Articles relating to marketing concepts including social media marketing, branding, and print marketing
Want to grab attention for your event, promotion, or group?
Flyers are a low-cost form of mass communication that can be personally delivered, distributed through mail, posted in public places, or sent via e-mail. Flyers are fun to create and provide a great place to experiment with unusual images or layouts. As you explore the possibilities, here are five areas to sharpen your design:
This video from the National Museum of Industrial History in Bethlehem, PA explains how Otto Mergenthaler and his invention “The Linotype Machine” revolutionized the printing and publishing industries in the early part of last century.
PrintWorks was originally founded in 1924 as Bonekemper Typesetting in Lansdale, PA as an independent typesetting firm. The Bonekemper team ran three shifts typesetting newspapers, books and other documents for print companies in the northeast, and was the largest type house outside of a major city in North America at the time.
We had two of these machines until 2001 when our last hot type client, a greeting card company, ceased operations. We typeset thousands of lines of these hot metal slugs each year during the Christmas season until the technology was replaced by digital printing in the early 2000’s.
We’ve seen a lot of change through the years, and we have come a LONG way! We embrace change and understand that we must continually adapt to the ever changing needs of the marketplace.
Equipment and technology comes and goes but there is one thing that never waivers: our commitment to you, our customer. A simple commitment reflected in our mission statement:
We deliver creative Print & Marketing Solutions that make our clients successful. We keep our promises, provide creative solutions, and achieve our client’s goals.
Read more about our Mission, Vision and Values on our website: PrintWorks Values
In the meantime, enjoy learning a little about what makes our business so cool!
Are you capitalizing on those opportunities, too?
While methods have evolved over the years, traditionally lions were subdued by three tools: a whip, a stool, and a handful of tasty snacks. While the whip or snacks make sense, perhaps you wonder why a stool was used (instead of a sword or a flame, for example)?
How can a small piece of furniture intimidate the king of all cats?
The truth is, the lion is not afraid of the chair, he’s confused by the multiple points on its legs. Cats are single-minded creatures, and the bobbing points of the chair legs confuse the lion into a less focused state. When the lion loses its train of thought, it is distracted from the instinct to pounce on a weaker opponent.
Ever try to rush your kids through breakfast and get stuck at the cereal cupboard?
As they browse a shelf of eight boxes, they slump and groan: “There’s nothing to eat!” What started as a hurry-up turns into a traffic jam. You vow that next time, you’ll only offer toast and Cheerios.
When we don’t give customers a simple, singular call to action, they may also fall into decision fatigue.
Does your website or your print materials overwhelm customers with possibilities?
Psychologist Sheena Iyengar, a professor at Columbia Business School, co-authored a study that showed significantly more conversions happened when shoppers had fewer options. In her example, shoppers had to choose from a display with six different flavors of jam versus a display with 24 different flavors of jam. How did they compare? The conversion rate for the six-flavor table was 30%, while the 24-flavor table was only 3%.
Analysis can lead to paralysis!
What about your method for calling prospects to action? Does your advertisement ask them to commit to a 30-day trial AND use a customer discount code DURING a selected 14-day window? Does your podcast ask people to share with a friend, AND subscribe, AND download previous episodes (all in one breath)?
Perhaps you need to take a step back and use these three evaluation tools:
When you ask people to do several tasks at once (like visiting your website and joining your e-mail list), you’ve probably overshadowed your main goal with several smaller goals.
Focus on one main goal for customer conversion, and use customer loyalty programs down the road to call customers to greater steps of engagement or loyalty.
If your communication is a mist in the office, it’s probably a fog on the streets. To determine which CTAs are crystal clear, run some A/B tests with sample customers and find out which ones are generating momentum.
Start call to action statements with a strong command verb, like buy, shop, order, subscribe, or win. Use concise phrases that build enthusiasm.
Which of these CTA statements excites you more? “Consider many of our 200 exciting destination possibilities,” or “Plan your dream vacation today!”
Keep things sweet, simple, and customer-focused. Once they take the bait you can always present them with more!
ETIQUETTE TIPS FOR TRADE SHOWS
The most important part of any trade show or business event is how your staff presents themselves to potential buyers. Here are a few etiquette tips for trade shows and other business events:
Another less common title for this group would be Generation Y.
I’m a millennial and certainly proud to be one.
We’re now at the age where we’re making considerable changes in business and technology, but more specifically, marketing demographics.
Though millennials seem difficult to market to because of technology, there are now more opportunities and platforms to use than ever before.
Because of that, businesses are dramatically changing how they engage with their prospective and current customers, as many of them are millennials.
Yes, we are living in a world driven by mobile devices and social media outlets, but that makes marketing to millennials a more straightforward process than you might think.
You just have to go about it in the right way.
With all the advances in technology, information is everywhere and millennials are eager sponges waiting to absorb the next bit of new information.
Understanding Generation Y and learning what they’re looking for is the key to staying relevant.
Sure, you can dive into social networking and use flashy gimmicks, but it will be useless unless you know what they’re after.
Do your research.
Find out what’s attracting them, what’s trending, or what’s up and coming and beat them at their own game!
The more you know about millennials, the easier it will be to share information that appeals to them and encourages them to engage with you.
Don’t let the countless types of technology fool you into believing that print is no longer relevant.
It is still a very powerful marketing tool that can attract the millennial generation.
In my opinion, millennials are very receptive to design and traditional mediums even while technology is so prevalent.
Print is unique, it’s impactful, and it’s difficult to ignore.
Use it to your advantage and consider including digital marketing in the mix.
The two CAN be combined with something like a QR code or a CTA that drives traffic to your social media platforms.
Millennials migrate towards businesses with personality.
Create a voice for your company that is fun and relatable.
Generation Y wants to feel as if they’re engaging with a person as opposed to a business.
That doesn’t mean you need to dumb it down!
Remember, these are the young entrepreneurs that are redefining economics and the workplace as we know it.
It’s a generation that is becoming more important every day.
Needless to say, if you haven’t made the necessary changes to market to them yet, I’d suggest you start.
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