Printing Arts Press Blog: Word on the Street

Monday, March 21, 2022

How to Use the 40-40-20 Rule of Direct Marketing

The 40-40-20 rule of direct mail marketing breaks up marketing into three parts to help you predict and evaluate the success of your direct marketing campaign.

According to Investopedia, direct marketing is any marketing that uses direct communication or distribution to customers through mediums such as mail, email, social media, and texting.

The success of your direct mail marketing is:

40% dependent on your audience,
40% dependent on your offer, and
20% on everything else.

Let’s break it down and look at each one individually.

Direct Mail Marketing: Audience

You’re not going to get very far in your direct mail marketing campaign if you’re reaching the wrong people. Money spent on advertising to the wrong audience is wasted money. This is why reaching the right audience constitutes 40% of your direct mail marketing success.

The right audience must be within your target market. The more precise you can make your target audience, the more effective your direct mail marketing campaign will be because the marketing will be more personalized. For greater personalization and success, go beyond surface-level characteristics.

Build up a well-defined mailing list. Include people on the list who have bought similar products through similar methods. Keep records of who has bought from you in the past and how they did it. Target those who have bought similar products because of a previous direct mail marketing campaign. These people have a proven desire to buy your products.

Direct Mail Marketing: Offer

The offer includes the product itself and incentives to get the customer to buy it now. It constitutes 40% of your direct mail marketing campaign success.

First and foremost, the product must be something your audience actually wants. It’s going to be challenging to sell an unwanted product. Before releasing products, test them out with customers to see if there’s interest.

Next, the offer within your direct mail marketing campaign must be good enough to incentivize your audience to buy now. Try out the following tips:

Create FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out): if you can get the customer to feel as if by not buying your product, they’re missing out, you have effectively created tension and pressure within your customer to purchase the product.
Create urgency. If the customer doesn’t feel the need to buy now, they might never get around to it. But, letting the customer know that the offer is only for a limited time or until supplies last creates a sense of urgency to buy now, which translates into more sales.
Provide safety. People, in general, are incredibly risk-averse. Don’t let people’s fear of loss hurt your marketing campaign. For example, offer a 100% money-back guarantee offers.

Direct Mail Marketing: Everything Else

20% of the success of your direct mail marketing campaign relies on everything else. This includes the copy (written material), design, and format. Advertisers often put most of their time and energy here when creating an ad campaign. But, usually, when an ad falls through, it is because of the audience or the offer. However, that’s not to say this step is not important.

Copywriters should connect with and compel the reader by identifying the customer’s pain points, frustrations, and hopes. They should effectively convince the reader why this product will work for them. The copywriters should work with the designers, whose primary goal is to get the material read.

The 40-40-20 rule of direct marketing will help you create more effective direct mail marketing campaigns.

To contact Chuck Gherman, Theresa Kauser or Veronica Carter for more information about how Printing Arts Press powered by PROforma can help organizations with their Marketing and Human Resource needs through promotion and print communications please visit www.printingartspress.com.

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Monday, March 14, 2022

Launch Your New Product or Service Easily With These Tips

It’s an exciting time. You have a new product or service, and you want to let the world know.

Here are some tips to help you succeed.

Do Your Market Research

The best way to start is to do some market research.

A great way to do this is to call 10 or 15 of your current customers and ask them what types of issues they have had regarding what you offer. Ask specifics so you know how you could potentially solve the problem.

Your research should show you what motivates your customers, which should help you address that issue.

Define Your Positioning Statement

What’s your positioning statement?

Writing this should help you figure out just what you’re planning on offering customers. It will tell why you are the best place for them to receive help and why your product is the best. Flush it out so you know exactly why people should go to you over the competition.

After creating your positioning statement, it’s time to present it to stakeholders. Take time to explain your statement to managers, product developers, and others who might be able to offer some criticism. If they like what you have to say, you’re more likely to receive a warm welcome from customers. And if they have suggestions, welcome them and take them to heart to hone your marketing efforts.

Get Your Message Out

Think about how you will use the media to get your message out.

Create a buzz about your product or service. Include different media types, including press releases, ads, advertorials, and other media-related promotions.

Make sure you know how to write a press release, and don’t be afraid to reach out to journalists to tell them your story. Just remember it needs to be a story, not an advertisement.

Remember, you only get one chance to start the buzz and create something for people to talk about. So, get as much attention as possible.

Get Your Team Up to Speed

Be sure to assign roles to your staff, so they know what they are responsible for during the launch.

This will ensure a smooth transition into the new product or service and make sure no one is doubling up on a job, which can slow progress.

Consider Your Timing

Choose the right day for the launch.

Is your product or service weather-oriented or seasonal? Make sure you launch it at the opportune time so that people can welcome it immediately. During this time, make sure that stakeholders know what you are doing. Keep them in the loop so they can support you.

