Leveraging Community Guides and Business Resource Directories Advertisements

If you are not taking advantage of a business directories and community guides to advertise your products and services, you are missing many great opportunities to expand your business. These tools are a goldmine.

Think about the benefits and evaluate your options:

• The goal is to get listed in a good directory or guide that reaches many of your target audiences. An important feature to look for in a directory or community guide is having it edited by a real person who will place the content in the best suitable categories. This personalized attention will put your message in a more valuable and precise position.

• Directories can be a two-way connection. Make sure your company’s listing has valuable content and that the directory has quality principles.

• If you would like to submit your Web site to top directories that reach your primary decision makers, look for ones that offer a manual procedure. This is more accurate and generally higher level listing than an automatic directory submission.

• Manual directory submissions can be time consuming, but are worth doing. They offer the best opportunity to match categories and descriptions to your business so that you attract more prospects that are in need of your type of product or service.

Is your company listed in any directories or guides? If not, what steps are you taking to get listed this year?

The Resurgence of Industry and Custom Print Magazines

It’s true. The rumblings within the industry say print magazines are making a big return. Even in this frenzied iPad era, custom print magazines and advertising in magazines in general are still proving to be a highly effective means of building a loyal following. As you continue to develop your business take note of how this print magazine revival can boost your company brand and help meet your goals.

Here’s how you can benefit from the print magazine return:

1. Print magazine ads drive readers to your website.

More than half of readers took action or had a more favorable opinion about the advertiser in response to magazine ads, according to recent Affinity Research.

2. Magazine advertising delivers consistent results. Studies show that print magazines boost other media’s effectiveness including online and mobile media. In addition, magazines deliver results more consistently throughout the purchase funnel than TV or the Internet.

3. The most desirable consumers read magazines.

Heavy magazine readers are likely to be among the highest spenders across most product categories. In consumer magazines, you want to highlight multiple ways to use your product to keep consumers enticed.

4. Magazine audiences are more potent than you think. The average monthly magazine influences approximately 60 percent of its audience within a month’s time, and the average weekly magazine accumulates nearly 80 percent of its audience in two weeks.

5. Custom print magazines really work. To get the full attention of your target audience use custom print magazines. They deliver your company’s message in a professional way and make you stand out from your competition. The original content from industry experts gives your readers valuable information and incentives not available elsewhere.

How do you plan to utilize the print magazine resurgence to further your business this year?

4 Reasons to Reexamine Print Marketing In 2011

Don’t be fooled by what you see; print is still king. You read that right. In a world where everyone has gone tech-crazy, pay attention – the printed word has managed to stand firm as the most impactful means of communicating, especially with a consumer base. So don’t dismiss print marketing just yet, it may be the best way to grow your business!

1. Retain Your Customers: According to a study conducted by Junta42 and MarketingProfs, customer retention was the most important goal for marketers when it came to content marketing outside of basic brand awareness.  Customers still responded to printed material, if for no other reason, they don’t get it as much, so use that as an opportunity to stand out.
2. No Audience Development Costs: Publishers expend huge amounts of time and money qualifying subscribers to send out their magazines. Many times, publishers need to invest multiple dollars per subscriber per year for auditing purposes.
3. Print Still Excites People: The printed word is still perceived as more credible to many people than anything on the web. It goes to the old adage, “If someone invested enough to print and mail it, it must be important.
4. Ask Questions: The Internet is great because buyers can find answers to almost anything. But where do we go to think about what questions we should be asking? Print allows your customers to ask questions.

Will you still be engaging in print marketing in 2011 to retain your customers?

How to Make Your Print Marketing Stand Out – Week 4

Week 4 – Measure Your Results

One of the biggest mistakes companies make is not evaluating the results of their print marketing campaigns. Going through the process of delivering your printed collateral without evaluating its effectiveness does not give you a benchmark for improvement on your next campaign. You may have delivered a message, but you may not have delivered the right message and you may have missed the opportunity to satisfy the needs of your audience.

Some marketers have the tendency to focus solely on ad response rate, and that again misses the bigger picture. Here are three great questions to ask your target market when evaluating the effectiveness of your print campaign (courtesy of Zoomerang.com):

• How Would You Rate Our Print Marketing Material? – Start with a broad question. Let your respondents give you an overall first impression of how they felt about your marketing material. You can easily filter or cross-tab to view comments and purchase intent by rating score.

• How Likely Would You Be To Purchase or Inquire About Our Product/Service Based Upon This Collateral? – This is a key question.  Your marketing brochure isn’t worth anything it if doesn’t convince people to actively seek out your product or service.  If the answers are resoundingly “yes” – way to go! If not, read through the open-end responses to understand why.

