Free Toolsday for April 15th
Happy tax day! Here’s a great free tool to save yourself some green. Honestly, I’m not sure why it’s taken me SO long to tell you about this tool. Anyone who’s ever had to hire a graphic designer for a really simple postcard or business card knows how frustrating it can be to put so much back & forth into a project that takes the designer 10 minutes to flesh out. Not to mention how much money it costs. This is why PsPrint launched the fabulous Design It! tool last year.
Design It! uses state of the art online graphic technologies that allow you to design a business card or postcard in mere minutes. It’s super easy to do the design work and ordering online. With the tool you can either upload your own background or photograph or pick from hundreds of stock designs that PsPrint’s internal graphic design team have developed since the launch of this tool.
You may be weary to use it since it it’s provided by a printing company, but there’s no obligation to buy. At no time do you put in your name or email address or anything unless you decide to order. So you don’t have to worry about receiving junk mail or anything after just giving it a try.
All text boxes are very intuitive to use when adding your custom text, and you can change fonts, colors, and customize the photos or logos you use on the cards. When designing postcards you can even add your own indicia to mail the cards professionally. At last count there are over 300 different templates for the business cards and over 150 templates for the postcards. PsPrint even has an open invitation to users to submit their feedback about what templates they’d like to see and what would improve the system.
Give it a try today. You have nothing to lose!
Read MoreMake Your Business Bloom with PsPrint
Lots of good sales going on this month at PsPrint. The sales are in full swing for spring and it’s time to get the word out about your business. Over the last few months I’ve been reposting some great articles from the PsPrint website about using print marketing to your advantage, so these sales are an awesome time to take advantage of that advise.
- 20% off Brochures
- Brochures are the fastest way for your clients to look up information about your business in a convenient matter without the aid of your website.
- Brochure Printing Made Easy
- Branding with a Shoestring Budget
- 50 4″ x 6″ Postcards for just $14.95
- With prices like these, even the smallest business can promote their products or services. Postcards are also great inexpensive alternatives to party or event invitations. With such a low price for such a small quantity, any mother can send postcards for a proud graduation party.
- Top Six Mistakes to Avoid in Any Postcard Marketing Campaign
- Ninja Marketing Tactics – Postcards
- 5 Proven Tips for Powerful Postcard Marketing
- 15% off Rack Cards
- Rack Cards provide travelers not familiar with the area with highlights of local sights and attractions in hotel lobbies around the country. Rack Cards can effectively advertise restaurants and shops as well to an audience wide open to suggestion.
In Mail We Trust
There’s an interesting little blurb in the November/December issue of Revenue Magazine on page 18. In part it says:
The study said that newspaper ads were the most trustworthy, with 63% of media consumers saying they trust the ads there. Search ads were the highest-scoring online format, with 34% saying they trusted them. Banner ads were trusted by just 26% of respondents and mobile advertising had 18% of the public trust.
Basically what this says to me is that, even in an era of internet marketing, viral marketing, and SEO/SEM… brick and mortar printing is still the most trusted form of advertisement.
One of the best ways to get the word out in a trusted way is direct mail. Direct mail allows you to catch your customers when they’re more alert and looking for information within their mail delivery. Consider this: when you get home from work at the end of the day and check your mailbox, you’re momentarily more alert while trying to decipher what are bills that need immediate attention, letters from friends or family, and what is advertisements. But even though you’re not looking for the ads, they can still seep into your consciousness during those moments.
Direct mail is inexpensive and can be completed by a number of different resources (other than your kids bribed with a pizza and armed with some stamps on a Saturday afternoon). Reputable printing and mailing companies like PsPrint take all the hassle out of a direct mail piece. Mailing lists are affordable as well, so there’s no hassle in supplementing any customer list you already have with more potential leads.
Make sure to keep these tips in mind when planning our your direct mail campaign:
- Make it Relevant. Target your list in a way that the consumers receiving your mail piece actually have interest in what you’re selling or promoting. Use demographic parameters in renting your mailing list to narrow down who you’re paying to send a piece to.
- Make it Pop. Designs should be eye catching when looking through the usual boring pile of mail. Use vivid colors to make your piece stand out amid the white and manila envelopes.
- Make it Clear. Don’t clutter your piece with information in the attempt to let the consumer know everything about your company. Focus on a single call to action (e.g. coming into the store for more details or visiting the website for more information). Use the mail piece to say the most important thing you want the consumer to know and direct them to the most important action they should take.
