Case Studies

A new year brings new opportunities, so now’s the best time to set some strong, attainable goals for your business. Among them is likely a sales quota—an almighty number to beat—which can get the gears turning in your creative team. How can you reel in more prospects? As your marketing team strategizes for the coming quarter, it’s easy to overlook the power of print marketing. After all, the convenience and popularity of email campaigns and social media have diminished the need for print marketing efforts. Everyone is online: Why not follow the crowd? It’s a no-brainer that you need to develop an online presence and social media strategy. But businesses that aim to go the extra mile recognize the importance of blending their digital marketing strategy with print marketing. There’s no good reason to view print and digital separately—print marketing can work alongside your digital strategies, optimizing cost efficiency and increasing your overall reach. The right materials can promote your online campaigns by incorporating hashtags, social media icons, and website URLs. Essentially, you’re encouraging greater exposure and keeping your brand at the forefront of your prospects’ mind, online or off. The benefits of print marketing speak for themselves. But the question is, which materials will be most beneficial for your company’s specific marketing efforts? There’s no shortage of options; from direct mail to signs and banners, you’ll get the most bang for your buck by selecting a print product that complements your current marketing strategies. Selecting the right print marketing materials requires that you consider your budget, company size, industry type, and more. Below, we’ve listed four of our top print marketing materials, along with the businesses and industries we believe will benefit most from using them. Brochures Brochures are an evergreen marketing material because they’re capable of bundling plenty of pertinent information into a concise and handy resource. They’re easy to manufacture, distribute, and read. Perhaps the best part is their shelf life: A well-written brochure can serve your company for years to come without requiring any updates. Brochures suit a wide range of business types and industries. They don’t require any hand-holding: You can distribute them at trade shows, send them in the mail, or leave them out for collection at a brochure rack or your front lobby. Designing an effective brochure is your first step. If you’re unsure of where to start, take a look at our tips on creating an effective brochure for your business. Business Cards Another age-old practice, business cards are a perfect personal touch for your sales and marketing strategies, and they’re not going away anytime soon. Despite the vigor of the internet, it’s tough to beat the accessibility and cost-effectiveness of a business card. This is another print material that works for many different industries, but businesses that prioritize face-to-face operations will benefit the most. If your company commonly sends representatives to conferences, lectures, or in-person meetings, it’s a good idea to equip them with attractive and up-to-date business cards. You can individualize your cards to feature the unique contact information of each rep; alternatively, a more cost-effective option is to design a company-wide business card, featuring general contact information. Either way, they’re well worth the investment. Catalogs When you picture a catalog, you might be inclined to think that they can only serve retail companies. In reality, catalogs can be customized to feature various forms of content, from promotions to company news and even case studies. You can leverage this format to send quarterly or annual information without getting buried in an email inbox. Catalogs don’t have to be bulky. Consumers don’t have time for content that’s hundreds of pages thick. Less is more, and quality over quantity will get the job done (and save you time and money on production). Typically, a catalog is most successful when it’s targeted toward warm leads or active clients; this marketing material isn’t recommended for cold campaigns. Once you’ve established a solid client base, give this format a go. Posters & Signage There’s nothing more eye-catching than a well-placed and effectively designed sign. Posters can be an excellent form of marketing and advertising for up-and-coming companies or businesses with storefronts. They’re a catch-all way to increase your pool of prospects without breaking the bank. Posters require a creative edge: It’s all about the design. Every factor comes into play, from size and scale to print material. If you’re new to poster advertising and don’t know where to begin, check out our list of benefits and suggestions. More Materials for Your Print Marketing Strategy There’s no limit to what you can do with print marketing. We’ve only skimmed the surface when it comes to available materials; how you capitalize on them is entirely up to you.Contact Advertisers Printing in the St. Louis area for more strategies, tips, and print products that can help leverage your marketing efforts.

