So, really, why all of the hype about promotional calendars? Of course, they are an excellent marketing tool that can be customized to fit any industry or clientele. And they do offer your business the ability to find advertising real estate right in your customer’s living or working space at a small cost to you. But are they really worth the time and cost for your business? Here are some ways that promotional print calendars are a big deal for your business. In other words, yes, you should invest in a new promotional calendar each year. Take a look:
What’s the Big Deal with Promotional Calendars?
Designing Gift Calendars for Your Customers
Not only do calendars make great gifts that people can use, they can be a promotional tool for your business. When someone uses your calendar, they get a daily reminder of your company. Not only that, if you give wall calendars, then you may gain new customers from their friends and coworkers viewing the print calendar. Below are some tips for designing an attractive calendar that people will want to use.
Use Creative Pictures of Your Product
Your calendar can be both functional, and a tool to sell your product or service. Just make sure your pictures are attractive and interesting to look at. For example, if you own a boutique that sells children’s clothing, you could take photographs of animals dressed in the clothing you sell. Or if you run a restaurant, you could feature toddlers dressed like adults placed like customers.
If you have an interesting business such as making custom jewelry, you could put photos of different steps in your work. Then you could include a little information at the bottom of the picture. Or, if you own a bakery, you might feature attractive pictures of your baked goods and include a recipe underneath each corresponding picture.
Use Photos of Local Attractions
People like seeing pictures of their home town. You could include pictures of local landmarks or places of historic significance. You might also take pictures of local festivals and events. Be sure to include people in your shots, but get their permission if they are close by.
Leave Space for Writing
To encourage people to use your calendars, leave enough blank space on each page for people to write. You should make the date squares large enough to write in. You can also leave room at the top and bottom or sides of each page for notes. Continue reading »
3 Tips for a Powerful Presentation
Presentations can be intimidating for the presenter and downright boring at times for the audience. One way to lessen the intimation and reduce boredom is to have a presentation that includes custom folders. Custom folders can enhance presentations on any topic to any audience. Here are some tips for a powerful presentation with the use of custom folders.
#1 Custom folders are an attention grabber
The beautiful design on the shiny cover of your presentation folder will catch the attention of your audience. The design can be customized to the presentation of a new product being launched or simply a representation of your business logo, large and prominently placed. Custom folders immediately give your audience something to focus their attention on and can help guide their attention throughout the presentation. Instead of the audience’s mind wandering, they can focus on your folder and the information it contains.
#2 Custom folders inspire confidence in your product
Selling is all about the confidence you have that your product can meet your customer’s needs. In addition to your spoken presentation and the points made in it, a custom folder gives the audience an impression of the confidence you have that your product will meet their needs. A custom folder inspires confidence because it is printed with your business’s logo. When your customers have confidence in your abilities, having your name and logo on the cover of a custom folder gives credence to all that it contains. Customers will trust your recommendation because they trust your judgment.
#3 Custom folders hold information
Without the use of custom folders, at the end of your speech the audience will stand up and walk out perhaps never again thinking about the information you presented. With a custom folder, all of the information your customers need can be placed inside ahead of time, and when they stand to leave they can take all of that information away with them. Custom folders are often printed with the business name and contact info and have a place to hold business cards inside in addition to product brochures and other information. Organizing all of this information neatly for your customer helps bolster their confidence that you can manage their needs just as well as you can manage your powerful presentation.
The 3 Most Important Aspects of a Powerful Catalog Design
Ever see an eye catching catalog arrive in the mail season after season and wonder how each one can be so different, but still so attention getting? With these three aspects of powerful catalog design, you can achieve this same result. Great design, high quality images, and professional printing will produce a great catalog as well as a great value. The value added incentive is the interchanging of past great catalog design to create an even better catalog for the next season or year.
Basic Information You Should Always Include in a Travel Brochure
A compelling travel brochure should always be part of the total marketing plan for a travel business. Creating an effective travel brochure is much like any other brochure printing project, but there is some basic information you should include in a travel brochure. Begin by determining what the message of your brochure should be then move on to these simple steps.
