Offset Print

So I’m waiting to turn left off a side street on to a major roadway and I get to watch traffic whiz by. Lots of traffic. Including a bus with a sign for Verizon Wireless (although that was a bit difficult to determine from a distance) promoting the new Droid phone. The message is “A Bare Knuckled Bucket of Does.” Did a double-take. My eyes actually saw the word “Does” first and I immediately thought of female deer. What? Then I had to mentally scroll back to their “Droid Does” ad campaign and realized that it was a play on words to show that the phone does a whole bunch of things. Advertising blunder alert!

In the advertising classic Testing Advertising Methods by copywriting legend John Caples, he cautions about using clever copy since “… in its attempt to be smart, may turn out to be obscure and fail to attract readers.” Though unlikely with as frequent as they’re appearing these days, there is the chance that someone has not seen the Droid commercials and wouldn’t make the connection.

But that may have been the point. Only the “in” crowd would get the connection. If you can exclude the ignorant from your circle, it gives the product an elitist appeal. However, for an almost throwaway item that will quickly be replaced by the next big thing, isn’t the point to get as many sales as possible?

Again referring to Caples, the most important part of any advertisement is the headline and it should appeal to the reader’s self-interest for maximum effect. In the “Does” headline, it suggests that the Droid phone does a bucket-full of things. To today’s multi-taskers, that’s appealing. Yet I think this ad focuses on what the phone does, but not what it does for the customer. It might have been more effective to focus on a specific benefit such as “Droid Does Your Dinner Reservations” (if that’s a feature offered).

Which brings up another point. To say something does everything (or lots and lots of things) makes it difficult for readers to distinguish if the product is for them. Focusing on a specific benefit actually can help make more sales because it taps into a specific need.

One of the other issues encountered here was that this was, essentially, a billboard on a moving object. Billboards whizzing by in traffic have precious few seconds to grab attention and call readers to action. Think of the sales opportunities that whizzed by because it takes readers too long to figure out what a clever advertising message means. That’s definitely not clever.

Every successful company uses some sort of promotion to influence certain audiences, usually customers or prospects, by informing or persuading them. Reasons for promoting a business include: increasing visibility; adding credibility to you or your company; enhancing or improving your image and bringing in new business. The following cost-effective, easy-to-execute ideas have the power to increase sales in a way that conventional advertising cannot. The key is to find the methods that are appropriate for your business, marketplace and professional style.

1. Contests

As one example, a cookware store decided to sponsor cooking contests. After sending out a press release announcing a competition for the best cookie or chocolate cake, a mailing went out to the store’s customers soliciting entries. Food editors, professional chefs and cooking teachers were invited to be judges. Both the winners and the winning recipes were publicized. Essay and design contests are also possibilities, such as a furniture store establishing a prize for student furniture design. Pie-eating, pancake-flipping, oyster-shucking and grape-stomping contests make sense for restaurants. Dentists can hold smile contests, while video rental stores can stage movie trivia quizzes.

2. Newsletters

Another good way to promote, particularly for brokers, banks and business consultants, is through newsletters. Newsletter articles demonstrate how much you know about your field and do so in a low-key, informative way. They also help keep your company high in the consciousness of your prospects.

3. Demonstrations

Demonstrations are an option to attract people to your place of business, to show them how to best use your product and to establish your credibility. A retail-wholesale fish outlet holds cooking demonstrations twice a week, featuring a different restaurant chef each time and attracting substantial crowds. Recipe cards are even given out. Wallpaper demonstrations, fashion shows, gift wrapping, refinishing and computer demonstrations have all worked well for retailers who were selling products associated with them.

4. Seminars

Often more appropriate for business-to-business marketing, seminars are the commercial side of demonstrations. If you hold a seminar, follow these rules for success:

1. Schedule the event at a time that is convenient to most attendees.

2. Be specific in the invitation about when the event begins and ends, who will be there and what the agenda is.

3. Follow up the invitations with personal phone calls.

4. Charge for seminar entrance to give it a higher perceived value.

5. Follow up after the event to get people’s reactions.

5. Premiums

Also called an advertising specialty, a premium is a gift of some kind that reminds your customer of you and your service. There are thousands of premiums from which you can choose: key chains, coffee mugs, refrigerator magnets, baseball caps, paperweights – just about anything that can be engraved, imprinted, silk-screened or embroidered with your company name and phone number.

