Marketing

For years postcards have been an effective way to raise brand awareness for a business.  If you are struggling to come up with new ways to bring in customers, consider adding them to your marketing strategy. Here we have put together 4 ways to use postcards that you may not have thought of.

• Coupon
  • The first strategy is to use your postcard as a coupon. Include a discount on products or services if they bring in the card to you. This ensures that the potential customer will hold on to your ad and you will stay in front of them for a longer time.  If a customer was on the fence about using your company this can be just the nudge they needed to contact you.
• Share News
  • Another great use of a postcard is to use them to share exciting news. If you are opening a new location, you can mail them to the surrounding area to drive traffic to your new store. Or they can be used to announce a sale or event that is coming up that you believe the customer might be interested in.
• Promote Services
  • Using them to promote products and services is the most commonly used strategy. This is a tried-and-true method of driving sales to your store front or website.  Don’t over crown the card with too much information and make sure to include an eye catching graphic if possible.
• Thank You
  • Our final tip on how to use postcards is to use them to show appreciation for your customers. Sending a thank you after a purchase is a very thoughtful way to show that you care about the people who support your company.  You can mail this to them or even just slip a card into a shipped order.  If you really want to go above and beyond you can leave a blank space on your postcard so you can write a personal handwritten note.

Hopefully we were able to give you a few more ideas on how you can effectively use postcards in your marketing strategy.

For more helpful information check out our blog at: /advice-from-the-printer/

And for more information on Inkwell Printing Company check out our website at: www.inkwellstl.com

Is print a part of your marketing? Do you use flyers, brochures, business cards, or direct mail? These can all be great tools if you are effectively using them to generate leads.  Or they can be a waste of time.  Do you feel that you aren’t seeing any benefit from your mailings or your handouts? The problem could be in the design of the piece.  Keeping that in mind, we’ve put together some tips that will help you generate far more leads the next time you use a print piece for your marketing. We’ve been doing this for over 30 years and we have seen some amazing pieces as well as plenty that could use a little work…follow this list to make sure you are one of the amazing ones.

• Target

First and foremost, your piece must appeal to your target audience.  Who do you design it for? Think about what you know about your customer.  Are they a certain age, gender, or income level? These can all be targeted with specialized mailing lists.  Also, the style you will use can vary greatly depending on what demographic you are going for.  You do not want to design your piece for “everybody”, that’s a good way to catch no one’s attention.  Whoever you are targeting it is crucial to use a design that specifically aims for them.

• Headlines

Next you need some strong headlines.  Keep them short and to the point.  Focus on the benefit the customer will get from you.  Most people skim a piece before they decide if they will give it the time to read it.  The headlines need to catch their interest and portray to the customer why they should give you any more of their attention.

• Short and Sweet

Now that your headlines have captured their attention, don’t lose it.  This is not the time to be rambling about your product or service.  Keep it short and direct.  Get all the relevant information out as easily consumable as possible.  Do not over-crowd your piece, this is a quick way to lose the potential customer.  Make use of space, use a graphic or a beautiful picture to tell the story not a flood of text.

• Branding

In all things you design branding is crucial.  If your brand is strong enough then just a glimpse can tell a potential customer that this piece is from your company.  So, it is a good idea to tie all your pieces together.  If possible, use your printed pieces to drive traffic to your website or get them to sign up for your email blast.  This is a great way to hit all corners of your market and to have all your marketing strategies working together as one.

• Call to Action

We can’t tell you how many beautiful eye-catching, attention-grabbing pieces we have seen over the years that fall flat because of a lack of a call to action.  What is the point of grabbing a person’s attention and giving them all the information about your product if you don’t intend to do anything with it?  You must include some sort of direction at the end.  Whether that is simply to come visit you store or check out your website, you need to directly tell the interested party what you would like their next steps to be.  Include an expiring coupon on your postcard while asking them to come visit you.  Ask them to sign up for your email newsletter to collect some customer information.  Tell them to call now to get more information they might be interested in.  Whatever your call to action is just make sure it is direct and simple to do.

• Track

The final step to increasing the effectiveness of your printed material is to track all the data you possibly can.  When a customer contacts you try to figure out how they heard about you or what made them call.  This will help you learn which pieces are performing well and which ones need to be tweaked or dropped entirely.

