We’ll that could be your problem, the not doing anything.

It’s been over a year since Google launched their new search engine “Caffeine”. Caffeine was developed to address the massive growth of digital media (videos, images, news, real-time updates, social media, etc). Their old way of indexing content just wasn’t cutting it with this massive inflow of new content on a daily basis. Here you can read more on Google’s “Caffeine” search

It’s time to take back your ranking, think SoLoMo!
Social
Local
Mobile

First, where are your prospects and clients socially? Are they on twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn? Figure it out and get on there now!

Second, where are your prospects and clients geographically located? Start updating your content to target these geographic locations. Get on Google+ and Google Local now!

Finally, mobile is taking over web traffic at an astonishing rate. Is your content mobile friendly? Do you have a mobile marketing strategy? If not, you must.

Additional Keys for page rank success:

• Fresh Content. Don’t just set it and forget it.
• Proper Keyword Integration. We’re not talking about keyword stuffing. Do research on what you want to be noticed for, incorporate these keywords and phrases properly into your content.
• Inbound links. Get noticed by other sites or bloggers.
• Engagement. Encourage your users to interact with your site, post comments, reviews, etc.
• 404 Errors. Fix these and monitor them. They can sneak up on you if not monitored and can damage your ranking. WordPress has some nice plugins to help if you use that platform.

That got me thinking. There are a lot of firms out there that are really behind the times and are doing a fantastic job at selling their outdated services.

Here is a very basic list of questions to ask before hiring a web developer:
1. How many years’ experience do you have with web design?
2. Can you show me other sites you’ve done in the past 6 months?
3. What technologies/languages do you use?
4. Will my site work with mobile phones and tablets?
5. May I speak to a couple of the clients of the sites you showed me?
6. Will my site have a content management system where I can make minor edits?
7. What experience do you have with page ranking and search engine optimization?
8. Do you integrate our site with other sites, such as social media and community pages?
9. What are my monthly maintenance costs and what will that do for me?

You shouldn’t have to be a techie to hire a web designer. A good firm will educate you and answer your questions in a manner you can understand. If you get answers that don’t make sense, I would suggest you ask Google and see if you can find a better answer. In other words, if you’re feeling confused or overwhelmed about what your web designer is up to, it’s probably not you – you may just need a second opinion.

A big red flag I see in today’s web and mobile market would be any firm that suggests they use Flash to create your web site.

If you have not heard about the latest promotion from the USPS, it is called EDDM, or Every Door Direct Mail. The concept is to introduce business owners a marketing tool at a very low cost of entry. Postage cost is a stunningly low 14.5 cents per over-sized postcard! Is it too good to be true?

I’ve outlined some pros and cons of this program
Pros:

• Postage is CHEAP at 14.5 cents
• Over-sized cards really stand out, and are much more likely to be noticed
• Reaches every consumer in an entire neighborhood or carrier route

Cons:

• Pieces cannot be individually addressed or personalized
• A targeted list cannot be used for this postage discount
• Pieces must be delivered to the local post office of the chosen carrier routes
• Pieces must be delivered bundled in 50s with confusing postal paperwork

The size must meet these guidelines:
• Be more than 11.5″ long OR 6.125″ high OR .25″ thick
• NOT be more than 15″ long OR 12″ high OR .75″ thick
• Each piece must weigh less than 15.994 ounces

You can download a PDF of the program here

While I definitely believe this is a great program for business owners to venture into the waters of direct mail, it is very important they understand the potential results. Some markets will see fantastic returns with this program, such as a local restaurant, while others will get disappointing results.

So how do you know if your business is a good match for EDDM? My recommendation is to determine your target market first, then the demographics of the area you want to mail to in comparison to your target market. The 80/20 rule will work well here since the postage of the EDDM program is so low. What I mean here is that if 80% of the carrier routes you want to mail to also match your target demographic, this is a great program for you. If it’s less, you may reap more benefit from a targeted campaign.

As with any direct mail campaign, setting up tracking and reporting is important to measure the success. I also suggest you commit to a minimum of 3 mailing dates for the same mail list. After the 3 mailings, read the results, modify the message and repeat. After a few rounds you will have the perfect campaign strategy.

ISBNs are sold either as 1 or in blocks of 10’s. I recommend you get at least the 10 block, but really look at your situation. It is best to purchase what you think you’ll need for the next couple of years. It is also important to remember that you may need more than one ISBN for a single publication. That is because each format you distribute needs its own ISBN. For example, hard copy, soft copy and e-reader versions would all get their own ISBN number for the same book title.

If you’ve already published your book, but didn’t purchase an ISBN number, that is ok. You can purchase one and apply it on your next print by affixing the ISBN barcode to the back cover of the book.