6. Speeches

Depending on your topic and your market, you might want to speak before chambers of commerce, trade associations, parent groups, senior citizens or other local organizations.

7. Articles

Another possibility is to write an article for a trade journal, reprint it and mail it off to your friends, customers and prospects. Well-crafted articles position you as an expert and are a particularly good way to promote a consulting business.

8. Bonuses

If you have a restaurant, give away a glass of wine with dinner to introduce a new menu. If you sell to retailers, give them a display fixture with the order of a gross. If you sell office supplies, give away a new pen with a sizeable purchase. If you’re in the cosmetics business, offer customers a free sample blusher when they buy mascara and lipstick.

9. Coupons

For best results, the price break should be significant – at least 15 percent. Coupons are one of the least expensive ways to develop new trade and are an excellent tool for evaluating advertising. However, one theory holds that coupons draw people who only buy discount and never become regular customers, so be sure to monitor the results.

10. Donations

Donating your product or service to a charitable cause often results in positive exposure to community leaders, charity board members, PTAs and civic groups. While consumer products are desired most, many organizations also look for donations of professional service time. If you have a restaurant or a large meeting facility, consider hosting an event for a charitable organization. This strategy works best if volunteers for that charity are potential customers.

11. Samples

No matter what you do to promote your business, giving potential customers a sample is an excellent way to attract attention and make a positive impression. In many cases, it makes just as much sense to spend your marketing and advertising dollars on giving out your own products instead of buying advertisements – especially if cash is tight. The key is to give samples to the audience you want to reach (i.e., software packages to computer user groups or nutritious snacks to health-oriented consumers). In the food arena, where one taste is worth a thousand words, firms now exist that test market new products for large and small companies alike through in-store demonstrations. A good demonstration company not only keeps track of how much of your product was given away but also submits detailed reports on what people said about the product and how much of it was purchased.

12. Free Trials

If your product is too big or expensive to give away outright, why not offer a free trial to qualified customers? Try shipping it out to prospects with no strings attached. Most people will appreciate the opportunity to try the product, and many will like it enough to buy it.

13. Free Services

If you can’t afford to give away products, offering your services as a way of generating new business can also pay off. For example, if you own a retail clothing business, send out a flyer offering customers a free fashion consultation to draw them into the store.

14. Special Benefits, Rates or Notices

Smart organizations go out of their way to make customers feel important and appreciated. Frequent flyer clubs are the most pervasive example of loyalty-building benefits for customers only that are now being adapted by many kinds of businesses. Most software companies sell program updates to customers at discounted prices. And advance notices about sales or other changes or opportunities can help cement customer ties.

15. Say “Thanks”

One of the best ways to let customers know you value their business, and to simultaneously encourage their continued patronage, is also one of the easiest. It boils down to saying “thank you” in letters, mailers, surveys, statement stuffers, receipts and invoices, and in person.

Learning how to persuade and influence will make the difference between hoping for a better income and having a better income. Beware of the common mistakes presenters and persuaders commit that cause them to lose the deal.

Conclusion

Persuasion is the missing puzzle piece that will crack the code to dramatically increase your income, improve your relationships, and help you get what you want, when you want, and win friends for life. Ask yourself how much money and income you have lost because of your inability to persuade and influence. Think about it. Sure you’ve seen some success, but think of the times you couldn’t get it done. Has there ever been a time when you did not get your point across? Were you unable to convince someone to do something? Have you reached your full potential? Are you able to motivate yourself and others to achieve more and accomplish their goals? What about your relationships? Imagine being able to overcome objections before they happen, know what your prospect is thinking and feeling, feel more confident in your ability to persuade. Professional success, personal happiness, leadership potential, and income depend on the ability to persuade, influence, and motivate others.

A new report from research organization Datamonitor suggests brick-and-mortar retailers can make up some ground on their Internet rivals through the smart use of technologies like digital signage.

The report, “Shop X: where’s the store heading?,” notes digital signage systems have the ability to identify the presence of viewers, thereby turning up or down the volume control automatically; detect when a shopper points at an item, thus triggering relevant ads on nearby displays; and even figure out what sex and size a nearby shopper happens to be.

Sex and size? At first glance, that seems like a lot of fluff and hype, but it isn’t. As retailers begin using RFID tags in their merchandise and start designing their digital signage systems with RFID sensors, making an educated guess about the sex and size of shoppers becomes possible.

