February 3, 2010
Bill Cherry
Why having professional marketing materials is essential. A small business has lots of competition in today’s market.Your business’ image gives customers, vendors, and bankers a good or bad impression.
What kind of marketing materials are necessary?
Basics: letterhead, business cards, #10 envelope
Brochures – what your business is all about
Features, reasons to buy
What kind of printing paper to use.
Use the best quality paper for letterhead, business cards, and envelop.
All match. Get brightest white paper you can get, watermark
24# smooth, no texture, Consider 100% cotton.
Brochures: white paper different colors of white warm to cool, 70# or 80# text
Ink: which is better, full color, or one color.
Two kinds of ink: four color process, and pantone inks
Four color process is full color, often has photographs. Can make almost any color possible. Four color is usually more expensive.
Pantone inks are for one, two or three colors. Opaque, can’t print over each other to get combo shades. Each Pantone color has a number. Always use the same number of ink.
Two color brochures or letterhead can be very classy but less money than four color process.
Graphic design: do it yourself or hire a professional.
Design yourself or hire a graphic designer? Hire the designer. It must look professional. People can tell the difference between a brochure designed by an amateur, and one done by pro.
Use two colors, can get a four color effect by screening back the two colors.
Make the design fit the name of the business. Use the right fonts, colors, and graphics.
Logos – should you get one? Not necessarilrly so.
1. get a logo designed
2. $200+
3. use fonts
4. clip art symbols or shapes.
Costs vs. quality of materials.
You get what you pay for. Having quality printed materials does cost more but not that much more. If printing 500 or 1,000 letterhead, BC, Env, the cost of good paper is neglible.
A professional designer is worth it.
Ways to save on printing –
Which quantity to print
Choosing the right printer for your materials.
Small quantities – high quality color laser printer
Higher quality – print on demand
Offset printing larger quantities, larger paper size
Digital
Reprinting your materials.
Reprints should cost less than the first printing.
Never give your master disk to the printer, use copies.
Making minor changes, the printer should not charge for.
Pressman match the previous printing colors.
Use the same paper.
Again, a small business needs all the help it can get. One way to look as big as the big businesses is to have marketing materials that are professionally designed and printed.
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