If you send a postcard to do the job of a brochure or a white paper, sure, they’re going to fall short. But if you use a postcard to do what postcards are MEANT to do, you’d be hard pressed to find a more efficient and cost-effective marketing tool. So what are they meant to do? Three simple but powerful things:

1.Generate interest in your products and services;
2.Build brand awareness and customer loyalty; and
3.Get people to CALL YOU.

Actually, the point of those first two things is to get the third thing to happen, so really a postcard campaign has one goal: to get people to contact you. A postcard doesn’t explain all about your company, a postcard doesn’t close sales on your products. A postcard’s job is to entice people to get up and go to your website, drive to your store, pick up the phone and call you. The postcard’s job is to lead your prospects to you.

Knowing what a postcard does best is the first step to designing one that really kicks butt and takes names. Once you understand this, your postcard mailing campaign will have your phone ringing off the hook with interested customers. Do a series of postcard mailings and your response rate will expand exponentially with each mailing. The postcard gets you the calls, and you make the sales. What’s not to love there?

What To Say…Since the smaller format doesn’t have a lot of real estate to work with, the first order of business is to distill the message down to the essentials. The first and most important element is the one that surprisingly seems to be overlooked a lot – the ‘call to action’.

1. TELL the customer to contact you! It seems so straightforward, so obvious, and yet I’ve seen so many inexperienced designers put together direct mail pieces that don’t come right out and tell the reader what they should do. Ask for the call boldly, and ask repeatedly. If you ask your reader to contact you often enough, they eventually will. Add an offer to the request and you’ll double your response. “Call for your FREE estimate!” “Visit our website for a free energy analysis!” Call today and receive 20% off your first order!” and so on. Sending out a postcard without a clear call to action is like sending out an empty envelope – a waste of a postage.

The second most important consideration is to grab their attention fast, and grab it hard.

2. Know your audience – and come up with a headline they can’t resist. Throw open the door with a flourish that says, “I know who you are and what you need.” Make direct reference to their fond memories, their deepest desires, or their darkest fears. Step into your customers’ shoes and look at your offerings through THEIR eyes to see why they might be interested in learning more. Remember, you’re not directly selling your product or service here, you’re just selling the idea that contacting you might be a really good idea.

Sometimes the right imagery can do the trick in place of a stunning headline. I once saw a piece for a pest control company that that was very effective. It didn’t cram a bunch of bullet points about how many years they’d been in business or even reasons why I should call a professional exterminator. It simply featured a softly sun-lit picture of a sweet baby sleeping serenely in a clean and well-appointed crib WITH A BIG OL’ COCKROACH CRAWLING UP THE SIDE OF THE MATTRESS.

This would fall in the ‘dark fear’ category, and while it was absolutely horrible, want to take a guess how many women suddenly decided it was imperative to schedule an appointment with a professional exterminator RIGHT NOW? If you guessed “A whole bunch” you would be right. The point is, a travel agent doesn’t sell hotel reservations and airline tickets, they sell the idea of lying on a sun-drenched beach with waving palms and magically-appearing piña coladas – far away from the stresses of my daily life. Present what you have to offer to your customers from that perspective, and watch your response rates start climbing.

Finally, regular postcard mailings need a consistent ‘look’ to give you ‘front of mind’ awareness.

3. Build your brand awareness. Mail every two weeks or only once a quarter, rotate your featured products or change the sales angle or benefit, but maintain your company brand consistently. Repeating a set pattern for logo placement, typestyle, and color palette will embed you into trusted familiarity, even as the imagery and messages change. With regular, consistently branded mailings you position yourself at the front of your clients’ and prospects’ minds. When they need something that relates to your business – whatever you’re selling – they immediately think of you, and call you first. Not only will you be carving out a permanent spot at the top of the heap, but you can constantly present new and different aspects of your offerings that even existing customers might not realize you do. Most companies are surprised to learn how little their customers actually know about them. Frequent postcards highlighting different perspectives and products are a great way to remedy this. Just make sure they always know it’s you.

The Clinchers… If you ask me, postcards are a smart choice just based on their performance alone, but they also have several advantages other advertising doesn’t offer. Unlike many other communication venues that broadcast willy-nilly to whoever wanders by, with direct mail you get to hand-pick who you’re putting your message in front of. In compiling a mailing list, you can specifically target the best prospects for YOU, and craft your postcard to appeal specifically to their needs and wants. With modern on-demand, variable data technology, you can even personalize and tailor each piece to each individual person on your list, boosting response rates even higher.