If you aren’t familiar with RFID, here are the basics: RFID (or radio frequency identification) devices use radio waves to transmit digital information, such as the information that’s currently encoded in barcodes, to a special receiver. Like a TV or radio station, RFID tags can transmit at different power levels, which affects how far the tag can be separated from the receiver. Unlike a radio or TV station, these things are tiny -so small that they can be inserted under the skin of animals and people to serve as personal electronic IDs or embedded directly into merchandise.

(While I’m not going to use this space to discuss the privacy concerns raised by these devices nor reports last month of lab findings showing they possibly cause tumors in lab animals, I must acknowledge the existence of these serious issues.)

For retailers, RFID tags have been seen as a Holy Grail of sorts in the drive to reduce waste and improve margin. For instance, its backers see RFID technology as a way retailers can improve inventory control, track products from a manufacturer till they leave a store and enhance in-store security efforts. Working with a digital signage system, they can even assist in-store marketing efforts.

For instance, imagine it’s the holiday season and a shopper enters a women’s clothier after buying merchandise with an RFID tag embedded at the store next door -perhaps a pair of Manolo Blahnik high heels (for all of you Carrie Bradshaw fans out there.) If that retailer had an RFID reader, some interesting information could be derived from those RFID-tagged, trendy shoes, including size and model. With those two pieces of information alone -and a reasonable guess that the shopper is a woman- a database of commercials can be scoured to retrieve just the right one to playback for the designer shoe buyers- perhaps the right fragrance or designer dress.

If you let your imagination roam, you can begin to see why Datamonitor has identified technology as a way for brick-and-mortar retailers to begin competing more effectively with their online rivals. It’s just possible that what cookies are to Web sites and marketers, RFID tags and digital signage systems could be to real-world retailers, namely a way to gather information about shoppers and market to them on a personal level, based on knowing something about who they are.

Whether it’s RFID technology, proximity detectors, temperature gauges, motion sensors or any of a number of other input technologies and data sources, the bottom line is digital signage systems don’t have to blindly prattle on with messages that are out of context. They can be enabled to gather information from their environment and display the appropriate content to better serve the shopper and the retailer.

The success of any business depends on the way messages are communicated to existing and prospective customers, competitors, advertisers, suppliers and other people important to the business.

Today there are many modes of communication, beginning with the most basic and rudimentary means of word-of-mouth to advertising on the Internet. With so many options in advertising, from the traditional newspapers and magazines to radios and television to the modern phenomenon of the Internet and SMS advertising, how does one know what is best for the product? How should one advertise, in order that the message stands out and reaches the target market? To address needs such as these, there are professional advertising agencies.

Professional advertising agencies are external companies that provide for the marketing and advertising needs of other businesses and organizations. Advertising agencies offer a full range of advertising services like advice based on market studies, popular culture, trends and advanced sales techniques. Because they are independent, they can be objective about a client’s business needs.

What any professional advertising company would do for a product is to begin by basically understanding the product, its unique selling proposition (USP) and the kind of people it is meant for. After this, the media in which it should be advertised is decided. Then the creative team of the agency conceptualises the message and designs the advertisement.

Today, a professional advertising agency involves a whole group of people that includes market researchers, planners, conceptualizers, copywriters, illustrators and a marketing team.

There are also special teams in each ad agency, each dealing and specializing in a different form of media. For example, there will be different specialists and teams for the print media, radio, television and the Internet.

What agency is best for one’s need depends on factors like the budget (both the advertising budget and budget for hiring and retaining an agency) and the type of advertising that the advertiser basically thinks would be good for the product.

Image : http://www.flickr.com

Advertising is not for every company. But some require it because their market is big and constantly changing and evolving. Consider this, up to 30 percent of the people in the US move each year. Or, you may be locked into a battle with a competitor. People do business with companies they know and trust. Advertising can help build awareness, so that eventually consumers will trust your offer.

I firmly believe that advertising is an excellent tool for rapidly building awareness of a company, its products or services. I believe equally firmly that you build a brand through public relations, not advertising.

A brand is the sum of all interactions a customer has with an organization. Most of those interactions are with employees, or the product or service itself. If those interactions are positive, then customers, allies and the media will tell others. This is PR.

There are times when you need a rapid shot of marketing adrenaline that only paid media can provide.

