If you have not thought about what you are going to do during this busy season to stay in front of your customers, NOW is the time to do so. Even if you are not offering a special discount, sending out a personalized letter or card saying we appreciate your business throughout the year can go a long way in making sure your customers keep talking about you. Here are a few ideas you can add to your marketing mix this December:

• Holiday Greeting Cards

• Christmas Letters

• Direct Mail postcards

• Statement Stuffers

• Calendars – Keep your brand in front of your customers all year with personalized calendars

• Goodie bags with your business card inside – works great for storefront businesses

The countdown is on to the beginning of the new year, don’t miss this opportunity to remind your customers you care about them!

OFFSET PRINTING, also referred to as offset lithography, is used by the majority of commercial printers. It is called “offset”, because the ink is not directly pressed onto the paper. Instead, it is distributed from a metal plate to a rubber mat where it is then set onto the paper. 

Advantages of Offset Printing

• High image quality.
• Works on a wide range of printing surfaces (textured paper, plastic, 2-part/3-part carbonless paper, etc.) and can easily print odd paper sizes.
• The unit cost goes down as the quantity goes up.

DIGITAL PRINTING is the process in which data and images are printed directly from a computer onto paper, including those developed for computer printers such as inkjet or laser printers.

Advantages of Digital Printing:

• Shorter turnaround.
• Cheaper low volume printing. While the unit cost of each piece may be higher than with offset printing, when setup costs are included, digital printing provides small print jobs with lower per unit costs.

Which printing method is right for me?

• Quantity. If you are needing a high quantity print job than offset printing will provide you with the lowest cost per unit. Small print job? Then digital printing would be your best choice.
• Printing medium. Do you need or want a special paper (linen, laid, carbonless, etc.) or unique size? Offset printing will offer you the most flexibility.
• Color. If you need full color (or four color process), digital printing will offer you the best price. Only need black ink or one or two ink colors? Then offset printing may offer a more cost-effective solution.
• Spot Color Printing. If you’re planning to print using the Pantone® Matching System, offset printing will give you the best match since it uses actual Pantone® ink. Digital printing is able to simulate the color using a four-color matching process, but may vary slightly in shade or hue due to different printer settings.
• Turnaround. If you need your print job fast, digital printing will usually offer you the quickest turnaround since ink does not need to dry.

Here at Cool Printing, we invest in an assortment of different advertising and marketing opportunities. From sending out direct mail each month, to coupons, free scratch pads and statement stuffers, to yes, NETWORKING!

Each week we attend some sort of Chamber of Commerce meeting or community event. The payoff? Huge! These days it is less about what you know than who you know and the reputation you carry. Word of mouth marketing is critical for small businesses with limited budgets. So do your job well, then get out there and allow customers and prospects to put a face to your company. While it may take more effort than sitting at your desk and putting an ad in the paper, the relationships you build and the business those relationships create is just something you can’t pass up. 

So go get out there. Find your local Chamber of Commerce and attend one of the meetings as a visitor to see what its all about. If you like what you see, sign up and get to networking!

We recently printed some business cards for a new business in town, Alphabetix, and would like to share with you their wonderful comments and blog post:

Thanks so much for the beautiful business cards. We did a little blog post about your great service on our site. We’ll be back soon! http://www.alphabetix.net/blog/oregon/rockin-new-business-cards/

Thank you Alphabetix for the great kudos!

Here are 13 tips to remember when crafting your next prose to beat the control:

1. Sell your offer or message positioning, not your product or service
   This is hard for many people to understand, but what sells your product/service is the compelling reason why I should try it. That reason typically boils down to your positioning. Test different offers. But be careful…an offer that’s too incredibly good to be true can be more detrimental to results than a weak offer.
    
2. Establish credibility in your mail piece
   Don’t assume I know you or your company. Court me as a prospect/customer and make sure you do so by establishing yourself, your company and your product as reputable. Testimonials can work wonders.
    
3. Test headlines
   Great headlines encourage additional reading. Scrutinize each and every head and ask if it’s compelling enough to hold the reader’s attention. If not, rework it.
    
4. Always include a P.S.
   The postscript is the second most read portion in direct mail (the address block and initial headline are first). Make your P.S. so powerful that the reader will want to go back to the beginning and read your entire correspondence.
    
5. Start with a short, engaging sentence
   Today, it’s all about time — or lack of it. A short, grabber sentence helps to engage the reader. Think of it like a chapter in a book. If the chapter is too long, you lose the reader and they won’t finish the book. Use the opening to hook the recipient.
    
6. “You” up your copy
   Your readers are asking, “What’s in it for me?” Answer that question by including more mentions of “you” as opposed to “me,” “I,” “we” or your company name. By including more “you” copy, you make the correspondence more personal and more relevant.
    
7. Write from the prospect/customer vantage point
   Imagine sitting at the reader’s kitchen table having a conversation with them. It will make your copy much more effective. Pass the cream, please.
    
8. Keep things simple
   Pare down your copy to make it concise. Don’t use jargon or make it hard for the reader to respond. Simplicity helps make the cash register ring.
    
9. Tell stories
   Stories are one of the most effective, under-used communication strategies available. We recall stories more effectively, so they help sell more.
    
10. Specifics outsell generalities
    “You can save $31.13” is much more powerful than “save over $30.” Being specific helps with credibility.
     
11. Letter length can dramatically impact ROI
    People don’t read long letters, nor do they read short letters. They read what is interesting to them. Test how much copy you need to convey the benefits and features of what you are selling.
     
12. Include a brochure
    Think of the letter as your salesperson. The letter sells and the brochure tells. A great direct mail letter will get the reader to search for additional details in the brochure and vice versa.
     
13. Test, test, test!
    Test copy, after your list and offers are established and before format and design tests.

Written by Grant A. Johnson, creative director and founder of Johnson Direct LLC, Brookfield, WI

Read the entire article entitled, “Lucky 13“

So there’s a recession huh…

Budgets strained? Seat belts fasted? All hatches battened down?

Well there are a few ways to save:

You can cut marketing entirely…

but that leaves you forgotten when the economy picks up.

OR, instead of saying, “I only have $100 to spend on marketing”, say “Check out what I can do with $100!”

1) Don’t use your entire budget on one huge full color job with all the bells and whistles. Stay in front of your customers more often with targeted, cost effective projects. Sometimes the best marketing is accomplished when you have to find ways to be creative with less.

2) Print larger runs of marketing materials you will always need (invoices, business cards, brochures, scratch pads, etc.). This will save you extra setup fees.

3) Get the most out of each sheet of paper. Instead of printing odd sized projects that leave you with unused paper, design your project to get the most out of every sheet… leaving you with more savings.

Postage rates have now risen to $0.44 per standard mail, but by using our automated postage rate, we can drop that cost to as low as $0.19 a piece!

2) Printing Expertise

Everyone wants to get the most bang for their buck these days and we understand how to cut printing costs.

3) Database Cleanup

Send us an Excel file of your database and we’ll run it through our mailing software and find the bad, nonexistent, or duplicate addresses. This will save you money on postage and printing.

*Let us help you design the perfect mail piece OR provide us with a pdf of your pre-designed mailer.