Audience
Now that you know the basis for your ad campaign, a careful study of your target audience will guide the design elements of your travel brochure. The choice of theme, colors, styles, font, and photos all need to be based on their appeal to the audience while also maintaining consistency with your company’s brand identity. The third consideration that should be taken into account is the nature of the product or industry that you are advertising. Continue reading »
Promoting Your Brand with Calendars
These days everyone is looking for a way to promote their brand or business with inexpensive marketing ideas. Of the many economical options for printed marketing materials, one is sure to stay with your customers all year long: a print calendar. Calendars are versatile and can be customized to any brand or business for any market. Here are some ideas to promote your brand or business with calendars.
Recognizable Design
The number one trick for promoting your brand with print calendars is to have a consistent, distinctive design for your print calendars. Photos, products, and captions change from year to year but maintaining your company logo and the subject matter and style of your images will be the continuity that customers recognize and come to expect. Be sure that your logo appears on each page and that the overall design of the calendar is consistent with your other printed marketing materials.
Captions
The greatest benefit of print calendars is that your customers can use them every day of the year. Of course a compelling design is needed to make customers choose your calendar as the one they hang up. It is best to be able to tie each image used to your brand or products but this does not mean that the images must be of your product. The trick is to create a print calendar with striking images and use the captions to show how your company relates to or is like the visually stunning illustration.
Failproof Tips for Catalog Design
Catalog printing is well worth the share of marketing dollars it uses but some techniques yield a higher profit than others. Careful design and planning in these key areas will greatly increase the value of your investment. Here are some failproof tips for catalog design:
- Standard size formats are more economical to print and mail, try to resist the temptation to use creatively shaped catalogs. Ask yourself when you last got a catalog from a major company in a non-standard size. The answer is probably “never”.
- 16-page increments are the most economical. If your catalog content lends itself to this constraint, 16-page increments are the way to go (16, 32, 48, etc). 8-page increments are the next best option.
- When planning the layout of your catalog printing, designate more space to products with higher profit margins.
- Cross-sell related products either by placing them on the same page or using the copy to send readers to the related products. Call-outs can also be used. Continue reading »
How To Promote Your Business Effectively in the Summer
Summer is a great time to connect with people and attract new customers to your business. The sunshine improves every one’s mood, and people are outside and accessible. Take advantage of the summer time to promote your business by trying a few of the fun summer promotional ideas below.
Sponsor a Swim Team
Even small towns have swim teams for children that compete at regional swim meets. You can check at your local swimming pool to find out who is in charge, and ask to sponsor the team. You could purchase their swim gear and have your business name printed on their swim caps. Not only will this help get your business name out there, it will show people that you are involved in the community.
Leave Brochures at Hotels
When you go on vacation, you can leave business brochures at your hotels. You can also leave them at the different restaurants you eat at. Just be sure that your printed brochure has all of your contact info, including a web address, email address, and Facebook or Twitter info.
Keeping it Real in Graphic Design
Obviously, every graphic designer would love to create the perfectly original design for every client, and in a perfect world, this would be possible. Designers would have unlimited freedom in their creations, clients would love to be original, and advertisements would be appreciated for the art form they are. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a perfect world and designers very often have to forgo unique designs and their creative flair for a canned design that their client desires. In all reality, commercial design just is not the place for showing off artistic talents.
With this in mind, the question arises, how do you as a designer keep each project from looking like the last one? When you get an amazing idea, it’s hard not to want to keep using it for every client, but for your future clients’ and your career’s sakes, you cannot just copy the best idea you’ve ever had into every project. Keep your work original for each new client by following these tips below:
Starbucks’ Recent Ad Campaign: An Educational Experience
I believe that there is a time and place for a text-heavy ad to counteract specific competitor threats. The recent case of Starbucks’ new text laden campaign may be a good example of such a time and place. With McDonald’s and Dunkin Doughnuts trying their best to capture the Starbucks market, Starbucks no doubt has a lot they would like to say to their customers who may be thinking about going elsewhere.
Effective Advertising?
For my coffee drinking addiction, there is nothing that beats Starbucks. I want my coffee to have plenty of caffeine, no sugar, and to taste good. From what I gather, other coffee drinkers are not such purists. The reason, however, that I think the current ad campaign may be effective is that the classic Starbucks coffee drinker has discerning tastes, is well-read, and makes decisions based on qualities other than price.
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