So, if you find yourself in need of that boost, check out these nine reasons for advertising:

9. Boost employee morale

8. Create industry buzz

7. Create, build or maintain a positive image

6. Test new products and/or services

5. Retain existing customers

4. Reinforce personal sales calls, direct mail

3. Maintain consistent, controlled customer communications

2. Gain new customers, particularly hard-to-reach ones

1. Position or reposition your company, products or services.

Do you want to do your designs yourself for catalog printing? Well, this is a fairly easy goal, especially today.

With the myriad of free design tools for catalog printing, you can easily create your own designs from home without too much trouble. Cheap catalog printing can easily be possible with these tools. In this article, I will give you a few suggestions on the best web tools that can help you create your own color catalogs, all free.

• Open Office – this is a very powerful collection of applications comparable to Microsoft Office. Its word processor Open Office Writer and its image editing application Open Office Draw can easily be your friends in printing and design. Writer will take care of your word processing tasks, and you can develop nice layouts and configurations for your color catalogs. Draw can easily help you add precisely done images and graphics that can enhance your catalog layout. Best of all though, you can download all of them free.

• GIMP – If you need a more powerful image editing application other than Draw, you might want to try GIMP. GIMP is a very versatile application that can help you enhance your catalog product images. You can add filters, effects, shadows as well as manipulate those image pixels precisely just like Adobe Photoshop or Corel Draw. Since GIMP is open source, you can download it free. Just be a little patient with learning to use it and you should be rewarded with a powerful web tool that will not cost you a thing.

• Creative Commons search on Flickr – Now, in terms of design resources one of the best things I can recommend to you is the creative commons search feature in Flickr. By just doing a precise search for creative commons images, you will get tons of royalty free images that you can use for your color catalogs. Just give the author due credit for the images and you should be all set. There are thousands of images you can use for commercial purposes in Flickr and I have no doubt that you will be able to create nice layouts from them for your catalog printing.

• Free font databases – Fonts are also no problem for designing. The Internet has hordes of free font databases that you can raid and download fonts. Most of these are free and there are plenty of options both wacky and useful for any kind of theme. Just search for free fonts on your search engine and everything should be set.

• Free catalog templates – If you are a little bit iffy about creating a layout from scratch, you may want to download some free catalog templates from the web. Typically, printing companies do offer a free download of these kinds of templates. Of course, you may need to have the appropriate program to open it, but it most cases these templates are in image format, which you can easily customize.

• Free design advice – Finally, if you just need some advice for catalog layouts, you can easily find design tips and tricks online. There are thousands of sites out there dedicated to desktop publishing. From blogs, forums and official self-help sites, the knowledge is out there for you to discover.

Good! All those tools should help you get set for catalog printing and the great thing about them is that they are all free. Good luck!

Majority of the print materials is done through offset printing that is integrated with 4 color printing or four-color process printing. It has gained a following of many small businesses and entrepreneurs who are looking for high-quality prints in the most cost-effective means.

It produces photographic quality full color prints at cheaper cost per unit, compared to inkjet printing, and other printing processes.

However, as popular or common this process maybe, some people still fall into certain pit traps. Some people set certain expectations to find they have actually been asking too much.

Things to Consider with Color Management

Think about how colors work. Think how the colors you’ve worked on will actually appear on print. There is a discrepancy with what you see and what you may get. Computer screens and prints are different media. Think about these and other things that would affect your prints.

1. Color limitations

The CMYK can only but closely match itself to the closest possible colors projected on the computer screen. The color gamut of CMYK, although relatively large, is not enough to encompass the thousands of color hues there are.

2. Monitor Calibration

What we see in our computer screen is different from what will be printed out on presses and even in desk jet printers. The computer monitor has a different color profile and produces color through RGB. Prints that are printed in CMYK cannot fully capture the colors present in RGB although it can match accurately up to a certain point or degree.

3. Machine Calibration

To maintain colors or color profiles of your design, from the pre-press department’s computer to your print out, a printing companies machines and computers are calibrated. This means it will preserve the original look and colors of your design throughout.

Added to this, whatever the material you choose, be it a 100 lb. Gloss Text paper or a 14 pt. Gloss Cover stock, the presses are still calibrated to maintain consistency in the print output. The presses are configured to recognize the properties of these paper stocks to produce prints in premium condition.

