8″ minimum). The reason is this will accommodate the necessary bleed, the standard crop marks AND make the pdf size be a nice, easy-to-manipulate number. This can be a great time-saver. For example, a design that has an 8.5″ x 11″ finished size with .5″ bleed on all sides will create a pdf that is 9.5″ x 12″; where if you just let Acrobat put on crop marks and don’t specify a bleed area, it will render a file that is 9.08″ x 11.58″ – just enough to hold the crop marks, and to make your math difficult if you want to impose onto a larger size sheet for printing! Even worse, when creating a small size pdf such as an individual business card, and you add registration marks and page information, the resulting pdf will not only be an irregular size, it will also be off-center as it tries to make extra room at the bottom for the page info. Keep the math simple – add .5″ as a bleed area. It will hold all marks, information, and the bleed with room to spare.

Slug Area: Slug area is EVERYTHING outside the finished edge – this includes the defined bleed area and beyond. Crop marks and bleed area both live within the Slug area. You can define a larger slug area that will include the registration marks, color bars, and any other information you might want the printer to see, but that will be cut off from the finished piece. If you do not define a slug area, Acrobat will simply add on the space needed to hold the marks and instructions you have already specified, or it will use the bleed area you defined as your slug area.

 

Rely on your printer for advice and direction when creating your files. They should be able to provide you with everything from encouragement along the way to complete design, layout, copywriting, production, multi-purposing and distribution of your marketing outreach. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
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On the Psychology of Marketing: Fear, Anxiety, Profit?

The psychology behind marketing and sales

Whether a flyer for your local restaurant or a million dollar Madison Avenue campaign, marketing succeeds by stimulating triggers in your psychological make-up. “Save money.” “Feel better about yourself.” “Eat.” Often the flashpoint marketers want to reach in order to get you to act is found in your anxiety and fears – fear of being left behind, not being “good” enough, not being a part of what everyone else is doing. Whether this is ultimately good or bad is debatable, but as consumers we should be aware of how and why we spend our money. Caveat emptor. It is also something to consider when you as a marketer of your own business are shaping your brand and business culture. An essential question is do you want to meet the needs of consumers by playing off of their insecurity, anxiety or fear of the future?

The latest crop of television ads, mostly for smartphones or tech gadgets, portray people hopelessly outdated and behind the times because they don’t have constant access to pics or information that happened only seconds before. They sit sadly in the dull past of a few moments ago while their friends gloat and brag about their knowing the latest thing. AT&T’s 4G network bases their new campaign on the slogan “Don’t be left behind” – ine commercial even plays off the punchline: “That’s so 2 seconds ago.” Samsung and others are using the same approach. The fear these companies are targeting is the current, media-fed, universal concern that we are overwhelmed in a sea of quickly changing technological advancements and must struggle to stay on top of the latest trends. It is an impossible task – one that over time we will come to terms with by realizing no one can or should be on top of EVERY tech innovation. But that time has not arrived yet… we have an emotional reaction to each new app, social media site, or tech gadget that we PERCEIVE to have been adopted by all the folks on the cutting edge, therefore meaning we have failed to stay current. We’ve always tried to keep up with the Joneses, but the pace of change has made that more and more difficult.

Now the flip side of this argument is that these companies are offering you the chance to make your life easier, to stay current – rather than putting you down for not having their timesaving invention they are offering you the chance to join their team, to be part of the in-crowd. Yet the tool being used to push your emotional buttons and incite you to action is an assault on your sense of security, an attempt to speak to your fear of being left behind.

You can see this tactic throughout advertising – sometimes subtely but frequently in an unapologetic effort to make consumers feel less than whole. Are you young enough, pretty enough, thin enough? Do you dress well, have fresh breath, a clear complexion? Don’t be overweight, bald, depressed, tired, hungry, uneducated, out of touch, out of fashion. Compare yourself to these young, rich, sexy, carefree, overachieving images – feel inferior, and then react by consuming.

Not all advertising works through this channel. Marketing can appeal to the more noble aspects of the consumer and can be the basis for providing people with information they need to improve their lives, health, and self concept. Truly believing in your product or service is a great home base for starting your marketing message. A great example of a well-known campaigns that begins with this starting point is L’Oreal – “because you’re worth it,” currently celebrating its 40th year. Dove launched its Campaign for Real Beauty campaign featuring “non-traditional” or more full figured models and sought to reach women by encouraging their self esteem rather than playing to their insecurities. The first few years saw an increase in sales, but eventually the campaign tanked and critics noted Dove did not stay true to it’s insistence on the “realness” of beauty! Note that self-esteem seems to be an enemy of cosmetic and beauty supply sales!

