One of the most important points to consider when embarking on producing any promotional material is how it will work alongside the established image of your business. There is, of course, little point making the investment in such material if the recipients simply do not associate it with your company. Simple as it sounds we do see it overlooked. The branding of your promotional material should be consistent in design to the rest of your brand – visual elements such as your corporate logo, which help to create all important brand recognition, should be printed in their standard colours to ensure your customers are in no doubt that the promotional material is yours. Just as vital in creating a recognisable and consistent image is also the language you use. It’s crucial that it reflects the tone of voice of your business and really embodies the personality of your brand. All businesses ‘talk’ to their customers in different ways and this is what helps differentiate your brand from others.

Whilst consistency with your business’s established image and tone of voice is imperative, it doesn’t mean however that your promotional material cannot be creative. Indeed, to stand out in a competitive market it needs to be eye catching. Think about how much promotional material you receive on a daily basis. To ensure yours stands out, thinking outside the box is essential. People are busy and when someone picks up your promotional material you may only have a few seconds to make an impression – ensure it is a memorable one and they’re much more likely to explore what you have to offer further. It’s therefore the ideal time to get creative with design to ensure it really does get noticed. Have you ever picked up a piece of promotional material because you were attracted, for example, by its unusual shape? With so much printed material out there being standardly sized and shaped, something that breaks from the norm will definitely stand out. This is where a printer like JasPrint can really help bring your ideas to life. For example, die cutting can be used to create rounded corners, windows, flaps, holes and pop ups which provides endless opportunity to create something innovative and attention grabbing to fully engage your audience.

Whilst getting creative with your promotional material is key to helping it get noticed, it’s also important not to forget that the quality of it strongly reflects on your business. Details such as the quality of the paper or card stock can influence how your customers feel about your brand – so it’s vital to ensure that they really reflect your business’s values. Overlooking factors such as these can reduce the effectiveness of your promotional material and therefore its overall value for money in the long term.

Another great way to engage with customers is to provide a long lasting printed promotional product with functionality that has real value to them. The old adage ‘out of sight, out of mind’ can too often ring true about the relationship between a business and its customers.  By giving them a functional product that they can use on a daily basis, you help to keep your business in their mind. Again, this offers the perfect opportunity to get creative and produce something quirky and memorable that really helps your business to shine out amongst the masses – a calendar or wall planner has a good long shelf life and is useful in any office environment.

Whatever the promotional material you need to ensure that you give it to the right people to fully maximise its marketing potential and cut down on any waste – something which is crucial in today’s economic climate. The people you send promotional material to can generally be split into two groups – your existing customers who are likely to make repeat purchases and potential customers who may make purchases in the future. It’s vital to determine exactly what is most likely to be useful to your recipients and engage them with your message. Also, it’s a good idea to consider tying your promotional material to the season or a special event. This can offer a great excuse to get in touch with your customers and remind them about your business. It is, of course, yet another opportunity to get creative with design and print to make sure your brand really stands out!

Creative, well-thought-out and targeted printed promotional material is a powerful marketing tool that should not be overlooked. At Glow Creative we can implement a strategy for your business to improve visibility, engage with customers, enhance your brand image and ultimately increase sales and revenue. Working alongside a quality printer like JasPrint we are able to really ensure your promotional material delivers maximum results!

Contact Glow Creative – hello@glowcreative.co.uk www.glowcreative.co.uk tel 0191 303 8668

It may sound obvious but it’s vital that you establish what you’re looking to achieve from your mailing before you do anything else. You need to be clear whether you’re trying to sell something, raise awareness of your brand, direct traffic to your website or promote an event. This is important because the outcomes you’re looking for will inform the creative side of your campaign and if you aren’t clear about what you want the recipient to do you’re just going to give them a mixed and confusing message.

2. Get your data right

It’s no exaggeration to say that the most important aspect of a direct mail campaign is the data. You see unless you’re sending your piece to the right people then you might as well not send it at all. And the more information you have about your targets the better. Information such as purchase history and frequency, age groups, sex and other sector specific detail will enable you to create bespoke messages that appeal directly to the right people at the right time.

3. Make it look good

Now that you’ve chosen your objective and you have a relevant and up to date database, you need to produce something that’s going to be attractive enough to make someone want to read it and this is where a good graphic designer is worth their weight in gold. They’ll help you to come up with a design that will appeal to your target market while getting your message across clearly and concisely – you don’t want things to be too wordy or people may feel less inclined to read everything.

4. Test your campaign

It might seem like a waste of time but testing your campaign can make the difference between success and failure. Select a small portion of your database and send your mailer to these people only. Record how many of the recipients responded to your call to action and if you didn’t get the results you were looking for you need to look at why and amend whatever the cause was. If your response is good you can roll out the full campaign confident that you’re going to achieve your desired outcome.