Now get out there and get your mail on!
Professional Mailing Services at PsPrint
The Dark Side of Company Loyalty
As many employers know, your average employee is only as loyal as their options. For most hard working Americans, if a better opportunity arises they will take it, regardless of years put into their current company or bonds made. As a country we’re all after the American Dream of wealth, success, and 4:00 a.m. gambling binges on acid in Vegas. So when you give an employee the opportunity for more money, they usually chomp at the bit.
The retail world is similar, except in an opposite way. Most people are looking for the bargain, the cheapest deal, the best rate. The most bang for their buck. And even the bonds of loyalty can be broken.
Last week, after deciding to print my own holiday cards but considering how much money I have to spend, I took a look at our main competitors website from home – I dare not speak their name, other than to say it rhymes with Trista Lint.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
As much as I love PsPrint and know that our quality is top notch, prices are affordable, and turnaround is second to none, I was willing to put aside the tenets that I preach to potential customers in favor of the cheapest rate I could get for some customized holiday postcards to send to my very large family. While saddened, I have to admit that I, like many people, don’t have much to spend on something as, well, socially optional as holiday cards. So late at night, when no one was looking to shame me, I scoped out the competition to see if I could get a better rate with them.
I admit, I expected some ridiculously cheap price or promotion, knowing that the quality would be less than ideal but it’d suit my needs. I’m ecstatic to say that I was wrong! Even a minuscule quantity was more expensive than the 100+ cards I need to have printed. It filled me with great relief to know that what I’ve been preaching to those hundreds of thousands of potential customers over the years is true – we really DO have the best prices!
So my faith and loyalty in PsPrint have, of course, been renewed. And just in time for the National Association of REALTORS® Conference & Expo next week! We’ve got the details set and I fly out this weekend. Now I can easily tell people with 100% confidence that we have the BEST rates out there!
BOOYA Trista Lint!
Read MoreFever… in the morning… fever all through the night.
According to my handy dandy Weatherbug extension for Firefox, it’s a toasty 71.8° outside. And you have no idea how proud of myself I am that I remembered the HTML code for the degree sign without having to look it up online.
It’s that kind of afternoon here at the office… it’s quiet, a little too quiet. There’s some kind of big meeting going on in the conference room, which no doubt will somehow trickle into more work for us underlings. Because our conference room has the worst circulation of any conference room, they’ve borrowed my fan to help make it more bearable in there. No, I wasn’t using it, but I could use it about now. But that’s how it always goes, isn’t it?
Most of the projects I’ve been working on are either done or on hold pending someone else’s end of their bargain. In some ways it’s a nice place to be… I’ve done most of my share and the hard work. In other ways, it’s the worst… because I’d rather get this all taken care of and over with than be waiting on someone else’s contribution.
But then again, I never did like group projects in school… I was the kid that always got stuck with 90% of the work. I realized in college that most of the time I’d taken over a project, it wasn’t necessarily because everyone else in my group were slackers, it was sometimes because I just thought I could do a better job than them. So once, I sat back… I knew the best thing I could do for the project was write the paper that was turned in after the presentation. Instead, I let someone else do that and I took the easiest job there was… keeping the notes from our meetings that had to be turned into the professor too.
Every group in the class got an A. Our group got a C (which I’m tragically still plotting ways how to appeal 4 years later). The reason was that the person who wrote the paper was not a very adept writer, so almost all of the points we had deducted came from the paper part. Go figure… I learned my lesson that day.
I digress. Most of what I’ve been working on is standard management of the mailing services program here at PsPrint and making sure the affiliate program doesn’t implode upon itself. So far, so good! We launched new sales today… $100 off Brochures and 25% off Premium Business Cards. Launching sales doesn’t really have much to do with me though, beyond updating affiliates and giving them new creative to use, which again is one of those things I have to wait on someone else for.
Since it’s past time for me to leave, it looks like the waiting game shall continue until tomorrow…
Read MoreDon’t Think About it So Much
I swear I think I’m addicted to these Dove Promises messages inside the candy wrapper. I blame Anne!
Speaking of not thinking about something, I completely pushed the Think Green cards out of my mind until this afternoon when they were done printing. They look GREAT! I wish we could use these as samples… they’re prime examples of the 13pt Recycled Matte paper stock. I know that they’ll be really happy with the cards and I hope they’ll think of us again for their future needs.
Simple hopes of a simple gal still at the office at 5 til 8pm on a Wednesday. Happy Hump Day Everyone!
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