Much marketing seeks to meet the very real needs of consumers with an appeal to logic and financial sense rather than an emotional appeal. Whenever a store offers a coupon, sale or merchandising discount, they are offering a benefit to the consumer which will save them money. It is an encouragement to make a rational decision in your own best interest which also benefits the seller. In a competitive marketplace however, marketers have learned the power a psychological approach.

The psychological component of successful marketing is a rich and interesting field. As you seek to market your own business, service or online venture, give yourself the time to consider the “voice” of your brand, the conversation you will be having with your public. Playing to fear and anxiety has proven a successful marketing strategy, but it is also not the only successful one. Many times humor is used to let us laugh at ourselves rather than feel criticized. It is essential that you be aware of the voice you give your brand. Something to consider!

 

Rely on your printer for advice and direction in shaping your brand and bringing it to life. They should be able to provide you with everything from encouragement all the way to the complete design, layout, copywriting, production, multi-purposing and distribution of your marketing outreach. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.
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Printing Custom Flyers: 7 Ideas to Get Your Money’s Worth

printed full color versatile flyers

Custom, full color flyers are a true workhorse of any solid marketing effort. They function as handouts, sales sheets, product cards, event announcements, coupons, direct mail, or invitations. Even with today’s online competitive marketplace, they remain a central, effective tool for putting into your potential customers’ hands the information you need them to have. Digital printing now allows you to customize and personlize flyers as never before for shorter runs at lower costs with very quick turnaround times.

Here are a few tips to keep in mind when designing and purchasing flyers in order to get the most bang for your buck:

Power Up Your Brand: quality graphic design is within the reach of every budget today thanks to the amazing advancements in desktop design software. Take advantage of that! Every time you are lucky enough to catch a potential customer’s eye, you want your look to be consistent and to carry the same impression. That instant of positive recognition is your brand at work. Be vigilant in making sure all your printed material coordinates with your online presence, your signage, your store displays… and a flyer is probably the easiest place to manage that look you want. Choose a printer that can assure you of the proper color match, paper choice, “look and feel” and can design everything you need with your precise brand specifications.

Repurpose as Direct Mail pieces: When you print flyers for in-store distribution or use at an event or trade show, follow up that effort with a direct mail distribution using the exact same piece. You will save printing costs by producing more at one time. Design your flyer to be a “self-mailer.” One third of the back will be a mailing panel with your return address and the mail indicia you need so that when folded and tabbed shut, it will mail at automation-compatible rates through the USPS.  Also a standard letter-sized piece of paper which is folded into thirds will fit into a regular #10 envelope along with any other pieces you want to distribute.

Consider VDP: The more personalized a direct mail piece is, the more successful. VDP, or variable data printing, uses a source spreadsheet of recipients to personalize each individual flyer you print. That can be as simple as including the person’s name in the “Dear John” salutation, to actually switching out the images within a flyer’s design, or targeting individual offers to individual people within the same printing and mailing. Remember that your database of current and potential customers is marketing gold… the more precise and detailed your spreadsheet is, the more flexibility you have in targeting specific groups with specific offers.

Connect to your website through QR codes: Ever made a QR code yourself? Go here to try it out and see how easy it is. Do people really “click” and use QR (or quick response) codes? Studies show QR code usage has exploded over the past year, and they are free to create and easy to include on your flyer, providing a link from the physical part of your marketing to the virtual. Even if someone doesn’t scan and follow the code to your website, seeing it on the product lets them know there is more to be found from you online – a fact that might influence them later on. Include the QR code!

Produce a set of matching flyers:  one each for your product lines or services, or to highlight different aspects of your offerings. When you create all of these at the same time, you will save both design and production costs, as well as ensuring a consistent branding on all the materials. They look great displayed together, or collected into a folder for sales calls.

Include a coupon: Give people a reason to hang onto your flyer. The longer it is in their possession, the stronger the impact you are making. Design an eye-catching coupon that can be torn off and redeemed. You will be able to track the results and see how effective your promotion was, whether they are redeemed online or in person. Coupons are also a good way to collect contact information from customers so they get into your database for future targeted marketing: at the very least, ask for name, address, and email on your coupon!

Be specific! Give people the information they need to know in order to do what you want them to do. Seems simple, but can so easily be overlooked! Tell them the exact price, availability, sale dates, return policy, hours of operation, delivery information, etc. If you solve any nagging questions up front, they are more likely to consider their purchase right away, or choose you over someone who’s procedures seem murky or confusing.

Rely on your printer for advice and direction in choosing and branding your promotional items. They should be able to provide you access to just about any item you can imagine. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.