You can also use testing to try out multiple versions of your campaign, for example 2 different designs of your mail piece. Split your sample database equally and send one half one design and one half the other. Whichever design performs best in testing is likely to do the same over the whole database.

5. Measure the results

So, you’re ready to roll out your full campaign. The final thing to do now is to closely measure the results. Whichever metrics you use to do this, for example number of sales or hits on your website, you must make them something that is clear and definable within the remit of your desired outcome. Not only will measuring the results tell you if your campaign was a success but it will also inform you of ways to improve your next campaign as part of the Review, Refine, Implement process.

Think about it. How likely are you to even bother the search engines if you already have the details of somebody who can do the job you need in the form of their business card? This is what my guy thought too and is why he decided to make sure as many people had his business card as he could manage.

As well as giving cards out to the people most of us do, he also gave them to just about everyone he met. So at every networking event or social occasion he attended, his cards would be received by not just everyone he spoke to but, by leaving his cards around the venue, by people he didn’t even clap eyes on.

Another trick he used was to put a little pile of them in the reception area of every business centre he visited so anyone who worked there or visited had a chance to see them or, better still, pick one up. He went through thousands of cards every year but he argued that doing so was part of the reason for his success and that when you worked out the cost of each card it was probably the cheapest form of marketing he did.

Here at Jasprint we can provide you with superb quality business cards starting from just £45 for a pack of 250 cards which works out at only 18p per card. Order 1000 cards and that cost per card comes down to only 5.5p each and buy 2500 cards and they’re yours for as little as 3p per card.

At these prices you can afford to be a bit more generous with your business cards when it comes to handing them out. Why not try doing the same things that this guy did and see if it works as well for you too.

*Prices indicated are for business cards printed on one side only onto 350gsm white board and trimmed to 85mm x 55mm.

There is an incredible range of amazing paper and board available in many finishes, from metallic coloured, to speckled and lots of different textures and thicknesses. In amongst this enormous choice are the varieties that are most commonly used – silk/gloss coated and uncoated/offset. Let’s look at the differences between these papers and try and give you some help when it comes to choosing which you should use.

Coated paper and board starts out life uncoated. Coating is a process whereby an agent such as china clay or latex is applied to the surface using various blades and rollers and fills all of the miniscule pits between the fibres in the base paper. This results in a sheet with a very smooth, flat surface and produces thinner sheets than uncoated paper of the same weight. The coating can range from dull (matt) to bright (gloss) – silk is somewhere in the middle.

Printing on coated paper generally produces a brighter, sharper, more vivid image and is therefore commonly used for promotional documents such as brochures and leaflets or anything where there are high quality images that need reproducing to the highest standard.

Uncoated paper has a rougher feel to it than uncoated paper although the degree of roughness can vary. The average uncoated paper (sometimes referred to as offset) has the kind of finish that a typical copier paper would have although there are varieties that are made especially for digital print that are a lot smoother in order to work better with this particular process.

Uncoated paper is more porous than coated paper, absorbing ink more and preventing toner from providing a consistent coverage, giving a duller and more matt finish. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing however as this kind of finish can be very desirable depending on the message being communicated – for example a brand trying to reflect a wholesome, green or organic image will often use a ‘rough and ready’ looking uncoated paper or board.

Paper and board is usually measured by its weight in grams per square metre or ‘gsm’. Typically, the higher the gsm the thicker the sheet although, as mentioned before, coated paper is usually thinner than uncoated paper of the same weight due to the compressing of the fibres during the production process. Board is also often measured in microns as well as gsm to give a true measure of the thickness of the sheet. To give you an idea of the different weights, letterheads are usually printed on 90-120gsm and business cards on 300-400gsm.

Of course we are always here to offer advice on the best paper for you and your print. In addition, to help you further with your choice of paper for digital print, we have produced a swatch showing our full range of standard coated and uncoated paper and board. To request your FREE copy please get in touch and give us your name, company name, address and telephone number, mention that you’d like a free paper guide and we’ll send you a copy.

*NOTE: All of our standard paper is FSC or PEFC certified in recognition of the fact that it is responsibly sourced from sustainable forests. We also have 100% recycled products available on request.

While marketing is closely related to sales they remain two very different things. If we think of marketing as a means of bringing people to your business and sales as the process of then persuading those people to purchase your product or service, then it follows that reducing the amount of marketing you do will reduce the number of people coming to your business. It isn’t rocket science. At a time when sales are already under pressure surely the last thing you should consider is reducing the number of people knocking on your door. But by reducing the amount of marketing you do that’s exactly what you’re doing. Customers and prospects alike will forget about you if you aren’t marketing to them and who do you think they will turn to instead? A competitor who realises the value of marketing, that’s who.