Print marketing is a very effective tool in 2022 but it must be done correctly.  Keep these tips in mind when you are designing your next piece and you will see much better results!

For more helpful information check out our blog at: /advice-from-the-printer/

And for more information on Inkwell Printing Company check out our website at: www.inkwellstl.com

Leave behinds are a marketing staple in any business that does door to door sales, but they can be perfect for creating a lasting impression in any business.  A leave behind is by definition anything that you leave behind you after a visit, but the primary examples are business cards, brochures, door hangers, magnets, calendars, water bottles, and a variety of other promotional products.

There are a few questions you should ask yourself when you intend to incorporate leave behinds into your marketing plans. You need to ask how much information you want to leave with the customer? Is the item relevant to your business or market? And how do you plan to distribute the materials?

Distribution

First, we will cover distributions strategies.  The most obvious strategy comes in to play if you are doing door to door sales.  If you can get in front of a potential customer, it is especially important to leave, at bare minimum, your contact information in the form of a business card.  You should also leave them brochures that remind them about your product or service.  An excellent way to do this is to prepare a sales folder that stores all the relevant information a customer might need, this can be left after a conversation or simply left with the receptionist if you are unable to meet with anyone.  Another distribution strategy is to utilize tradeshows.  When it comes to tradeshows, promotional products are a staple of marketing strategies.  This is where you will want to have a variety of different items alongside your informational brochures.  Make use of the more inexpensive promotional products, like pens and hand sanitizers, for these shows since you will most likely hand out a large number of them.  Obviously, the higher quality and more useful a product is the longer a potential customer will use it and the longer your name will stay in front of them.  But this also drives up the cost, so finding a nice balance is important for tradeshows in particular.  The third strategy and what we believe is the best of the three, is to leave your leave behind with a customer once your service is completed.  A happy customer can be an endless source of referrals and a great way to make sure that a customer remembers you is to provide them with a useful promotional product.  Depending on what your business is you may have an opportunity to leave a notepad or some other promotional product at a customer’s house or if the customer travels to you then you should make sure they always leave the transaction with a promotional piece.

Relevant

Another strong opportunity is to consider if you can leave a relevant product with your customer.  If you are trying to sell phone plans you can leave products that are relevant to phones like screen cleaners or useful items that go on the back of phones.  We know of a plumber that left branded plungers behind for his customers, talk about a unique product. As a printing company we like to leave behind notepads and calendars with potential and past customers.  This keeps our name on their desk for as long as they as the notepad lasts.  We have found this to be the most effective product for us.  So, it may take a little creativity to come up with a useful product that is relevant to your business personally, but it can definitely pay off if done correctly.  Now a product does not have to be uniquely relevant to you, it can also simply be relevant to your customer.  We have seen a lot of success with branded cups and water bottles, the type that keeps your drink cold or warm for long hours.  It is worth it to invest in the nicer cups because customers will sometimes use these for years and can lead to countless referrals.  Another successful product we have seen is branded tote bags.  These can be anything from reusable shopping bags to nicer bags that people take with them to the beach.  If you can give a customer a useful product that they appreciate, it will constantly have your name in front of them for months to come.

Information

The final question to consider is how much information you want to leave with the customer.  This can help you decide exactly what type of product you want to go with.  If you simply want to build name recognition then a pen, magnet, or sticker can work.  If you hope to leave your contact information you will need to figure out how to attach a business card with a product.  And if your goal is to leave product or service information then you will need to go with something like the folder package suggested above.

Hopefully, these questions will help you implement leave behinds into your marketing plans this year.  They can be highly effective at increasing repeat customers and getting referrals.  We recommend them to all our clients.  Good luck with your marketing goals this year!

For more helpful information check out our blog at: /advice-from-the-printer/

And for more information on Inkwell Printing Company check out our website at: www.inkwellstl.com

Now more than ever businesses are looking for ways to save money in their marketing budgets while still getting their name out there.  We have put together a few simple tips to help you save some money and still bring in new customers.