Keeping up with marketing trends each year is no easy feat. Strategies and technologies can rapidly change from one January to another, forcing your marketing team to think on its feet and switch up tactics to appeal to the right audiences. Print marketing is no stranger to this. When considering strategies and tactics for upcoming trends, it’s important to focus on the specific medium with which you’re working. Digital and print media may experience some of the same trends, but they can also differ quite a bit. If you’re feeling overwhelmed as the new year approaches, we’ve got your back. Here a few of the upcoming 2020 print marketing trends and some tips to get started with implementing them into next year’s marketing strategy. Highlighting Customer Stories It’s been a while since the idea of highlighting value as a marketing tactic came to be, and it’s only becoming more popular. Businesses are using self-promoting ideas less frequently, as these strategies are antiquated and ineffective. Customers want to know what you are going to do for them, not how great you are. Adding customer success stories to your print marketing materials is a recent trend that’s gaining traction, and for good reason: It provides your prospects with a real-life example of your work and can usually bring a smile to their face. The happier someone is looking at your materials and services, the more likely they are to associate that joy with your brand. Use this new trend as an opportunity to launch a campaign specific to customer success. Consider your target industries and use customer success stories that are relevant to that audience. Use postcard or pamphlet campaigns to show people the true value you provide your customers—the products and services they need, plus a little extra joy. Use Subscription Data for Personalized Content Ever used a form on your website or at a convention to collect personal information? It’s time to think a little bigger. We know that not everyone is eager to provide you with their personal information, but a few extra questions may not hurt and will usually get answered. For example, you can ask for their birthday (to send special birthday print marketing materials), their industry (for targeted messaging), and specific products or services they’re interested in. Just a few extra details beyond their name and email gives you some firepower to send the right print marketing that has a higher chance of converting. Direct mail marketing is more effective the more it’s personalized. People are drawn to personalization, especially in print marketing materials. You do want to be careful not to bombard prospects or customers with too much print material because they may very well get tired and lose interest. But with the right timing and volume, personalized print content in the mail can be much more effective than personalized digital advertising. We are sent so many emails in a day, it’s easy to overlook one or simply delete all the ones that look like promotions. But receiving a piece of personalized print marketing will have a much higher chance of being looked at simply because it’s a refreshing change from inbox spam. Get Creative with Paper and Texture Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by limiting yourself to a small selection of generic print marketing materials, especially when it comes to the paper you use. You’ll be amazed at how many different options there are! With embossing, glossy, matte, different card stock sizes, velvet texture, and more, you can stand out from your competitors with unique paper and texture styles. This is a great opportunity to let your brand shine. Would your business prefer a stiff card stock with a boldly embossed, personalized name or a softer velvet touch with a calm color scheme? This helps your prospects and customers to associate certain styles with your brand, which creates consistency across all of the print marketing materials you send over time. There are plenty of technologies that can help you make the most of direct mail marketing. Talk with a print vendor to see what new types of paper and textures they’re creating and what will be available to you in 2020 to build a more unique and brand-focused print strategy. Personalize and Target Publications Have you caught onto the theme yet? Yes, it’s personalization! Whether it’s how you produce the image of your brand or direct customers and prospects, narrowing down your marketing strategy to a target audience is a proven strategy for converting prospects. Personalized publications don’t have to include the name of the recipient. Rather, you should be personalizing the content and information they receive. You don’t want to produce just one publication with dozens of topics that cover a wide range of people. If someone flips through and doesn’t find what they want right away, they’ll probably toss it aside, even if there may be something useful to them further in the publication. It’s more effective to produce smaller publications with smaller runs and find the right target audience to send them to. The recipient will appreciate your thoughtfulness when you limit the content to just what they want, and your business will see the benefit in new and returning customers. Getting Started Ready to implement some of these trends into your upcoming strategy, or just looking for some advice on where to start? At Advertisers Printing, we’re not just happy with being a commercial printer—we can help you every step of the way. From idea conception to printing, we make sure you achieve your business goals. Contact us today to speak with one of our print marketing material experts on beginning your next direct mail or print marketing project.