So how can you afford to maintain a strong presence in your market even though your revenues are down? The first thing to do is to have a look at your existing marketing plan, if you have one, or if you haven’t, start making one. You need to assess which activities will work best and what will provide the best value for money. Explore different ways to promote your business by speaking to an expert – this could be a marketing agency, a graphic designer or even, ahem, a printer (who will have undoubtedly printed many items as part of a successful marketing strategy), all of whom will be more than happy to help.

Deciding how much to allocate to your marketing activities is the next step. I recently started a discussion on LinkedIn asking what people thought was the best way of setting a marketing budget and amongst many different suggestions one really stood out for me: don’t set a budget! Find what activity is the most effective for you and spend as much as you can afford on doing it, after all if it’s working whatever you spend will be more than recovered through increased sales.

Finding out what works well for you needn’t be difficult, in fact you may even have a good idea already. It is good practice to test your marketing activities first wherever possible. An example of this could be only sending 50-100 letters of a direct mail campaign and measuring the response rate. If you’re satisfied, great, roll out the entire campaign. If you aren’t satisfied, consider how you could improve it and test again.

Regardless of which activities you choose, the cycle of test-measure-improve-deploy should be used indefinitely, even once you’re satisfied with the success of your campaign.  Only by consistently monitoring the success of your campaign and looking closely at who is responding will you be able to maintain and improve its effectiveness. So if you notice that businesses of a certain size or people of a certain age seem to be more responsive than others you will be able to review who to target your marketing activities at, both in a sense of who to aim at and how to communicate with that group in particular.

To summarise, don’t cut your marketing spend when finances are tight, even though it may seem to be an easy option. It actually represents a great opportunity as you can be certain that many of your competitors will have reduced or even ceased their marketing activity giving you the chance to increase your market share at their expense. Try to be cleverer about what you’re spending your money on and make sure that your activities are as effective as possible by seeking advice from experts and by testing your campaign before fully rolling it out. Remember, if you aren’t marketing no-one will know you’re out there.

Before going any further I should point out that I am anything but anti email. I use it myself for our newsletter and for other marketing messages. I just believe that printed mail can’t be beat when used creatively, with careful planning and for the right application.

While email has no doubt had a positive effect on our lives in many ways, the average inbox has become everything we used to hate about direct mail, clogged up with unrequested, unwanted and uninteresting content. As an example, even with junk mail filters and anti spam software I personally still receive an average of over 100 unsolicited emails every day on subjects ranging from ink-jet cartridges to Viagra and from telecoms to penis enlargements (who needs one of those eh lads!).

In amongst all of those messages that I’m definitely not interested in are some sales and marketing messages that I might be interested in and even some that I’d definitely be interested in. But because I have to spend so much time clearing out the junk and identifying what might and might not be worth reading, I inevitably start to treat it all the same meaning some of the stuff that might have got my attention gets the same treatment as the junk. So even if you’ve targeted your recipients carefully and requested their permission to send your communication, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re going to even see it let alone read it.

So how do you make sure that your message gets through effectively? How can you make your message stand out from the plethora of other promotional messages?

Printed mail offers the perfect opportunity to get your message noticed. It’s tactile, it’s incredibly flexible and, in my humble opinion, is more likely to be read and retained than email. In addition, there are an enormous number of ways in which you can present your mail, from simple items like postcards or letters to more elaborate pieces using special effects such as foiling and embossing, clever folding or including gifts or samples.

No doubt at this point the digital disciples will be pointing out that direct mail is expensive, environmentally unfriendly and doesn’t have the same ability to be measured as it’s digital counterpart. That’s not quite true.

There’s no doubt that, once the creative is out of the way, printed mail is more expensive than it’s e counterpart. But isn’t that part of the problem? E-mail is so inexpensive that everyone is using it, bringing us back to original problem of how to make your message stand out in a crowded, highly competitive space. And shouldn’t we be looking at the return rather than the cost anyway? According to Royal Mail figures, the average direct mail campaign will generate a 1400% return on your investment. Suddenly cost doesn’t seem so important anymore and when you couple this with the results of a recent study by the Direct Marketing Association that nearly 70% of consumers still prefer to receive conventional mail over email, you’ve got a powerful argument for print over digital.

As for the environmental argument, it just doesn’t stand up to closer scrutiny. Paper is actually one of only a few truly sustainable materials. There is no deforestation taking place to satisfy demand for paper in fact the opposite is true in Europe where forests have grown by over 30% since 1950 and continue to increase by an area four times the size of London every year.

The forests supplying the paper industry are very well managed, replanting trees as they are used and as young trees grow they absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. As a wood product, paper continues to store this carbon throughout its lifetime.