Another big plus is that your postcard arrives in your customers’ hands happily beaming your message right at them – without any envelopes or packaging getting in the way. Boom! You’re in! And since postcards are easier to handle, they are much less work than other marketing presentations which require stuffing and sealing and all manner of costly assembly.

Finally, several recent studies and polls have all shown that people across the board PREFER to receive marketing and advertising messages through the good old-fashioned USPS, rather than in the form of email spam, distracting online ads, or the dreaded telemarketer.

So it comes to this. When postcards are used correctly, they are easy, cost-effective, drive interested customers right to you, deliver pretty much instant results, AND they don’t annoy your audience.

How could you help but love ‘em?

Can this be possible, that my latest experiment with business cards could remind me of buttery mushrooms? I’ve always loved to try the latest techniques and products on the market and when one of my suppliers announced their silk laminate I had to try it!

I opted to try the silk laminate on my business cards first. We printed them full color on both sides and had the press sheets laminated with the silk laminate option and then cut to size. The results were more exciting than I could have imagined. The texture was unlike anything I had felt before in a laminate yet the cost to do it was so economical – less than $100 per 1000 business cards for printing and finishing! I kid you not, this unique finish is downright elegant, and so pleasant to the touch that it’s hard to put them down.

How about a little extra SIZZLE?
The silk laminate can also tolerate a spot gloss UV coating! This is so cool! What is a spot gloss UV coating?

From Wikipedia: “Ultra-violet cured coatings can be applied over ink printed on paper and dried by exposure to UV radiation. UV coatings can be formulated up to 100% solids so that they have no volatile component that contributes to pollution.”

UV Coatings come in many shine levels, but the most popular is an ultra glossy finish. You’ve probably seen this on business cards as it is very popular, especially with the discount online guys. Now, rather than apply that shiny coating over the entire card, a ‘spot’ UV is just what it sounds like – the coating is applied on just one particular area (or ‘spot’) so you have an ultra-shiny element that really pops. The coating is printed onto the piece just like you’d do with ink, it can be any shape you’d like. So in this application, we can preserve the silky texture of the card and highlight another specific area with a shiny spot uv coating.

I can’t wait to try it on some of our other products, I’m so pleased with the results. Because of the nature of the laminate, the process is limited to card stock products – but that leaves lots of possibilities wide open. Which shall we try next? Perhaps a postcard, or a greeting card!

Go ahead, run your fingers over THIS…
Since texture and feel is not something that can be shown in a picture or described with words, I’d be happy to mail out a sample if you are interested in seeing (and feeling) this awesome new product. Just fill out my contact form and put in the description box you’d like a sample of the silk laminated business card, and I’ll rush one off in the mail to you.

I give the Silk Laminate 5 out of 5 stars!

There is a common misconception that a good product or service will simply sell itself. Many new and developing businesses spend so much time and resources on developing their product that when it comes to marketing it, they think, “It’s such a great widget, everyone needs it, I don’t need to do any more to sell it”. The truth is you can have the very best product or service in town and still fail. How will people find out about your must-have product? How do they go about getting it? Will they tell others about it once they are hooked? Creating a fantastic product is only the beginning – the secret to real success lies in a properly executed marketing plan. .

Why do I need a marketing plan?
To understand the value of a marketing plan, perhaps I should start with a definition. A marketing plan is a road map to meeting (hopefully exceeding!) the goals you have set for your business. It defines your product or service, your target audience, your business and sales goals, your budget and resources, and what steps you are going to take to bring it all together. The goal of marketing in general is to communicate the benefits of your product or service in order to persuade prospective customers toward a particular response. The goal of your marketing plan is to outline a strategy toward achieving that end in a focused and effective way. Just like any journey, if you haven’t defined a destination, chosen a mode of transportation, and determined the best route, you’re pretty much wandering aimlessly and just hoping you’ll wind up somewhere good. This isn’t the most expedient way to get anywhere.

So many of my clients have come to me because they realized this kind of meandering wasn’t cutting it. For years they ran their businesses without a plan – and it worked well enough for a while. But with the economic downturn they noticed a dramatic reduction in sales and profits. The “don’t have a plan” plan was no longer working for them. Developing a clearly defined strategy, setting goals, and tracking your progress is fundamental in the success and growth of any business, not just new ones.

