360 Graphic Solutions

San Antonio Graphic Design

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Create a Sizzling Brochure

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Brochures are one of the most diverse marketing mediumsCustomized brochures are one of the best ways to bolster business, large or small. Brochures are one of the most diverse marketing mediums available since they are suited to a wide variety of situations. They serve as an interactive guide when explaining products and services, and point out key features and benefits to the customer. Since brochures are relatively inexpensive, they represent the perfect pitch when operating on a smaller budget.

3 quick and practical tips that can boost your brochure and help you promote your business more effectively:

1. Avoid stock photos  –Make your brochure personal! Stock images are recognizable with today tech savvy consumers. Use images unique to your company, that will illustrate your companies services or products. Even though we live in the era of Internet marketing and long-distance business relationships, we all value a touch of personal contact. So take a deep breath, leave that stock photo behind and go for a professional picture of yourself instead. Note: Avoid filling your brochure with staff photos. Unfortunately, valued staff members may change over time and will out-date and limited the life span of your brochure.

2. Shrink the copy –Your business brochure should provide your prospective customer or client with a quick overview of who you are and what your company can do for them – “quick” is a keyword here. You do not need to provide a complete list of your qualifications and expertise. The potential customer will not have the time to read through a whole narrative of your company – so keep it short and focused. Include key benefits and information about your company, but leave some information out to discuss when you actually meet them face-to-face.

3. Include a call-to-action – Calls-to-action are a tactful and effective way to wrap it all up, and prompt the targeted audience into the desired “action”. This will maximize the impact and effectiviness of your business brochure.

Need to create a customized brochure, or refresh and update your curent advertising and marketing materials? Contact 360GS today.

 

Is Every Door Mail Marketing Right for Your Business?

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The Least Expensive Direct Mail Program Available, but is EDDM Right for Your Business? 

MailboxLast year the USPS launched Every Door Direct Mail, or EDDM, which offers businesses an inexpensive, un-targeted direct mail advertising option. USPS did an awesome advertising campaign to attract small business owners, and it does deliver to “every door” as promised. But now that some of the newness has worn off and the kinks have been worked out, is it a great marketing option for your individual business or marketing goals?

What Is EDDM?

According to BizReport, up to 85% of customers will come from a 5-mile radius from the point of business or event.

With that in mind, Every Door Direct Mail is a way to deliver direct mail to every door in a given area and saturate the businesses and/or residents in surrounding region. This is very similar in comparison to traditional postcard mailings that use an “occupancy” or “current resident” mailing list, that offers no specific demographic choices. With EDDM, there are three (3) general demographics to work with – age, income level and household size, but you cannot be very specific in targeting your audience with this criteria. You select a zip code or a specific postal route, and you “mail”to each and every address in that selected area. Another substantial difference from traditional direct mail marketing is that EDDM is hand-delivered to each individual post office based on the postal routes chosen.

What’s The Benefit?

Cost. Plain and simple. The USPS offers EDDM for as a low as 17.5¢ per piece. That’s less than half the price of Bulk Mail, and less than a third of the price of a First Class stamp. If you’re looking to blanket an area with your advertisement, and you’re not particularly concerned about only delivering to targeted groups, a fifty percent cost savings may suddenly make direct mail an affordable and viable option for you. Also, even the smallest EDDM postcard–with its larger size and having no mailing panel, offers substantial space for you to relay your advertising message or company information.

What’s The Catch?

USPS does have some requirements if you want to take advantage of EDDM. The biggest one is you have to take your mailing to the local post office yourself. This may be difficult if you are covering an area out of towns or even, out of state. Fortunately, USPS does offer shipping options, for an additional cost.

There are additional requirements for the size and format for the mail piece, and how the pieces need to be bundled  and labeled, when you drop them off. This isn’t as strict as with traditional direct mail marketing, but it can be time consuming.

Another obstacle in working with EDDM, is in dealing with the individual post offices and postal clerks themselves. Unfortunately, the USPS has never been totally “user friendly” for direct mail marketing and working with EDDM is not different. EDDM is still a fairly new program, not all of the postal staff are trained on USPS EDDM requirements and your card can be challenged on every drop off trip.