Paper doesn’t take that much energy to produce either. On average it takes 500kWh to produce 200kg of paper which is the average amount we use each year. The same amount of energy is consumed by the average household leaving its electronic equipment on standby for a year. Producing that 200kg of paper creates between 160-250kg of CO2 which is equivalent to that amount generated driving the average family car for 600 miles.

Print and paper is also one of the few materials which is able to be completely recycled. In fact it may prove to be the sustainable way to communicate as electronic waste is now the fastest growing component of the municipal waste stream. It’s easy to forget that we need to power computers and monitors to send and receive email.

As for measuring the effectiveness of your campaign, I can’t argue that the analytical tools available to digital media aren’t first class. There is no way of knowing, bar calling everyone and asking them, who opened your direct mail and who didn’t. But you can find out who has visited a web page if you need to know by using personalised web pages (PURL’s) and you can easily track who has responded to your message using many methods such as having barcodes on reply cards, unique reference numbers to quote or by simply checking respondents details against your database.

So, it’s powerful, it’s effective, it’s flexible, it’s green and it’s measurable. It’s printed direct mail and it’s available here. What are you waiting for? Make your message loud and clear.

Check out http://www.printpower.eu/en/why-print-media/direct-mailing for more reasons to use print for your direct marketing.

To enter the competition to win this amazing prize, all you need to do is sign up to receive our email newsletter ‘off the press’  and occasional details of tips, other news and special offers that we think you’ll be interested in. You can do this by simply clicking on the link at the top of the page that says ‘newsletter sign up’ (pretty obvious really) and enter your details.

Jasprint have been providing high quality digital print for over three decades now so this really is a fantastic opportunity for one very fortunate individual. The prize can be used to print brochures, leaflets, flyers, business cards, posters, books, or anything you need subject to the terms and conditions of the competition.*

We’ll be drawing the lucky prize winner out of a hat on the 1st February – it could be you!

*Only one entry per person. Prize must be used against digital print by Jasprint and can not be used against the cost of special finishing such as lamination, die-cutting, UV varnishing, foiling, embossing etc or anything that needs to be outsourced. What constitutes special finishing or work requiring outsourcing will be solely at the discretion of Jasprint Ltd. Jasprint Ltd reserve the right to withdraw the offer at any time and refuse entry to any participant of their choosing.

There are over 80 great North East businesses exhibiting and there will also be a number of seminars and Masterclasses held throughout the day so it’s well worth a look in.

It’s free to attend so there’s no excuse not to come and we’d love you to come and say hello to us. You’ll easily recognise us by our fab new brand as seen in the picture on the left. Why not bring a colleague or a friend too.

We close for the holiday on Friday 23rd December and return on Tuesday 3rd January, refreshed and raring to go.

This fantastic offer gives all Mussel Club members the opportunity to get free business cards for life, all you have to pay for is your first batch and then a nominal packing and carriage charge thereafter. As long as you remain a member of the Mussel Club, you can order as many times as you like.

Jasprint managing director John Rowell said “It’s a great pleasure to be able to offer this exclusive deal to Mussel Club members. Unlike other free business card offers there are no concessions when it comes to the quality of our cards which are printed onto 350gsm board and can even be laminated. It really is a superb offer.”

“We’re delighted to have been able to put together this exclusive offer for our members and with such a highly regarded printer as Jasprint” said Geoff Bowman of The Mussel Club. “The deal looks almost too good to be true but believe me it is. Free business cards for life means exactly that.”

Jasprint are an established North East print firm celebrating 30 years in business this year. As well as business cards they print a wide range of materials such as brochures, leaflets, posters, flyers, menus, invitations, books, manuals and much more.

Terms and conditions of the offer are as follows:

• The offer is exclusive to Mussel Club members
• Pay for your first order then all exact reprints are free – for life!
• We do not print our name anywhere on your cards unlike with other free offers
• Initial order will cost £50 + VAT for 250 unlaminated cards or £75 + VAT for 250 laminated cards
• Design and artwork, if required, will cost an additional £25 + VAT
• Any artwork changes during the Free for Life offer will cost a fixed fee of £25 + VAT
• If new artwork is supplied during the Free for Life offer a £10 + VAT processing charge will apply
• Cards can be printed onto a choice of 350gsm uncoated, silk or gloss board
• Cards can be gloss or matt laminated
• Die-cutting, foiling, embossing, UV varnishing or any other kind of special finish is not included in the free offer
• Cards MUST be for the Mussel Club member
• Free orders are limited to 250 cards per order and a maximum of one order per month
• A packing and carriage charge of £5.00 + VAT will apply to each order where applicable
• Jasprint reserve the right to refuse or terminate the offer at any time