January’s Print Offer – 3 tips

We’ve printed marketing collateral for literally hundreds of clients and I am constantly amazed at the creative uses that successful businesses find for various print products.

I thought I’d share 3 of them. Now don’t get me wrong – I’m sharing these for free, for selfish reasons - If I can make it work for you then you’ll be back for more – lot’s more…

January Sale:

50% off 500 x DL Rack Cards!

50% off 500 x Sticker Business Cards!

50% off 500 x letterhead (with 20 free notepads!)

50% of DL Leaflets (1/3rd A4)!

1) 500 x ½ Price Glossy Stickers (Biz Card size).

Do you currently print your invoices & statements, in-house & in black & white? I have a client that swears by them for the following use:  They print the Glossy Business Card Stickers (in full colour of course) with a special offer or highlighting a particular service/product and then sticks them to their invoices and statements each month. Because most businesses require that the office staff run the invoices by the person that made the purchase for approval, this means that the people they’d like to  see their offer, will! This particular client swears by it as a way to let a happy customer know about a product they may not realise the business offers – they find it’s much cheaper to sell to existing customers as opposed to trying to win new ones. Don’t believe me? At $50+gst (+ artwork setup) how many extra sales would they need to make for you before you made a profit? And, you don’t need to limit them to invoices and statements – sticker up everything that goes out the door!

2) 500 x ½ Price Leaflets (1/3^rdA4).

How many new enquiries do you get a month (a day or a year?)? Now, how many of these enquiries do you convert into sales. 30%?, 60%?, 80% (that’s pretty impressive!)? Once you start recording the numbers, you may be surprised that it’s a little lower than you think.

 It’s generally accepted that a 60-70% conversion rate is great going, which means that most businesses leave 30-40% of business on the table. What if you focused on coming up with a strategy for clawing back that percentage by 10%?, 20%?. There are plenty of things that can done by completely breaking down your sales process and adding a wow factor all the way through, and that’s a whole book in itself. A super easy, but effective thing that can be done is to include a small gift voucher with your response to each enquiry, whether it’s face to face or posted (even if they enquired via email, it’ll give a great impression if you respond with a quote via email with an offer to post them a catalogue or brochure if they send their address. You can then slip in a voucher.  A retail assistant may be asked the price on an expensive dress and can see that the customer is keen but wants to think on it for a few days – voucher.

 The key to the voucher is that it has a blank space with a ‘valid until: XXXX’ field. This can be filled in and signed with a date 1 week from receipt as an added incentive for them to take you up on your quote.

NB: Not all enquiries are created equal - I’d advise grading your enquiries as some enquiries are just passing time while their car gets a warrant down the road or are more trouble than they are worth. Grading them ‘A, B or C’ and responding to them accordingly is the way. An ‘A’ might be a great prospect whose business you’d love – they could receive an info pack containing a full colour product list or catalogue, product samples and 2 vouchers – a ‘B’ might receive a ‘Voucher’, and a ‘C’ might receive a standard quote only.

 This is where this month’s  ½ price premium leaflets come in handy. At 1/3^rdA4 printed full colour both sides, they make a great voucher, with space for branding/mini brochure on the reverse. At $91+gst (+ artwork) why not give it a go and see for yourself?

NB: Starmarque Rackcards are also on sale this month (they’re on a chunky card with a matt laminate & gloss highlights) for a super luxury voucher if that’ll suit your brand better.

3) 500 x ½ price Letterhead (with 20 free notepads!).

A great idea for these came from another client – don’t even think of them as normal letterhead in terms of white paper with a header and a footer! Print your whole letter on them! This particular client used them for direct mail to prospective clients and had us design a full colour ‘brochure letter’ hybrid on the front, complete with letter, images of the product, testimonials from other local customers, and a special offer (an offer of a $20 discount if they order within the week), a list of key benefits and a clear ‘call to action’. The client explains that “I’m not phased by giving away a discount on the first order, because I think in terms of the customer’s ‘lifetime value’ – a new client is typically worth 6k to me over 5 years, so $20 is a small price to pay”. He then had us design the notepads into clever  ‘Competition Entry Forms’, with some full colour artwork – these are slipped in with the letter and give a great reason for contacting the prospect: Enter this competition as there are only 500 forms in the draw!

Let me know if you’d like to get together and discuss any of these idea’s further – with 5 working days left, we’ve still got plenty of time! Check http://nz.printing.com/prices/special-offers for more details.