How Print Marketing Can Work For You (Part 2: Design)

In part one of this series, we talked about the initial steps in creating a printed marketing piece that can work for your small business. Now, let’s talk about getting the most out of your design.DesignNo matter what you do, you must be strategic about your printed piece and make it as unique as possible. It must be eye-catching, but also easy to reproduce on press and to mail out (if that’s your chosen delivery method).Some items are difficult to reproduce well on press. If you aren’t familiar with printing limitations, it is best to contact your printer and ask for their recommendations on elements to avoid before you start to design your printed piece. Because of the rapid evolution of the printing industry over the last few years, printed pieces have to have more targeted audiences to be effective and are often used with other media with another purpose in mind, such as websites or social media pages with more information.If you need to convey a lot of information, it shouldn’t all fit in your printed piece, unless you’re creating a multiple page publication or report. Most printed marketing pieces should be brief with a call to action for people to visit the web for people to get more information. It should be clear, concise, visually stunning, and enticing. This will all help you get the most bang for your buck when printing. People are visually stimulated and don’t want to read a novel on a postcard. The old days of printing a large quantity of a static piece crammed with lengthy information and distributing to everyone are gone. That would be called junk mail and wouldn’t even get a second look from your customer. Incorporating a printed piece in a strategic way with the other media your company uses can be a key to the success of your campaign. There is also the option to incorporate a QR code into the design of your piece, which can help you track how many people interact with your piece. You could also include a coupon and see the response to the piece by tracking how many are redeemed.If you have a small budget, stay away from pieces that will require die cutting of special shapes, foil stamping or embossing. As unique as these types of things are, they the increase the cost of a printed product, because a metal dye needs to be produced and there are extra die cutting, embossing or foiling processes. If one or all of these elements are vital to your piece and fit into your budget, keep in mind that there is a lot of set up required. Because of this, it is only cost effective to go this route when printing large quantities and the tight registration often requires the quality of offset printing.Plan an effective design to reach your target audience and let your printer know the printing specifications needed for the projects including, the flat size, final size, any folding or converting needed, paper substrate choice, quantity and if it will be mailing.Stay tuned for Part 3 of this three-part series, which will help you determine if mailing is the best delivery method for your printed piece. For your direct-mail needs, contact us at [email protected]