Definitely. Think about how many
people you want to distribute to and treble that number for the amount of
leaflets you produce. You need to mail people more than once for optimum
results. I like the three times over three months approach, but test what works
well for your business.

Well the ‘average’ direct mail
response rate is 1-2%, so most people see that as a good return, but I don’t
think that tells the whole story. Your response rate, in general, will be as
good as the effort you put in.

We’ve run campaigns for clients who
have gained a 24% response rate – it’s all about getting six key variables
right. Send it to the right target audience – don’t take the ‘throw enough mud and
hope it sticks’ route – take the time and trouble to work out who you need to
speak to. Secondly, think about the timing. When are people most likely to
think about buying your products or services. Are there any no-go times (if
you’re targeting working mums, or work at home mums for example, don’t plan a
mailing to land in the middle of half term – they’ve got other things on their
minds!). thirdly the offer has to be right – compelling and appropriate to the
target audience. Your copy needs to be powerful and your design needs to
attract and build trust. Finally, for maximum results, integrate with other
marketing activities – a telemarketing campaign, email marketing or PR.

Well it certainly makes sense to. 

Printing is the art of putting ink onto paper. It’s easy to get bamboozled with all the terms out there: litho, offset litho, web, letterpress, sheet fed, digital, raised thermography, print on demand, jobbing print, embossing, debossing, spot UV – enough already!

What’s important to you as a small business owner is understanding the difference between litho and digital print. Both have their strengths and weaknesses, and you’d use different methods depending on your needs and budgets.

Litho Print:
A traditional printing process which gives a high quality finish. Great for long-ish runs of material that needs to be prestigious, like your marketing collateral. Ultimately this is the way that glossy magazines are printed. Each colour is printed from the plates onto a rubber barrel and then onto the paper (which is why it’s offset lithography).
More cost effective over longer runs – 500+
Plates mean higher setup cost, lower ‘run-on’ cost (so often you’ll find it’s not much more expensive to go for 5,000 copies from 2,000
Same print throughout the run can be restrictive
Gives the most professional finish (if well printed!)
More flexibility on paper thickness

Digital print:
The latest technology means that On Demand Printers can cost-effectively produce hundreds of copies of a document with variable data rather like you print off from your desktop printer at home (the technology is rather more advanced!). But because you don’t need to make up plates you can personalise the data, which makes it great for direct mail.
Best for short runs – 50 copies upto 500
Lower cost of entry – each copy costs roughly the same usually which can make it less cost effective over longer runs
No plates mean that data can be personalised – ideal for direct mail
Technology is getting better but finish can often look ‘waxy’
Paper thickness usually limited to around 330gsm which can be a problem with professional feeling business cards

Tips for taking your first foray into printing:
• Check the quality – will the printer send you samples of previous work they’ve printed?
• Get a recommendation if you can
• Are they responsive? Do they get back to you with quotes quickly or do you need to chase them?
• Will they guarantee you a turnaround?
• Communicate your deadlines to them, and be prepared to pay more if you need things in a hurry (ie. Plan your deadlines in advance!)
• You may find that you’ll save money if you’re prepared to compromise on, say, a specific paper stock
• What are their environmental credentials?
• Be realistic – printing is a physical process. Colours sometimes vary, cutting doesn’t always happen in precisely the same place (ie. Within less than a mm or so) every time – printers, like the rest of us, take pride in their work, but do bear in mind that the focus is often on fit for purpose print rather than fine art printing (unless, of course, that’s what you’re paying for…)

I just had to let you know about the latest addition to our print range: Starmarque business cards and showcards. Why am I so excited about them? Well in the words of printing.com “StarMarque Business Cards are matt laminated both sides and then gloss varnished highlights are applied to the front. Deliciously decadent and impressive.”.

Deliciously decadent indeed. It’s hard to show you just how gorgeous they are from a blog, but they’re beautifully tactile and can add an interesting twist to your business cards. Do email me if you’d like samples. Or you can find out more here: Spot UV Business Cards.

Does this sound familiar to you? You get yourself a box of smart leaflets delivered from the printer. You’re delighted with them. They’re going to make you look fantastic. And yet, apart from handing out a couple to friends and family the majority end up sitting in your office/ shed/ garage/ boot of your car (delete as appropriate). Why is that? Why do so many of us end up with something we’ll never use?

Well to start with, I think that many people ‘get some leaflets done’ simply because that’s what they think they need to do. I think that there’s a common misconception that you need leaflets to promote your business/ make yourself look professional. I’m passionately against this approach. I would never recommend that any of my clients got some ‘generic’ leaflets printed without discussing in more detail how they intended on using them.

Secondly I think it’s only when we get that box of leaflets home that we start to think about how we’ll distribute them. And I have heard people say to me that they don’t want to ‘waste’ their leaflets by giving too many out!