1. Branded Apparel/Vehicles
   • One of the best and least expensive ways to advertise your business is to use yourself as a walking billboard. Get branded shirts and jackets so that your business is on display whenever you are out and about.  Do you have a company vehicle?  A vehicle wrap is seen by countless people while you do your normal commute.  Even if you just have a personal vehicle consider at least putting stickers on the bumper or back window.
2. Branded Giveaways
   • The next strategy is to let your customers advertise for you. Do this by giving out branded items such as reusable grocery bags, water bottles, and cups.  If these items are useful then people will carry them around and always have your brand on display.
3. Business Cards
   • Business cards are one thing that a business owner should always have on them. You never know when you may meet someone that expresses an interest in your business’s products or services.  Business cards are very inexpensive, but they are priceless when it comes to handing out your contact information quickly and effectively.
4. Every Door Direct Mail Postcards
   • Direct mail still has one of the highest response rates out of any form of direct marketing. However direct mail can get pricey as you make your list more and more targeted.  If you do an every door mailing though the price drops significantly.  This limits your ability to target a particular demographic, but it makes it extremely easy to blanket an entire area with your message.  This is highly effective especially if your business targets a specific area within a city.
5. Thank You Cards
   • Last but not least, consider sending out thank you cards after a sale is completed. Mailing a personal thank you has been shown to drastically increase the rate of return customers.  This can lead to more referrals as well.  It is a small act but one that can go a long way towards building a long-term relationship with you and your customers.  For the best results make sure to personalize the card in some way and send it out soon after the transaction is complete.

Hopefully, these tips can help you save some money while still marketing your business.  Best of luck and stay safe!

For more helpful information check out our blog at: /advice-from-the-printer/

And for more information on Inkwell Printing Company check out our website at: www.inkwellstl.com

2020 has been a tough year for businesses of all sizes.  It has forced us to rethink how we attract consumer attention.  One way that we have found to be particularly effective is through the use of postcard marketing.  Postcards are a classic form of marketing and have worked their way back in to relevance especially during this unusual business climate.

Announcements

The easiest way to use postcard marketing is to use them for making announcements about your business. This is a great way to let people know that you are still open and what you are doing to protect your customers during these times.  One of the major problems businesses are facing is that people are not out and about like they used to be.   This is drastically cutting down on your business’s visibility.  If people are no longer walking or driving by your doors, then you may be out of sight out of mind for them.  Obviously, your outdoor signage is still important but consider all the customers that are not driving by your signs anymore.  This is a huge market of people that you still need to attempt to reach.  A postcard can be a perfect way to let them know you are open and ready for business.

Brand Recognition

Similarly, postcards are great ways to build brand recognition.  With people not seeing your outdoor signage as often as they used to, a postcard can help you stay at the front of their minds.  People are online more than ever now and their attention span for ads is the shortest it has ever been.  This means that your digital ads are competing with countless other companies and people are paying less and less attention to them.  On the other hand, mailboxes are receiving far less mail than they did in the past.  This offers you the opportunity to put your message directly in to the hands of potential customers and have their entire attention for a few moments.

Sales

A tried and true strategy for postcard marketing is to use them to inform customers about sales.  Using a postcard as a coupon or simply to let them know about a store wide sale has been a very strong strategy.  You can set up your design to either drive customers to your store or to encourage them to check out your website for exclusive offers.  You need to do something to get more eyes on your business and postcards might be the perfect way to make that happen.

Design

Now a little bit about the actual design of your card.  If possible, have a professional help you out on this part, not only will they know how to lay the card out correctly, but they will also know what works and what does not.  One simple rule to follow is that less is more when it comes to postcards.  Take advantage of the space on your card to show off a picture or graphic.  It is tempting to fill up the card with information about your business, but this has been shown to have a negative effect on your audience.  People respond more favorably to a colorful picture or graphic then a block of text.

Sizes

When doing an EDDM (Every Door Direct Mail) Postcard there are size requirements that must be met.  We have found that the most popular size is a 6×11 inch card.  This fits the parameters and has had success in marketing plans.  If you decide to mail to your own list instead of blanketing an area, then a 5×7 postcard is the most common.  When providing your own list you have far more flexibility on the sizing and shape of your cards but it can cost a little more than doing an EDDM.

Hopefully, you found some of these tips useful and you can incorporate them in to your marketing plan.  We wish you luck on growing your business and staying healthy!

For more helpful information check out our blog at: /advice-from-the-printer/

And for more information on Inkwell Printing Company check out our website at: www.inkwellstl.com