Reflect and Learn

After the launch, be sure to evaluate it.

Did you get the results you were hoping for? Did you increase awareness? Were there things you should have done differently? If so, be sure to note it for the next product launch.

Being organized in your product launch is vital, as is communication. We are here for you to update letterhead, create a new logo or direct mail campaigns, and more. Reach out to us today!

Monday, February 14, 2022

The Hidden Benefits of Promotional Calendars

Promotional calendars are an ingenious marketing tool to target loyal and prospective customers.

The Benefits of Promotional Calendars

Promotional calendars utilize continuous, year-round advertising.

Even in today’s digital age, printed calendars are still widely used. According to PPAI, 78% of consumers still use a printed calendar at home or work.

Therefore, if you give a calendar, the customer will most likely use it. After all, it can’t get much better than a free calendar. This calendar will hang in the customer’s home or office where they and their coworkers and family members will also see it. The recipient is bound to refer to it at least once a day. This equals at least 365 views per calendar. That’s a lot of advertising power!

Promotional calendars are cost-effective.

Depending on where you go and what specific calendar you buy, a printed calendar will cost you roughly $2.00. That one calendar is likely to receive at least 365 views per year, translating to about half a cent per view. That’s some cost-effective marketing!

Promotional calendars are recyclable.

The best way to show that you care about prevalent topics, such as the environment, is through action.

What better way to do this than by creating a recyclable product? Your impact on the environment will be lessened, and your customers will appreciate your efforts.

Promotional calendar tips

Promotional calendars are incredibly effective but increase their potency with the following ideas.

Add monthly specials and important business days to the calendar.

The customer is going to be referring to the calendar often. Take full advantage of this by reminding them about special deals and important business deals to increase sales and traffic.

Feature customer stories.

Share some of the ways your business has helped individuals and the community by highlighting inspirational stories through your calendar. This will make the calendar more engaging while simultaneously generating trust between you and the customer.

Personalize the calendar by adding the customer’s name.

Show your customers you genuinely care about them and their support by giving them a personalized calendar. This will make the client feel special.

Include stickers with the calendar.

People of all ages enjoy stickers. Try including calendar-specific stickers, such as birthday, to-dos, laundry day, tax day, payday, etc. Look into creating customizable stickers so that your company can be advertised through them too.

Try 18-month calendars.

This will help you get ahead of the curve by giving these out in June instead of December when most other businesses distribute their calendars. Once the customers start using your calendar, you can continue supplying as the years go on.

Calendars are subtly powerful marketing strategies due to their usefulness and staying power. Soon, your customers will be asking you when your next calendar is coming out.

Monday, January 24, 2022

Developing a Competitive Advantage

Competitive advantages are the factors that allow your company to produce goods or services better or more cheaply than your rivals and are the key factors in what makes your business better than others.

If your competitive advantage can be easily copied or imitated, it is not considered a competitive advantage.

Your competitive advantage is the essence of your strategy, messaging, and marketing. According to Jack Welch, “If you don’t have a competitive advantage, don’t compete.”

Comparative Advantage vs. Differential Advantage

Comparative advantages and differential advantages are the two different forms of competitive advantages.

A comparative advantage is your company’s ability to produce something more efficiently, leading to greater profit margins.

One way to achieve a comparative advantage is to increase your economies of scale. An economy of scale is the savings in costs your company generates when it increases levels of production. Greater production leads to lower production costs because it more evenly distributes the fixed costs.

A differential advantage is your company’s ability to produce unique products or of higher quality than your rivals.

Examples of a differential advantage include advanced technology, patent-protected products or processes, superior personnel, and a strong brand identity. High-end brands, such as Louis Vuitton, utilize a differential advantage. Their high quality and uniqueness allow them to charge much for their products.

Economic Moats

Warren Buffet described sustainable competitive advantages like a moat.

The image is that your company is like a castle, and your competitive advantage is the moat surrounding the castle. The better your competitive advantage, the greater the moat. A large moat makes it nearly impossible for other castles (businesses) to attack your castle (company). This illustration provides an excellent analogy for what a sustainable competitive advantage can do for your business.

You can create your own moat by strengthening your brand, raising barriers to new entrants through tactics such as regulations, and defending your intellectual property through patents.

How to Create a Competitive Advantage

Competitive advantages are imperative to the success of your business. A competitive advantage technique can be found in many areas.

1. Find a focus area

Trying to be great in everything often results in excellence in nothing. Therefore, most businesses find it best to hone in on a focus area. This is a market niche in which your company can excel.

2. Employ the best talent

Your employees will determine the success of your business. Therefore, employing passionate, talented people is imperative. Search for talent and reach out. It’s better to wait for the right person than hire the wrong one.