If you do feel intimidated by all of these requirements, you can still take advantage of the savings of EDDM. There are a number of direct mail printers or marketing companies who offer EDDM services. They know the formatting requirements, and will make sure your mailings are compliant and delivered to the post office. Often the costs associated with these services are still low enough where your business is saving money over using Bulk Mail.

Is EDDM Right for your Company?

Every business owner would like to cut costs in half. But that doesn’t mean EDDM is right for every business. If your business targets a very specific customer base, EDDM may not be for you. For an example, a lawn or tree trimming service probably wouldn’t want to send to every address in an area if a large percentage of households are apartments or condominiums where the residents aren’t responsible for mowing the lawn or trimming the trees.

However, consumer based businesses that offer special promotions, are particularly well suited for EDDM, such as:

  • Auto Mechanics
  • Carpet Cleaning
  • Car Washes
  • Computer Repair
  • Dental Offices
  • Dry Cleaning
  • Fitness
  • General Retail
  • Lawn Care
  • Restaurants
  • Real Estate
  • House Cleaning
  • Insurance Agencies
  • Pest Control
  • Security Services
  • Pharmacies
  • Barber Shops, Salons And Spas
  • Tax Prep
  • Urgent Care
  • Veterinarians

Not every advertising tactic is ideally suited for every business, but there are quality options available, ones that can be customized to meet your marketing needs. Contact 360GS, to explore Every Door Direct Mailing and if it is good choice for you.

Beat the Summertime Marketing Blues

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By July, we will be knee-deep in BBQ’s and afternoon siestas! It happens every year, warmer weather means people are spending more time at the beach and less time making heavy buying decisions.  Also, some small business owners become lethargic in their marketing activities. Here are some ways to combat and tackle the quiet summer marketing months:

Go to camp: The same way camps inspired and changed you as a child, summer can change you as an adult. If the summer months are typically slower, invest some of that time elsewhere and in other actions that will help you to grow your business. Learn a new skill, take a class, immerse yourself in your industry, form and strengthen your ties to your industry, etc. The knowledge and connections you gain during these months will make you stronger and more powerful once the cooler weather hits and things pick up again. Can’t make a physical camp, try virtual ones. A number of industry or trade associations offer free webinars to attend – where the only cost is your time.

Create cross promotion incentives: Unless your business is summer-oriented, things typically slow down for everyone during the warmer months. This makes it the perfect time to band together with complementary local businesses and find ways to cross promote. Create new partnerships that will allow you to trade services and share referrals to create new incentives for customers. If you’re a bakery, find a local sporting arena or community theater and ask them to sell your cupcakes at their concession and offer to give coupons or notices about their events in return. If you’re a landscaper and your business is booming, hand out flyers for winter service companies to get people thinking early.

Do something crazy: When things get you slow, you have the best reason to experiment and try things you normally wouldn’t have had time to risk. You know that marketing strategy you wanted to try in December but you didn’t have time? Or that product you’ve been waiting to test? The local seminar you wanted to try and organize for your community? Now is the time to do that. Right now you have the time to brainstorm and implement things you won’t necessarily be able to fit in a few months from now. Use it.

Get more social with your brand: Similar to doing some crazy, now’s the perfect time to start experimenting with social media and to create your social media business strategy. Set up that Twitter account, create the Facebook Fan pages, and film those customer retention YouTube videos, etc. If things are getting slow, occupy that time with new activities that could strengthen your company in the long haul. We all have whiteboards of things we can’t wait to do if only we had time…now you have that time.

Research new forms of marketing: Break out of your current promotional bubble and look for new opportunities. Keep an eye out for new speaking opportunities, write articles to appear in industry publications, start making new connections with local media, and get a little bit aggressive with your promotional tactics. The media has a tendency to get a little “soft” in the summer months, help give them content to stand out among all the fluff pieces about summer festivals and events. They’re hungry for it and if you can pitch them a great story about your company, they’ll very likely take it. These types of activities will also help build your place as an expert long after the leaves begin to change colors again.

Don’t let your marketing spirits die due to the summer slump. Instead, use this time to try out new strategies, create new relationships and build momentum that will take you clear into the Fall.