• Can We Send You Our Next Marketing Brochure? – To truly gauge the pulse of your respondents you need to know if they’d be open to receiving future mailings. If they are, you are doing something right. If they reply “no”, allow them in supply an open-ended response to tell you why.  These answers are worth their weight in gold for revamping your next attempt!

How have you evaluated your print marketing campaign success? We welcome your comments!

How to Make Your Print Marketing Stand Out – Week 3

Week 3 – Compare to Your Competition

Well-written copy is undeniably important for a successful print marketing campaign and it is an investment for any savvy entrepreneur.  As with any new investment, you need to do your research before embarking upon a new campaign, in order to avoid as many mistakes, and that starts with identifying your competition.

It is a good idea to evaluate a competition’s print marketing strategy before developing your own. While you should not copy your competition (as you maybe copying methods that do not work), you can gain an understanding of what your customers see and get out of printed materials.

Here’s how to use your competitor’s print marketing to get ahead:

Make a list of your competitors

This may seem like an obvious starting point, but listing who your competitors are will help you differentiate who your audience is and target the market from whom you are crafting your message.  Break your competitors down to direct and indirect competitors. Direct competition is any company that offers the same products and services to the exact same market you do. Indirect competition is any company that offers the same products and services to a different market than you do. Think of McDonald’s as an example. Burger King and McDonald’s are direct competitors because they are both fast food restaurants, but Whole Foods is an indirect competitor of McDonald’s, because it sells meals for purchase and grocery items that you can take home a create your own hamburgers and fries.

Join the group

Find a way to get on as many mailing lists of your competitors. This will help you judge benchmarks such as how your competitors are delivering their message and how memorable their copywriting is. Register for their newsletter, seasonal catalog and any other pieces they may distribute. If your company address is too obvious, use your home address when you register for their materials.

Use their weakness to create your uniqueness

Design an analysis sheet with the main points of comparison between you and each competitor. What are the strengths and weaknesses of all print collateral? Are they conveying messages that are engaging to their audience? Are they delivering the message as efficiently and quickly as possible and following up? If not, be sure that you can provide that product or service to your audience and capitalize on the missed opprtunity.

What other ways will you measure your competition print marketing? Share your comments with us below!

How to Make Your Print Marketing Stand Out – Week 2

Week 2 – Hire a Printing Company that Understands Brand Marketing

Would you purchase a car without a steering wheel? Sure, you could turn the ignition and use the pedals to make the car move. You could even use the gear shift to make the car go forward and backward. However, you will not be able to guide the car the way you would like.

This is the equivalent of working with a print company that does not understand brand marketing. Any professional printer can present a high-quality print marketing piece, but will they help you achieve the goals of your marketing campaign?

Here are some questions to ask a printer before beginning your marketing project:

Have you completed work for my industry before? A company that understands the nuances of your industry should be easier to work with. You won’t have to explain the language used specifically in your line of work and they may be able to offer insight to tactics that have worked and, more importantly, tactics that have not worked for their clients in the past.

What other options may work better to promote my business? Can they offer alternative suggestions to your initial idea? This is not to say that you don’t have a sound marketing approach, but a good printing company should be able to help you build upon your marketing idea to strengthen your customer impact.

What has been your success with this type of print marketing? Has this company received any awards for its printing creations? Do they have any large corporations with repeat orders as their clients? Investigate the success of this company with your desired marketing communication method.

Corporate Graphics of America provides marketing expertise with beautiful custom printing. Want more information on how we can complete your print marketing project? Email us at sales@corpgraphicsinc.com today!

How to Make Your Print Marketing Stand Out – Week 1

We see them everyday – brochures, postcards, catalogs, door hangers and calendars. What is so special about these items? Better yet, what makes your company’s print materials stand out from your competition and get noticed by potential customers?

This month, we will outline the steps that you should take to ensure that your print marketing pieces make a positive impression on your client base. At the end of this blog series, you will be ready to formulate a strategy for your print marketing pieces and determine the success of your marketing campaign very easily.

Week 1 – Take a Look at Your Overall Brand Strategy

What are your goals for your company in the next month? What about the next six months? What about the next calendar year? Before you begin to work on a print marketing campaign, you have to determine your business goals in advance.

In addition to your business goals, be sure to also consider the following:

• What type of marketing does your target market notice most frequently? If you are working with existing clients and they respond well to print newsletters, you know what type of marketing to use. However, if you are looking to branch out to a new market (i.e. teenagers), you should take some time to research the methods of marketing to which they are most responsive.