Think about what you’re going to do with your leaflets before you have them designed and you’ll find that they make you a lot more money.

If you have some leaflets created as a part of a well thought through marketing plan then these leaflets should never sit in your garage unused. Start by thinking about addressing a specific marketing objective. What do you want to tell people about and what would you like them to do? How will you distribute them to people – door drop/ high street flyering/ post/ networking events? And then (and only then) should you think about the format this needs to take.

If you’re thinking about what you want each piece of marketing to achieve before you create it, you’ll find that you increase your response rates and reduce the amount of money that you waste. But what about your business? What’s your experience of having leaflets printed? Do you find that you use them or do they sit in a room unused and unloved?

Over the past four or five years we’ve all become much more environmentally aware about the impact our activities are having on the environment.

And I’m finding that many of my clients are keen to find an environmentally friendly printer. But it’s not just recycled paper you need to think about. Printing goes so much deeper than that!

One of the major benefits of using printing.com is that the way we’re set up massively reduces the impact of your printing on the environment. Because we print everything at our centralised production hub in Manchester you’re sharing the ‘waste’ with up to 120 other people. Let’s take a business card as an example.

Reduce your waste by over 100 times – just by making an informed choice about your printer
You order 500 business cards from a traditional chain of high street printers and copy shops. They take your business cards, make up a set of plates just for you, run through 50-100 sheets to set up the job, just for you run the press just for you and cut down and dispose of the waste just for you. Times that by 120 people and you’ve got a lot of energy and resources being wasted just for you.

Contrast that with printing.com. We take your business cards and transfer them to our centralised production hub where you share a huge (B1 if you’re interested) set of plates with 119 other people. We set up in 80 sheets, and the waste is shared with 119 other peopleWe run our state of the art presses for your cards at the same time as 119 other people’s. We massively minimise waste because we’ve put 119 other people’s business cards on the same run. So before you even think about recycled paper, you’ve already reduced your impact on the environment enormously. And saved a lot of money to boot!

Here are some other things to think about if you’re keen to reduce the environmental impact of your print:

Recycled paper or paper sourced from sustainable forests. Paper is the one thing that most of our clients are concerned about – and we have many products that are printed on 100% recycled paper. Where possible, the rest of our paper stock is made from wood pulp which is Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF). All pulp comes from sustainable forests where trees are farmed as crops, just like wheat.

What happens to the waste? We recycle our waste into 17 distinct streams for easy recycling and reprocessing. All of our printing plates are recycled and the chemicals disposed of responsibly.

All ink is not equal. Some printers will use small cartridges of single colours (especially in spot colour printing when the presses need to be thoroughly cleaned between runs, wasting water and chemicals). We use vegetable-based inks, pumped straight from large drums, rather than smaller cartridges in wasteful packaging. And talking of packaging, we’ve drastically reduced the volume of waste we pass onto you too. All of our cartons are produced from unbleached board.

What is the company doing to reduce their environmental impact? Every order you place contributes to our great big goal of planting 25,000 trees with David Bellamy and Tree Appeal.

Just a quick show off really: today we were awarded ISO 14001:2004 which is an environmental management tool enabling us to:
* identify and control the environmental impact of our activities, products or services to minimise how they may negatively affect the environment, and to
* improve our environmental performance continually, and to
* implement a systematic approach to setting environmental objectives and targets, to achieving these and to demonstrating that they have been achieved.

So what on earth does that mean to you?
Our business works because we’re as efficient as possible. We use as few resources as we can. Fewer resources mean less waste. But we’re never content…

All our processes are constantly refined to ensure that we minimise waste. What waste we do produce, we separate into seventeen distinct streams for easy recycling or reprocessing. We compact all of our waste paper to minimise transportation, prior to being recycled. Our printing plates are recycled and our used chemicals are disposed of responsibly.

We use vegetable-based inks, pumped straight from large drums, rather than smaller cartridges in wasteful packaging. And talking of packaging, we’ve drastically reduced the volume of waste we pass onto you too. All of our cartons are produced from unbleached board.

This year we’re giving you even more choice to do your bit for the environment too. We’ve introduced many new products printed on 100% recycled paper – just look for the recycled logo throughout this guide. Where possible, the rest of our paper stock is made from wood pulp which is Elemental Chlorine Free (ECF). All pulp is sourced from sustainable forests, where trees are farmed as crops – just like wheat.

What’s more, every order you place contributes to our great big goal of planting 25,000 trees with David Bellamy and Tree Appeal – click here to find out more

Our management systems have been assessed by BSI Management Systems and we’re pleased that they fulfill the requirements of the Environmental standards ISO 14001: 2004..