How long does this take? (I’m very busy, you know)
Sure, everyone is busy. And putting together a successful marketing plan will take a little time. But here’s a secret I’ll fill you in on: Once this plan is set into action, you will begin to reap not only the financial rewards, but you will soon realize all the time you were wasting chasing one lead to the next has diminished. You now have a plan that coincides with your business goals, and by following the plan, it’s doing a lot of the work for you. Trust me, the time you invest in putting together a plan is going to be paid back in triplicate. The 3 steps of the initial phase are not as daunting as you may think, especially when you break a plan down into its basic components:

1. Research your target audience, and define the benefits your business offers them
2. Create a marketing plan
3. Set goals and deadlines
4. Execute your plan
5. Review goals often with reports and modify the plan to adapt to the changing market

Where do I begin?
It’s best to start with an evaluation of what you’ve got. Take a good look at the 7 P’s: Product, Place, Price and Promotion, Physical Environment, People, Process. Don’t worry too much that the 7 P’s may divert some of the attention away from the client, this is just a framework to build your marketing plan on. Once you’ve outlined everything, it’s time to set clear goals. You will take the information you’ve gathered and line it up with your goals and create your action plan, aka marketing plan. How will you do this? You could do direct mail, develop promotional pieces to hand out at networking events, internet marketing, cold calling, etc. Most plans will include some of each.

Stay the course!
Whatever business-building strategy you come up with, you must execute the plan and track results. This means keeping good data on who you’ve called on and the sales process. I recommend you get a good CRM system (client relationship management). There are many open source projects (free), and many off the shelf CRM systems you can buy. I don’t care what you choose, but pick something and USE it! This is the most effective tool you have at TRACKING your results and knowing if what you are doing is working. Review your reports of new accounts weekly if you set a monthly goal. Know that when starting out, you probably will not see these 20 accounts overnight. But they will progressively accumulate. Trust that by following the plan and adapting to market changes you will reach your goals.

And before you know it, YES, we ARE there yet!

Happy Marketing!
Lynn Miller | Founder
The Printheads, LLC
lynn@theprintheads.com
www.theprintheads.com

As Lynn continued to study Graphic Arts in the ensuing years, she furthered her practical experience by retaining her job in the small print shop. Upon graduation, she was offered a more challenging position as a pre-press operator for a larger printing firm, and she took it. It was here that she developed her inherent knack for implementing technology-driven solutions that streamlined print management processes for both company and clients. While this earned her a reputation as a technological wunderkind, it was her detailed, organized approach to an industry that is traditionally somewhat chaotic, coupled with an exceptional eye for quality (and a determination to produce nothing less), that fueled her rise to General Manager of the company in nine short years.

As print technology and marketing communications grew, changed, and evolved, Lynn was right there evolving with them. From pre-press platemaking to search engine optimization to social media, the nuts and bolts of every aspect of business communication were her constant companions. The next logical frontier was to strike out on her own, which she did when she founded The Printheads in 2009. Having managed day-to-day operations for a large company and then conquered the challenges of launching a small business start-up of her own, Lynn has an unusual amount of insight into the needs of her clients – above and beyond what’s found at the average agency.

Lynn is an avid gardener and blossoming tennis player who lives in Marietta, Georgia with a slightly cranky cat whose tail is mysteriously missing; a standard-issue Heinz 57 dog; and a decidedly non-standard issue fella, the inimitable Brian. Her customers will tell you that her dedication to helping people find just the right blend of resources and strategies to grow their organizations – graphic design, print materials, and online technology – is not at all unlike her love of gardening, and it shows in the fruits of her work.

Hi, I’m Lynn Miller, founder of The Printheads, – print technology expert, and novice blogger. Welcome!

I’m here to share my passion for the graphic arts industry, as well as some juicy insider tips and tricks. This blog is going to be PACKED with fresh ideas. Some of the topics you’ll find covered here include:

• Smart Designs
• How-to Guides
• Case Studies
• Product Reviews
• Professional Tips and Tricks
• Marketing Do’s and Don’ts
• Design Templates
• Technical Specifications
• Variable Data Printing & Design Strategies
  (Including Personalized URLs: PURLs)
• Printing Processes
• Self- Publishing
• & Much, Much More

I hope to take some of the mystery out of the world of Graphic Communications to help you get the most out of your print and marketing materials. I’ll be adding new tools and helpful advice regularly, and you won’t want to miss out on some of the trade secrets I’ll be revealing! Every week will feature new time-saving tips, cost-cutting maneuvers, and information you can actually use to help you reach your target audience more effectively. I’ll be showing you how to evaluate your goals, assess your budget, and find the optimum solutions that will take your organization to the next level.

Looks like I’m going to be a busy little blogger. I hope you’ll be a regular visitor, and that I can help you select the right bait, set all your hooks, and start reeling in all the business your company can hold!

Comments and questions are welcomed and encouraged! Leave comments here on the blog, or email me directly: lynn@theprintheads.com.

Lynn Miller | Founder
The Printheads, LLC
lynn@theprintheads.com
www.theprintheads.com