How to Utilise your Leaflets Effectively

Leaflets are one of the most popular ways of promoting your business; they are great to boost sales by getting your message out in a hurry.

But leaflets should also be used as a part of an on going marketing plan as they are a cost effective way of disseminating your information.

It has been proven that most customers will only make a purchase after they have seen a company’s marketing message 6 times and by specifically targeting your potential clients and tracking the results you should be able to increase the normal low response rates of leaflets from 1-10% to 25% and above.

Before you go any further you will need to think about how you want to disseminate the information. Are you going to business shows, networking, door dropping, magazine inserts or just handing them out in the street?

Who is your target audience and where are they based? Think about who your ideal client is.

Design and layout used to be the realm of a professional graphic designer but these days there are many pc based design programs such as Word or Publisher. These are great for a basic leaflet design but please be aware that most printers prefer print ready pdf (portable document format) files set for CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and black) and most home PC programs do not have this capability. If you are unsure it is always worth having a chat with your printer as they can help you with this as well as give advice on size and paper weights along with colours and fonts etc, and If you don’t wish to go down the self design route they should be able to put you in touch with a reputable graphic designer in your area.

Make sure if you are taking your own images that you use the highest resolution your camera allows. Be aware that most camera phone images are not of sufficient quality for printing. Always check the resolution of all images used as they must be at least 300dpi for printing (your printer can help you here if you are unsure), just because an image looks good on screen does not mean it will print correctly.

If you are stuck for relevant images you can download royalty free images from websites such as istockphoto.com usually for a small fee.

When designing your leaflet always think AIDA

Attention – does your leaflet grab your audiences attention, open with something that pulls them in not pushes them away such as a question:

“Are you paying to much for…”

“Have you ever…”

“Can you see…”

Interest – now you have their attention you need to sustain it by getting them interested.

What is your USP?

Convey the benefits of using your services, if you don’t know then ask your existing customers why they use you.

Cut out jargon and waffle

Desire – now you have their interest you need to make them desire your services:

Obtain customer testimonials.

Show them how what you have to offer will solve some of their problems and appeal to customers by always using ‘you’ and ‘your’ in your text.

Can you offer a guarantee – money back/lowest price/100% satisfaction/quality etc.

Action – lead your customers towards taking a specific and measurable action:

‘Call now, on ….’

Give a discount if you are contacted before a certain time.

Have a voucher with a deadline etc.

….and make sure you track your results.

By having different special offers or leaflet designs going out to different areas/target audiences you can track your results and concentrate on areas that work and discard those that don’t.

Remember to include all the important information such as phone number, email/website address and always allow plenty of time for checking and editing. Let someone else do the proof reading as it is commonly known that you cannot proof read your own work. Check and double check all contact details, and finally, make sure you have permission to use all images and quotes.

How Your Business Could Save Money With Print Management

Orange, the mobile and cellular communications giant owned by France Telecom, is well known to UK consumers. This is not least because of the large scale advertising and marketing campaigns it runs, just like any major brand. Advertising and marketing in print format (ie on actual paper) forms a big proportion of this budget. This includes things like leaflet printing, booklets and pamphlets, consumer magazines, billboard posters and direct mail marketingmaterials. It is completely feasible that such a huge company would spend vast amounts on this type of work.

But a recent news story in the print indusrty press revealed that Orange also spends £7 million every year in the UK on 'print management'. Not a penny of this is actually spent on ink or equipment or printing costs - it all goes into the strategic planning of that printing. It might seem a little OTT to spend this much on a third party service merely to oversee printing. Yet if you understand what is meant by print management, you might begin to see why such sums are justified. The basic fact comes down to this. Companies which spend money on a print management specialist actually tend to save money compared to those who try to manage their printing by themselves.

A large part of these savings comes down to reducing wastage. Millions of dollars are lost every year by mistakes such as incorrect color calibration, problems with paper stock and simple typos which were ignored before sending to print. If you consider unwieldy and complex print marketing strategies this is quite often the case and these costs are written off as 'inevitable'. It is because commercial printers needed to find an efficient solution to these that the discipline of print management was born.

Aside from reducing waste, another thing print management is able to achieve is planning the logistics of all the varied print campaigns so that resources and time are used most efficiently. Print jobs and schedules are planned in scientific detail to reduce the cost associated with electricity use, overheads and purchase of unneccesary equipment. For example if you are using a large number of printing machinery units during peak times, by planning ahead and spreading the load you can use less machines, and less power, at any one time. Do the math and the outcome of this is that your printing costs come down. So you can either achieve the same amount of output for less money, or reinvest the savings in more print marketing and ultimately more ROI.

Here's the good bit: print management is no longer the exclusive domain of huge enterprises like Orange. In the past decade the gains in digital printing technology have meant smaller scale print management solutions are possible for small to medium enterprises, meaning that the rest of us can enjoy the same kinds of cost savings the 'big guys' have been enjoying for years. Is your business taking advantage?

Sourced from www.printerscentralonline.com/blog/How-Your-Business-Could-Save-Money-With-Print-Management