3. Utilize rewards

Incorporate rewards into your business. You’re going to need to incentivize your employees to go above and beyond their call of duty by rewarding high performance. Examples of rewards include money or vacations.

4. Foster experience

Now that you have amazing employees incentivized through rewards, the next goal is to keep them wanting to work for your business for years to come.

The greater experience your employees have, the better your business’s customer service. Avoid a high employee turnover rate by making your work environment a place your employees will want to stay for years to come.

5. Speed

Customers care about speed.

The faster and easier it is to buy from you or use your services, the better. Look throughout your process to find ways to cut down on time and make it easier for your customers.

Dominate 2022 by establishing an effective competitive advantage!

Tuesday, January 4, 2022

The Power of Storytelling in Marketing

Storytelling has been around for ages.

To this day, people love stories. It unites people while stimulating imagination and passion. Although often seen as a fun pastime, stories usually have a purpose, such as sharing a message, conveying a moral, or telling history.

Humanize the business

One sometimes overlooked use of stories is within business marketing campaigns.

Stories can be especially moving in the marketing world. Storytelling humanizes the brand, which is beneficial because people like buying from other people. The more you can humanize the brand, the better.

Stories to remember

Storytelling is also useful for remembrance.

People tend to remember stories better than they do statistics. Sometimes, being remembered is half the battle. After all, the marketing world is saturated with numerous businesses vying for attention. “Brands that tell more sell more.” Storytelling is a unique way to stand out. Stories take on different formats depending on their purpose.

What is storytelling in marketing?

Marketing in storytelling has a couple of unique features.

Storytelling in marketing is…

Combining information with a narrative. It takes skill to effortfully combine relevant information into a story. But that’s exactly what great storytelling marketing strategies do. They effortlessly combine the facts with the story.
Your brand: storytelling elevates your brand. Your brand in itself is already meant to humanize your business and give customers an idea to attach themselves. Storytelling will help you achieve this.
About your customers. Your customers are at the heart of every story. Your main character resembles your ideal customer. The better the characters resemble your customers, the more effective your storytelling will be.
Emotional and engaging. Stories are fun. Stories are emotional. Don’t shy away from these key components because it’s a marketing campaign. If you can add emotionality and engagement to your story, the better the story will be. Commercials that generate a chuckle or a tear are the ones that are the most memorable and impactful.

Stories can be found in all shapes and sizes.

Stories can be written. Written stories are found in articles, blogs and books
Stories can be spoken. Spoken stories are at presentations and pitch panels.
Stories can be in an audio format such as within a podcast
Stories can be digital. Digital stories are in videos, animations, interactive stories, and games.

The medium in which you tell your story is important because how the story is told adds to the meaning of the story.

How to tell compelling stories

Practice

Great storytelling takes practice.

Effectively combining your company into a story that is compelling and coherent is challenging. It takes time, patience, and practice to develop the skill. Just remember that, like everything, practice yields improvement.

With storytelling, the best way to improve is by doing. However, having a good foundation is helpful.

Remember your basic storytelling outline:

The introduction sets the scene and gets the audience wanting more.
The rising action is where the conflict is set up and built. Tension and suspense are created.
The climax is the most exciting part of the story. The tension that has been rising bursts and the conflict emerges.
In the falling action, things settle down and go back to normal.
The conclusion. Every story needs a conclusion. In marketing, it is generally best if the ending is a happy one. Usually, happiness is created from your product or service. Here is the best part to include a call-to-action where you encourage the potential client to buy from your business.

The characters

A great story has great characters.

In marketing, the best characters are relatable. The more your potential customers relate to the characters in your story, the more they can empathize with the character’s problems. The prospective client will then see your company as a means to fix their problems.

Try implementing new strategies, such as storytelling, to your marketing campaign to complement the new year.

Friday, December 17, 2021

Marketing Techniques to Drive Sales for Your Business

Knowing how the human brain works and what drives people to make decisions is immensely beneficial in marketing.

Luckily, there’s much research and information regarding various psychological tips and tricks to drive sales and expand your business. Here are a few.

Cut down on the options

Sometimes too many decisions can cause a customer to shut down, resulting in no sales.

To avoid this, research your prospective client beforehand to determine what products or services would best suit their needs. When doing the sales pitch, focus on only these to cut down on the options. Even better, you can lump products into packages, so your prospect needs only to make one big purchasing decision instead of multiple small ones.

No matter what you ultimately pitch to your client, it’s imperative you do so with the correct framing techniques.

Utilize positive framing

Framing is how the information is presented.

Positive framing increases sales. Therefore, try to sell your product or service in a positive light by homing in on the benefits.

However, feelings other than positive ones can be beneficial if framed correctly.

Fead your prospect’s fear of missing out (FOMO)

People are much more likely to act when they feel if they’re afraid of missing out on a great opportunity.