Just like that, the holiday season approaches again. With it, seasonal marketing campaigns will flood inboxes and clutter the snail-mail of your favorite customers. This is an important time of year to develop an innovative strategy to boost awareness and bring in business. How can you capture the coveted attention of your target audience during the most wonderful time of the year? To make the most out of your marketing efforts, you’ll want to prepare ahead of time and develop a strategy specifically for holiday campaigning. Your competitors aren’t going to hold back, so neither should you! Keep your print marketing campaign top of mind by following these four tips. 1. Plan Ahead There’s no time to waste. Map out your holiday marketing campaign in advance so you have plenty of time to create, design, produce, and distribute your material. It’s never too soon to start brainstorming and researching other successful holiday campaigns. You can also get a step ahead by reaching out to your printer and preallocating time and materials for your project. (They’ll appreciate the heads up!) Timing is key: You have a very specific window during which your audience will be shopping for the right holiday products. Sending out your materials at the right time is just as important as having an effective design. Engage your audience too early, and your efforts may very well be forgotten or disregarded entirely.  Send them out too close to Christmas time, and your competitors will already have one foot in the door. Let your marketing campaign trickle throughout the season, starting around or after Halloween and picking up steam into December. 2. Offer Variety Aren’t you sick and tired of receiving the same holiday gifts from your family and friends? You know the ones: A person can only own so many pairs of fuzzy socks or holiday mugs. In the context of marketing, your materials are like holiday gifts—don’t just hand out the same trinkets as your competitors for the sake of convenience. Your campaign should reflect creativity and thoughtfulness if you want to stand apart from the crowd. From personalized holiday cards and address labels to holiday booklets and calendars, there are plenty of direct mail products to choose from that are as practical as they are promotional. Within your business, try creating seasonal posters, banners, and window displays to attract prospects right from your storefront and neighborhood. No matter what you choose to create, take care to craft an effective message. This time of year, you’ll find more success with warm, friendly messaging than you will pitching a cold, hard sale. ‘Tis indeed the season to be jolly! 3. Target Your Audience You’ve heard it plenty of times before, but a friendly reminder never hurts: Know your audience. This advice is critical for any marketing campaign, but it’s especially important during the holidays due to the overabundance of mass-marketing efforts from businesses of all kinds. While it sounds tempting to go all out and hit as many prospects as possible, casting a wide net is not the answer. Take a moment to reflect on your target audience and current customers. Are they likely to purchase from you during the holiday season? Will they require a bit of convincing? Is there a promotion or announcement you have in store that may benefit a particular segment of your audience? Understanding where your warm leads reside can help you direct a more successful campaign. 4. Make it Magical The holiday season is the best time of year to add something flashy to your print projects. Take full advantage of your options: You can use metallics, foils, special inks, and dyes to enhance the wow factor of your marketing material. The weight of paper alone can change a prospect’s perception of your marketing efforts. With so many shoppers making purchases during the holiday season, this isn’t the time to cut corners and hope for the best. Think big and consult your printer for innovative ways to elevate your project and rake in sales. If you’re planning a direct mail campaign, here’s some advice on how to make it as successful as possible. Spread Holiday Cheer Print marketing during the holiday season is a no-brainer, but success lies in your approach. Take care to observe the above advice if you’re looking to make a real impact this year. You’re going to need a print provider that can bring your vision to life. That’s Advertisers Printing: We’ll help hit your target with customized, high-quality products that are guaranteed to impress. Contact Advertisers Printing, a St. Louis printing company today to start on your holiday print marketing campaign.

More often than not, consumers are looking down. Between social media advertising, email marketing, and an influx of eCommerce applications, brand awareness starts in the palm of your prospect’s hand. But what happens when they look up? Despite our predominantly digital era, poster advertising the “old-fashioned way” has yet to go out of style. In fact, combining your digital marketing efforts with an effective promotional print strategy is the most effective way to hit your targets no matter where they’re looking. Maybe you already know this. You’ve got a great mailing campaign underway or just had some new brochures printed up. Great! But despite your print efforts, you might still be forgetting something. We’ll give you a hint: Think bigger. Poster advertisements attract customers old and new in an extremely effective way. Whether you’re a small business owner or a well-established conglomerate, the benefits of posters speak for themselves. Here are just a few: Poster Placement & Visibility Matters The sky’s the limit—literally. From outdoor venues and shopping malls to subway stations and community centers, posters can be displayed almost anywhere. Strategic poster placement can better your odds of hitting your target market, too. Let’s say you’re an up-and-coming clothing store. By displaying your store advertisement posters within shopping districts or at bus stops in your store’s neck of the woods, you’re sure to attract new eyes that have plenty of incentive to visit your business. Custom Poster Printing The benefits of digital advertising are undeniable; however, top-notch strategies can cost a pretty penny. For example, Google Ads has tremendous outreach capabilities but charges for every interaction with your ad. If you seek a more cost-effective way to advertise to a sea of prospects, posters are an excellent approach. You pay for the custom poster printing (and occasionally the advertising space), and that’s it. How you capitalize on your advertisement is up to you! Target Posters How many times have you closed out of a pop-up ad before you even learned what it was selling? Consumers have grown madly fatigued by an overabundance of online ads. Here’s what target posters can do that digital ads cannot: stay put! Your poster ads occupies a physical space that cannot be closed out of, swiped away, or quickly dismissed. This gives your prospects the opportunity to give your ad a second glance—and the attention it deserves! If the benefits of poster advertising appeal to your marketing strategy, you’re sure to have questions about the printing process. That’s our specialty. We’ll satisfy some of your curiosities below: Poster Size What size should my poster be? This poster size depends on your advertisement strategy and target market. Take some time to brainstorm effective display areas for your posters. For example, advertising to urban prospects might call for bigger, bolder displays than for a rural target market. Posters in windows will scale differently than ones on billboards. Need help with the brainstorming process? We’d be happy to pitch some ideas. Poster Print Material What should I print my poster on? Posters will weather, especially if they’re frequently handled or displayed outdoors. You want to prioritize durability, both with your poster print material and your ink. Lamination can also prolong your poster’s lifespan. Our recommendations will vary depending on where you intend to place your poster. For example, outdoor displays will require more robust materials and finishes, such as water resistance. As with sizing, Advertisers Printing is happy to recommend the perfect material for your vision. Poster File Format What is the best poster file format for printing? You might have a great poster design archived, but if it isn’t optimized for large-scale printing, you won’t be satisfied with your printed results. Saving your design as a print-ready PDF with bleed and crop marks will ensure a fabulous finished product. Starting from scratch? Try downloading a free artwork template for Adobe InDesign or Illustrator. There’s probably one more question on your mind: What’s this going to cost? We understand that price is an ultimate deciding factor. Luckily, Advertisers Printing offers high-quality, budget-friendly solutions for all of your print needs. If you’re eager to get started on a poster advertising campaign, we’re ready to help you. Contact Advertisers Printing, a St. Louis Printing company today.