Article inserts from Lisa Barone, Marketing tips

Social Media Marketing Predictions for 2014

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By Sharon Geltner, a marketing teacher and small business counselor at Palm Beach State College 

2014 Marketing Predictions
2014 Marketing Predictions

“The small businesses I work with know that social media has a lot of marketing potential,” she says. “I think in 2014 we’ll see new social media tools revealed and smarter strategies from small business owners.” 

These are noted predictions from Sharon Geltner:

Linkedin to be social media powerhouse in 20141. LinkedIn will become the go-to social media site

 Linkedin is making big strides to earn you attention, Geltner says. The site, known among Geltner’s clients as “Facebook for grownups,” has attracted a lot of new users with business-centered features like endorsement tools and the ability to join groups. 

“LinkedIn will become a social media powerhouse in 2014,” she says. “More business owners are realizing the treasure trove of information that potential clients list on profiles.”

Geltner expects business owners to search LinkedIn for potential clients and use the information offered online to do research before cold calling a prospective customer.

YouTub will continue to grow in 20142. YouTube channels will grow

Geltner predicts more businesses will turn to video to spice up marketing campaigns in 2014. With YouTube channels growing in popularity and video equipment becoming cheap and easy to use, Geltner says more emails and social media posts will contain videos rather than lengthy paragraphs.

“People click on videos,” Geltner says. “If your business can pack information into an informative and

, online retail store, Zappos, says 250,000 visitors were driven to its website by YouTube in 2012.

3. Small businesses will get selective about social media

Every small business struggles to balance time, money and resources. While many small businesses gravitate towards all social media platforms because of their free marketing potential, Geltner expects businesses to be more efficient and selective in 2014.

“The novelty of social media is starting to wear off,” she says. “Business owners don’t need a presence on every social media site that exists.”

She believes small businesses will focus on one or two platforms rather than offer a meager presence on every site. A shift towards quality over quantity is also expected.

“Small businesses have enough experience with social media to realize that they don’t have to post every 30 minutes, but when they do, the content should be worthwhile to readers,” she says.

While Geltner says social media tools are an affordable way for small businesses to generate leads and promote a brand, she reminds owners not to forget about traditional media. Geltner says social media isn’t a silver bullet and advises every small business to combine its social media marketing with traditional marketing tools like email marketing to have the most successful year.

2014 Marketing Trends to Note

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2014 Marketing TrendsMarketing campaigns continue to evolve from traditional print media to online digital means. Businesses are finding more success with content and original publishing channels online rather than with advertisements within content. Marketing tactics should include magnifying brand recognition and taking advantage of audience growth.

2014 Marketing Trends to take note of:

• Content marketing will be a huge industry in 2014. Companies advertise and gain consumer trust by creating valuable content through different channels. A company can build rapport with its demographic market and create a loyal following, by using information with greater insight and entertainment to audiences. Using content marketing in on websites, social media, blogs, as comments, in emails and videos will offer opportunities for company to build higher brand recognition.

• Social media networks will continue to dominate in 2014. New social media (sm) sites are popping up all the time. If a company is not listed on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter or other popular sm network, their audience will more than likely dwindle.  It will be wise to diversify your marketing efforts by using social media to build audiences across different platforms.

• Content must be easily and quickly recognizable. When looking at social media sites or any other content use images. Successful blog posts that receive the most audience participation have well-placed pictures to break up content and emphasize products and services. Use infographics that combine images with a bit of text to explain a topic or give statistical information.

• Simple is better; less is more. Simplistic marketing messages and recognizable logos are the key to online marketing. Consumers today want to look at what you have in about ten seconds and move on to something else.

• Online marketing must be mobile. The growing use of smartphones requires that you have apps and online marketing adaptable to smartphone and tablet use. By 2017, it is predicted that 87% of cellular phone use will be via smartphones.

• SEO (search engine optimization) will continue to be used in online marketing and play a very important role in search ranking in 2014. Providing users with the best and most relevant content is what makes Google run. Share good, targeted content, and the higher ranked a website will be. Also keep in mind that top ranking search results often connect to social shares.

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