4. File Conversion and Compression

Some or part of your data can get lost along the way in the process of translation. Your files for offset printing works differently from that of your desk jet printer. The latter can process your RGB files and print it out automatically. In offset printing, you need to work in CMYK mode or convert your RGB files into CMYK.

For file compression, you may risk the image quality of your file because data compression like files saved in jpeg may lose some information. In return, the image quality of the file may be affected or compromised. Avoid this problem by saving in lossless files such as .tiff or .eps.

5. Paper finishing.

Matte paper has a polished but dull surface that gives it a natural feel. Because the paper surface is different from the standard gloss and high-gloss, matter paper absorbs more light without reflecting it back.

Gloss paper, as the name indicates, has a polished smooth surface that possesses a soft gloss. The High Gloss coated stock or UV coated gives your prints a striking and reflective surface with the sheen or gloss it has. It also has the ability to make colors more vibrant unlike the two other paper stocks.

Manage and know the issues concerning color management. And let your 4 color printing companies find the best suitable conditions to bring out the richness and vibrancy of your colorful prints. Contact your printing company now and work with the experts who can capably make your prints more brilliant.

Be a Renegade. Take Control.

As a small business owner or manager, you get a steady stream of mail by marketing firms, and salespeople who provide advice that is expensive, and worst of all – doesn’t work.

It is time to stop throwing your money away after bad marketing that just don’t work. It is time for you to take control of your business marketing and try some new ideas. It is time for you to see some results from your efforts.

It is time for you to be a Renegade!

A Renegade business owner is someone who is fierce and diverse. A Renegade business owner do things different from everyone else and sets the standard and have other people follow. You already know the old methods that everyone else is using (so yesterday). As a Renegade business owner you are someone who knows that in order to succeed today, you’ve got to be ready to think and act differently about how you are going to obtain and keep your best clients. You want to build a fence around your current clients because if you don’t, your competitors are lurking at the fence to get in and take your clients away. You have got to be ready to market like you got Brass Balls and watch your sales soar as a result of thinking outside the box.

No matter what services or products you sell, if you don’t have the right tools it will be hard to do:

You want to sell more services and products online and offline.

Establish yourself as an expert in your field

Build a loyal base of “fans”

Package your knowledge

Create new revenue streams for you

Keep in touch

So put your hat on and start marketing like a Renegade and watch your sales soar.

What is really the best method for catalog printing? Have you asked yourself that? On the other hand, did you just leave it for somebody else to decide? Well, if you did not decide on where to do it, you might in for a few surprises.

Depending on where you have your catalogs printed, the quality, speed and cost of it will vary. If you want a tighter control over these things, you have to decide for yourself.

In my experience, I have tried three common techniques. Printing at the office, going to a local printer, and online catalog printing. Below are my reviews for each to help you choose the right one for you.

o Printing at home or at the office – Doing your printing at the office will be the one with the most work for you. You will have to design everything on your own, buy the necessary materials and then fold and bind the output yourself. Therefore, if you are lazy or you do not know a thing or two about computers and printing, you will not like this method.

The best thing about this method though is that it is cheap. If you only need 20-50 pieces, then this is the cheapest option for catalog printing. Formal orders need a minimum of 100-250, and you will have limited control over the expense of the quotation. With home printing, you basically dictate what paper and binding tools to use. Everything will be in your control. So if you like to decide all the things on your own, try to choose this method.

o Printing with a local printer – If you require that professional touch, then going to a local printer should do nicely. I like that most printers have all you need in terms of options. You just specify to them what you need, from paper stocks, bindings, colors, chemical coatings etc. Afterward, you just leave them be and wait for the orders to finish. Once you get them, you will be impressed with the quality of the output by local printers. This is because they usually use the best offset printers in the business.

The only bad thing about local printers is that you have to be precisely in their office to place the order, specify things etc. Moreover, some firms might even have you pick up your prints in their office once it is done. It is a time consuming process that might hamper your busy schedule. So choose this option if print quality is your primary issue.

o Online catalog printing – This process is a cross between home printing and printing with a local printer. Having your advertising tool printed online is a cinch to do. You just need to send your design, place your order, enter the important details, pay for it then have the color catalogs delivered once done. It will have the same quality as traditional printers, but you created it at home in a comfortable environment. Therefore, if you are busy and still want to have a quality output, this is definitely the recommended choice.

Great! I hope these reviews can come a long way into helping you decide on how to print your catalogs. Good Luck!