• How will you present your message? Are you mailing postcards or will you be distributing the postcards in person on sales calls and business expos? Will your message be presented in stages from a series of different marketing pieces? It is important for your customers to understand how you are sharing information with them to generate the best response.

• What will a successful campaign look like? After deciding the best type of marketing piece to distribute and placing it into the marketplace, how will you know that your message was received? What will you gain from a successful campaign? Outline these goals before sending out print collateral, then wait for the response!

What has been a successful campaign for your business? Send us your comments!

Why Print Media is Essential to Your Marketing Strategy – Part 4 of 4

Week 4 – Understanding the Marketing Mix

We’ve come to the end of our monthly series, “Why Print Media is Essential to Your Marketing Strategy”. To close out our tips for success, we would like to introduce the marketing term, “the marketing mix”. This is comprised of the 4 Ps: Product, Price, Place and Promotion. When putting together a marketing piece, it is important to ensure that each of these elements are included and are easy for the consumer to identify. Here’s an example:

Sample: A menu for a new Thai restaurant is mailed to all households within a 5-mile radius of the establishment.

Product: What type of food is created at this restaurant? Is there wine? Dessert? What is the specialty here?

Price: What is the quality of the menu that was mailed? Is it inkjet paper or vibrant card stock? What about the quality of the graphics? Is the logo fuzzy or is it clear? Does it look like a professional designed the piece or does it look like it was created in a Word document? Also, are the menu prices listed?

Place: What’s the location of the restaurant? Is it in an upscale area? Is it located near a mall? Is it close to the interstate? What about the interior of the restaurant? Is it carryout only or dine-in?

Promotion: Are there any specials on menu items on Mondays? What about discounts off your total purchase price if you order appetizers and dessert? Is there a frequent diner program that you can sign up for? How often are you rewarded for your patronage?

A restaurant that understands their marketing mix can answer all of these questions by a menu alone. Think about your business…what would your marketing mix look like? Leave us with your comments!

Don’t forget, you can email us at sales@corpgraphicsinc.com for your complimentary Corporate Graphics of America calendar. This is your last week!

Why Print Media is Essential to Your Marketing Strategy – Part 1 of 4

In the age of the iPad, smartphones and digital messaging, it may be easy for businesses to consider print media as a lost art. However, print media continues to be a major force when it comes to marketing a brand. People still have an inherent need to tangibly experience items to form a true opinion.

Think about retail shops. Whether it is clothing, cosmetics or food, many consumers still prefer to come into these shops to make their purchases. Clothing is tried on and cosmetics and food are sampled. But how did the consumers get there? Did they see a great jacket in a catalog on a waiting room coffee table? Maybe they received a great discount offer in the mail on their favorite brand of blush and eyeshadow? Could they have seen a colorful promotional calendar featuring a local pizzeria? Marketing messages are all around us, so it’s important to create a strategy that will help you reach your customers in a diverse manner. Print media is your best option!

This month, we will discuss four reasons why print media is essential to your marketing strategy through a variety of marketing goals. If you would like more information about how Corporate Graphics can assist you achieve any of these goals, please give us a call at 773-481-2100 or email us at sales@corporategraphicsinc.com.

Week 1 – Increasing Brand Accessibility

What’s the best feature of print marketing? It’s something that you do not have indefinitely with email marketing, text message marketing or online advertisements. It’s longevity. An email may be marked as spam and never seen by the intended party, a text message may be deleted as a smartphone runs out of space and online advertisements are temporary, as the real estate on websites can be purchased by the highest bidder.

Your print materials can be displayed in your office for months or years (depending on the type of item) or showcased to colleagues and friends very easily. Here are some examples of long-lasting print materials that companies can consider incorporating in their marketing plan:

• Grocery Chain – cookbook calendar featuring store brands and monthly perforated coupons
• Bookstore – bookmark featuring book tours coming to their location throughout a specific season
• Furniture Store – a booklet featuring decorating tips for various holidays

What could your business use that will stay with a customer for a lengthy period of time? Reply back with your comments!

Holiday Printing Services Available!

We are working diligently at Corporate Graphics of America to provide our clients with custom and creative print pieces for the holidays! These include:

• holiday cards – we can fully customize the look or provide templates that we can modify with your text
• 2011 calendars – a great way to get your company name in front of a client all year
• marketing brochures – it’s a new year and you should highlight your new product and service offerings
• postcards – best way to announce that your has business moved or you are offering a New Year’s Resolution discount
• new business cards – one of the most important ways to market your business; how does your current card compare?

…and much more! Which of these items do you need for your business? It’s not too late to create these materials for this season and the beginning of 2011. Contact us at 773-481-2100 for a quote and estimated time of delivery. Happy holidays!