flyers – ImageBlog

August 11, 2020

Marketing Plan: Get More from Your Print Flyers

Marketing flyers

The humble flyer – a staple of print marketing, remains one of the most familiar print pieces through the years. In a digital world, it is easy to under appreciate their impact. But flyers are as successful and versatile in marketing today as at any previous time, especially when you create them with multi-purpose uses in mind.

We often think of flyers in a limited way: they announce the band playing this weekend on the corner, or the 20% off Back-to-School sale. Those get the job done but are temporary and single-use. They are also easy chances to go “off brand” in design and tone, which is not helpful. To get more for your money when printing flyers, consider ways to develop multipurpose content within a broader vision for your message. You may want to distribute a thousand flyers in a targeted mailing by a certain date, but with a content tweak or two, that same piece can do more work. You can print extra in the same run to use as collateral in sales outreach or distribution in-store, without incurring extra print costs in production. If you need a flyer to announce a new product, for example, the same piece can also be used as:

a stand alone direct mail piece
an insert into a company overview folder
an in-store handout
a sales call leave-behind piece
and also as a print advertisement or digital ad

Catering flyers Planning a strategy to your market outreach, rather than just looking from event to event, is a game-changer for small and medium sized businesses. Just as a restaurant might develop different menus for lunch, dinner, take-out, or catering, you can create a series of flyers that target different types of customers with the specific products or services that would appeal most to them. The more targeted you craft your message, the greater your chance of success – just like online. The trick to making that work is the upfront planning.

Folded flyers The flyer does not have to just be a boring sheet of paper. Consider die-cuts, folds and perf, attachments, special spot coatings, or foil metallics are some of the options you can try. Placing that flyer within a smart marketing plan will make your print more successful and cost efficient. Consistent branding across multiple creative projects will supercharge flyers.

Print and direct mail get proven results. They are at the core of a successful marketing mix, no matter what size business you have. Developing a marketing plan to drive it all is the key to powerful print and cost efficiency.

Call us at 828.684.4512 for any marketing needs. As a printer, we understand communication, design, and teamwork. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmentally responsible printing. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

ImageSmith is now partnered with Extreme Awards & Engraving – our in-house partner providing custom engraved trophies and awards for employee recognition programs, sporting events, and promotional needs. With our new sister company, we will be sharing space, resources and expertise in a collaboration designed to further provide you with one place to meet all of your marketing needs… Under One Roof! Visit them online at www.extremeae.com or call direct at 828.684.4538.

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

September 20, 2013

Pin Up Your Marketing with a Bulletin Board Test

So what looks good for lunch today?

This is our breakroom bulletin board – your workplace might have a similar one. While scanning the take-out menus and ads for various local eateries, think of that bulletin board as a little microcosm of a larger marketing environment: each piece hangs there hoping to catch attention, influence behavior, provide information. Some use mouth-watering photos of their meals; others provide detailed descriptions of their menu choices while still others rely on the familiarity of their logo and brand to catch your eye. They come in all sizes and colors. Each local eatery, vying for your daily lunchtime dollar, wants to outshine the others.

Now think of your marketing material on a bulletin board among those of your competitors. Will they stand out? Would you stop and take notice, feel drawn in by the imagery or design? Which one will make you decide to eat – or shop or invest… and why? If you saw a Pinterest page with a screenshot of your website alongside others in the same line of work, how would you feel about what that homepage says about you? Consider those “bulletin boards” as your marketing litmus test.

Back to Basics: Design & Message

If simply designing with eye-catching color was all that was necessary to get noticed, then most marketing would be a neon, day-glo mess. Yet color choice remains central to making design stand out. Consider if your colors are consistent with your branding and company image, if use of an out-of-the-ordinary color would be efficient, or if even black and white or a minimalist design might give you the desired effect. Keep up with the print and digital advertising of your competitors in the marketplace – the more you understand their efforts the better you can craft your own message to stand out.

With print marketing, shape – whether in terms of scale or geometric shape – can be very important. This is true whether you are printing a flyer, direct mail piece, handout or poster. Over-sized pieces draw attention, yet at times an unusually small piece might stand out from the herd. Die-cuts add an extra step in production but often create a very unique and memorable end product. Your information might fit onto the front of one sheet, or you might need to expand into a folded piece or multiple page publication – all basic and important decisions.

How is your message unique? In other words, what does your business do better than anyone else? Does your marketing simply repeat the same claims all of your competitors are making, or does it reveal why a potential customer is missing out by not discovering what your enterprise has to offer?

The bulletin board test can bring forward some of the most basic questions about your marketing efforts through a simple, real-time comparison. Taking the time to do that comparison can lead you toward finding more productive strategies for success.

Consider the ways you can use inspired graphic design to market your small business. Your printer should be able to provide you with the latest information, inspiration, technical advice, and innovative ideas for communicating your message through print, design and typography, signage, apparel, variable data printing and direct mail, integrated marketing and environmental responsible printing

. They should also be able to work with you to solve any difficult prepress issues with your files. If they can’t, you have the wrong printer! The best advice, always, is to ASK YOUR PRINTER!

Call us at 828.684.4512. ImageSmith is a full-service print and marketing provider located in Arden, North Carolina. Contact us at ImageSmith for quotes on all your print and marketing projects, and more useful tips on how to create custom, effective, high impact marketing solutions.

August 28, 2012

Printing Custom Flyers: 7 Ideas to Get Your Money’s Worth

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.