Creating the sense of scarcity is an effective way to fuel FOMO within your prospect. After all, the more rare something appears, the greater in value it becomes. Scarcity also presents a time limit for them to act, prompting them to buy soon.

If the product or service is scarce because of high customer demand, then even better! The customer will assume the purchase will be a good choice because many other people seem to enjoy it too.

The sense of scarcity can be artificially generated through limited editions and limited-time sales.

Sometimes, FOMO is the main driver of a client’s decisions. Sometimes, it’s something else. Getting your client to articulate their thoughts to you can be immensely beneficial for the sales process.

Get your client to tell you why

This one’s rather sneaky but highly effective because people are more likely to listen to themselves.

If you can get your client to verbalize why exactly they want the product, then they will, in effect, want it more. To achieve this, ask your client why the product or service appeals to them and what’s holding them back. Your client will be able to tell you, and affirm to themselves, why they want the product or service. If something is holding them back, you will be able to better adjust your strategy.

You can get your client to want your products or services even more through promotional products.

Give your prospect promotional products

When someone receives a gift, they’ll want to reciprocate the kind action. This makes them more likely to buy from you.

Promotional products are ideal because not only are you generating a feeling of trust and reciprocity, you’re also advertising your company. The best promotional products are ones that your client will truly enjoy. Therefore, research your target market to create promotional products customized for this group.

Giving and receiving are beneficial to both parties. Therefore, it’s helpful to get your client to give something as well.

Ask your client for small favors

Once your client gets in the habit of doing small favors for you initially, they’re much more likely to agree to more significant favors down the road.

This is known as the Ben Franklin Effect. It is named after the founding father Ben Franklin, who, to build rapport, would ask someone for a small favor, such as lending him a book. This small act would generate feelings of warmth and helpfulness.

In practice, this may look like asking your client to sign up for a free e-letter, share comments on social media, read blog posts, attend free webinars, or download an ebook. Later, when you ask them for something larger, such as to buy a product or service, they’re much more likely to do so.

Not only will asking your client for small favors prime them for purchases down the road, but the small favors will help your client become more familiar with your business.

Generate familiarity

Familiarity is good because it creates positive feelings.

People like the things they are used to. Making your business familiar to your clients will help increase sales because as your business becomes more familiar, it becomes more trustworthy and good in their eyes. However, balance is essential. Too much can lead to oversaturation, which will backfire. Find the middle ground.

Psychology is a powerful tool for persuasion. The above strategies will greatly help you increase your sales and the growth of your business!

Friday, December 10, 2021

3 Tips to Improve Your Print Marketing Strategy

Print is a powerful marketing tool.

People trust print more. In fact, 82% of consumers say they trust print ads more than digital ones. This is one reason why print helps generate loyal customers.

Print is also more likely to be noticed and has a higher response rate, growing your client base. Although print is intrinsically powerful, there are actions you can take to grow its effect further.

Include a Call-to-Action

Perhaps self-explanatory, a call-to-action is when you call on your client to act.

Call-to-actions are often included within your advertisements. They ask the client to check out the business website, follow the social media account, or sign up for a newsletter.

Often, customers’ interests are piqued by your print campaign, but they’re not sure what to do next. A call-to-action solves this problem, increasing the likelihood of customer interaction.

Call-to-actions can reside within a plethora of print forms.

Utilize a Variety of Print Mediums

Print comes in all shapes and sizes.

Keep your target market interested by adding variety. Brochures, business cards, and postcards are all extremely effective forms of print advertising.

Brochures are small pamphlets that advertise the products and/or services of your business. A compelling design will help keep your customers engaged. Brochures also provide you the opportunity to share your business’s brand with consumers. Your brand is the intangible concept of your business that consumers use to distinguish you from your competitors. Brands are important because people often attach loyalty to brands.
Business cards are small, easy-to-carry cards you can hand out at promotional events. It helps improve the brand recall of prospective customers because these handy business cards stick around the customers’ houses for quite some time. In other words, business cards help customers remember your business. Business cards also help customers stay in touch with you.
Postcards are medium-sized cards with a picture or design on the front and a message on the back. They are effective because people are especially attracted to pictures. Just like brochures, these allow you to share your brand with your prospective clients.

Some forms of print are more effective than others. That’s why it’s important to acquire data.

Track Your Results

To improve your future print marketing campaigns, it’s imperative that you track the results of your past campaigns.

Obtaining data will help you pinpoint what went well and what needs improvement. This will significantly help you in the future when you decide what to include. Include more of the factors that were widely successful. For the parts that didn’t go well, you could brainstorm why and how to improve them. Or, you can forgo the faulty technique and bring in another one instead.

You want your marketing attempts to have the most impact possible. Adding a call-to-action, mixing up your print marketing variety, and tracking your results will help you develop a more effective marketing campaign.