So you have this great idea in your head of a postcard, magazine, brochure, or other print product for your company. Great! Now what? The printing process can seem daunting—but it’s not as scary as you think, especially if you have the right team of professionals by your side. Here is an outline of the printing process with some tips and tricks to look out for as you work to bring your vision to life. What You Want: Solidifying Your Vision Your first step is getting your vision drawn out by a designer. If you have graphic design abilities yourself, that’s great! If not, you’ll need to find someone who can help translate your ideas onto a canvas. Whether you’re doing it yourself or outsourcing, there are several printing technicalities to consider before you even begin the creative process to ensure that your digital design will look the way you want it to on paper. For example, the typical print project uses between four and six colors, but some can have as few as one or as many as seven. You will also want to consider your resolution, bleed size, and scale. Selecting Your Printer Once your designer presents you with the final digital product, you need to get it printed out. But beware—even a fabulous design can be sabotaged by bad printing decisions or poor execution. Thus, it’s important to work with a printer who will help guide you in making the right printing decisions. Choosing a printing company can make or break the success of your print product. If you choose the right one, their expertise will guide you towards making the right decisions for your specific goals. Unless you have experience with professional printing, you probably don’t know the difference between offset and digital printing (or when to use each type) or which binding style would be best (perfect, case, or wire-o bound). That’s where a trusted printing partner comes into play. For help in your research, check out our post on the things to look for in a printing company. In addition, be sure to think about the entire process your print product will go through and consider a printer who also offers mailing and fulfillment services like Advertisers Printing does. Print Logistics You have your design and have chosen your printer—what can you expect next? Your printer will need some more details from you in order to produce exactly what you want. If you choose a great printing company, they’ll walk you through this process and recommend choices tailored specifically to your individual goals. If you need a large project finished fast, they may recommend offset printing. If you have a smaller job with multiple customizations, they can recommend digital printing to reduce editing time. A good printer could even recommend a hybrid of both offset and digital printing, depending on your specific project. Other decisions your printer can walk you through include shape, size, paper coatings, and binding options. Be sure to ask your printer about any extra features they may offer, like embossing, foil-stamping, die-cutting, or laminating, to give your print product that extra pop. Be upfront with your printer about your timeline and budget so they can recommend the right products and services. Once you’ve worked through these decisions with your printer and you’re both on the same page about what you want, the prepress process can begin. During this process, you’ll send your digital design file to the printer. Some printing companies offer easy online uploads for a faster, more streamlined transfer. This online communication system between you and your printer makes the next part of the prepress even faster. Once your printer receives your digital file, they’ll review any of its technical aspects that could affect the printing (margins, color matching, resolution, etc.). Then, they’ll create a proof of what your final product will look like once it’s printed. This proof will then be uploaded back to you for final approval before the physical printing begins. If you choose a printer without an online portal to transfer files, the process should be the same, but it may take a little longer to get through the prepress stages due to less efficient methods of file transfer. Delivery & Use Whew! Your product is being printed! That’s great, but now what? Well, hopefully, you chose a printing company that also offers mailing and fulfillment services. You’re going to want your printer to perform a design review of your mailing piece, ensuring it meets postal regulations, and also assess your mailing list to make sure it’s clean, certified, and deduped to save on postage costs and allow for prompt delivery. Final Thoughts We know it can be frustrating when you have creative ideas for print materials but aren’t sure how to realize them. With this outline of the printing process, you can breathe easy knowing that you have some guidance on what to expect as you move your idea forward. As each step unfolds, it will be much easier and less stressful with a great printing partner by your side, guiding you along with their unmatched expertise. Advertisers Printing is a full-service, sustainable printing company that offers assistance from initial project planning to final distribution. We have decades of experience printing materials ranging from professional business cards to annual reports. Contact Advertisers Printing, a St. Louis Printing company today to learn more about our services and speak to one of our print professionals. Let us help you bring your vision to life!

Planning a print marketing project isn’t always so straightforward. It often involves many moving parts and pieces to reach the goal you have in mind. At the end of the day, no amount of design, content, or marketing strategy can salvage a poorly printed project. Finding the right printer is crucial to your print marketing success—an excellent printer can give you the opportunity to wow your customers and stand out from your competitors. When the stakes are high, how do you make the right choice? And why should you trust us with your printing needs? To answer that question, we’ve outlined five things you should look for when searching for a custom printing company. Superior Product & Print Quality The first thing you should note about a printing company is the quality of its products. However, be sure to look for more than just the quality of image resolution or color. Be sure to work with a partner who can help you engineer your projects for maximum effect and minimal cost. One who understands the value of time and is always focused on saving yours and beating deadlines. A printer who doesn’t pay close attention to the intricate details of each project is going to hold your project back from its full potential and cost you money and time in the long run. Our superior print quality can bring your ideas to life.  At Advertisers Printing, we never forget that even the most beautiful design and material can be undone by poor finishing. We are vigilant about maintaining the quality of your project through each stage of the process. All of this helps eliminate errors that can cost you time and money or cause undue stress. Measurable Results  The cost of print marketing can be daunting, which is why it’s important to choose a printing company that can offer you a measurable return on your investment. Always remember to look for a printer that has provided direct, measurable results for its clients. It’s one thing to finish a print job, but a company that demonstrates that its projects have improved engagement, revenue, or recognition for its clients will make your dollar count. At Advertisers Printing, our clients keep coming back because of the value we add to their businesses and campaigns. Notably, 44% of customers visit a brand’s website after receiving our direct mailers. Website visitors who are retargeted with our display ads are 70% more likely to convert, and 26% of customers will return to a site through our retargeting strategy. Focus on Omni Channel Communications  When choosing your printer, make sure they can connect the unmatched deliverability and tactile nature of print with the digital world. Omni channel communications is a multichannel strategy. Adding social media, Google ads, retargeting and lead generation on the digital side will increase your brand exposure and with it, your results. Your true focus is communication and we don’t live in a print-only world.  At Advertisers Printing, we focus on what matters most to your brand, effective communication duplication, distribution, and delivery.  Personalization Marketing and Unique Effects You want your printed communications to stand out. Personalize marketing does that. Utilizing readily available data, precise targeting and personalization allow your printed piece to connect directly to the reader. Digital printing is the gateway to personalization. At Advertisers Printing, our digital print quality matches and depending on the substrate exceeds traditional offset quality. Our digital press capacity far exceeds what the typical print vendor can supply. Another way to take advantage of print’s physical nature is with the use of unique effects such as a “soft-touch” laminate or variable data foil. What makes print better than a digital piece? Print media has the opportunity to engage your audience by utilizing unique sizes, shapes, and textures that digital media can’t provide. With that in mind, look for a print partner that offers unique finishes like embossing, textured lamination, and specialty inks.  The variety of finishes we offer will make your projects memorable and engage a variety of audiences. Glowing Customer Reviews Once you’ve narrowed down your options, it’s time for the most important step in the vetting process: reading customer reviews. Look on multiple platforms like Yelp, Google, or Facebook to get a broad picture of the pros and cons of each printer.  As a testament to our clients’ satisfaction, Advertisers Printing carries 5-star reviews across all platforms. Our customer reviews center around our consistent high-quality attentive customer service and commitment to meeting your deadlines. And if you want proof you can touch, come in for a tour and we’ll show a wall covered with over 400 independently judged awards. Advertisers Printing is a full-service, sustainable printing company that offers assistance from initial project planning to final distribution. We have decades of experience printing materials ranging from professional business cards to annual reports.Contact us today to learn more about our services and speak to one of our print professionals. Your path to increasing the effectiveness of your communications is just a contact away.