Recipe Postcards for Marketing

1. Real estate

The first time I’ve seen recipe postcards being used for marketing was actually through real estate; you can say that it was the inspiration for this post.

Brandon Cornett, the author of Real Estate Postcard Marketing, explains how this works in one of his articles: a real estate agent will send recipe postcards to his audience, in the hopes that his recipients will like the recipe – or the thought behind it – so much that they’ll dial the agent up and ask for his business.

I’ll have to agree with Cornett that it’s a bit of a stretch, but then you never know if someone else can come up with a twist to this idea to make it truly work.

For instance, if an agent knows a significant amount of potential buyers who are most interested in the quality of a property’s kitchen, he can reasonably draw the conclusion that they would be interested in cooking and recipe postcards. He could then try to curry their favor by sending these postcards – as long as these are professionally done and are of enough quality to please his target audience.

2. Chefs, culinary schools, and recipe books

Chefs and cooking experts can send postcards of their unique recipes to advertise their expertise to prospective employers.

When culinary schools are looking for new students, they can contact attendees of their yearly events, like expos and contests, and send them delectable recipe postcards that are both useful and an additional attraction for prospects to enroll.

Recipe postcard promotion can also significantly help the sales of a recipe book with the right targeting, especially if it is published independently. If possible, these postcards can also act as discount coupons upon purchase; an author or publisher can also limit the number of people who can benefit from this promo by setting a deadline, or setting a limit to the number of people who can benefit of the discount with the postcards.

3. Restaurants, cafés, and other food establishments

If you’re launching a new food establishment in the neighborhood, you can increase the chances that the launch will be a success by sending recipe postcards to the residents in the area. Not only do you have better chances of attracting your recipients’ attention because of the usefulness of your recipe postcard, but you’d also be giving them an idea of what kind of food you serve, strongly establishing your business identity.

4. Cooking utensils and equipment

If you’re selling these, why not give your customers ideas on what to do with them? Ikea has already acted on this idea in a similar and beautifully creative way in one of their ad campaigns here.

5. Hotels, travel agencies, and similar businesses targeting tourists

Travel agencies can attract people to their featured destinations by sending recipe postcards of these places’ exotic dishes. If hotels serve uncommon dishes, they can divulge some of these dishes’ recipes in promotional recipe postcards and make their recipients literally hungry to know more!

I hope this post gives you useful and practical ideas on how recipe postcards can be effective promotion tools. If you have any feedback you’d like to share, please share it with us and the rest of the readers in the comments! As for high-quality and reliable business postcard printing, check out the options we’ve got for you at Digital Room.com.

Church Door Hangers Advertising

1. Gather reliable resident information to decide on your distribution area and advertising strategy.

• If your church has a website, you can ask site visitors to take a short, anonymous survey; for example, you can inquire the general area they live in, whether they are of the same religious beliefs as your church, and what church activities and promotions would appeal to them.
• During church events like holiday celebrations or community outreach programs, you can leave an open guest list for participants to fill up so you can contact them in the future.
• Casually ask your regular churchgoers information about their neighborhoods, from whether door hanger advertising campaigns have worked there before to how much of the local population has the same religious affiliations your church does. Once you hear of a possible target neighborhood, investigate further on your own.

These are only a few examples of how your church can collect information to launch your door hanger advertising campaign the smart way. With your church’s unique resources and connections, I’m sure your community will be able to discover exceptional information-gathering strategies of your own.

2. Use large taglines and supporting content that calls to people.

Structure your information hierarchy in your church door hangers by varying the font size and weight for taglines and important information. If you don’t differentiate the more important content from the secondary ones, people who don’t want to read your door hangers all the way through will be confused about what to read first, and will likely end up not reading them at all.

Also make sure that all or most of the content in your door hangers will truly interest your customers and is wrapped up by good layout and design. For best results, test your door hanger designs with third parties and have them give you their honest evaluation of your door hanger advertising.

3. Make sure your door hangers are distributed properly.

You can distribute the door hangers yourself with volunteers’ help, or hire either a door hanger distribution company or simply some honest and able-bodied people to do it for you. In the case of the last option, you can pay these helpers by each street they distribute in to ensure that you’re covering as wide an area as possible. It also doesn’t hurt to have someone check the distribution routes and make sure your advertising plan is followed. Remember that door hangers have to be on the doorknobs to ensure their visibility!

4. Measure results by placing information only available in your door hangers.

Like the image example above, you can run a discounted or free coffee campaign exclusively with your door hangers so you can measure the effectiveness of that campaign. You can also offer to deliver benefits through online means, like your church’s website or social networking accounts, so people also become more aware of your online presence.

5. Put them out as frequently as you can!

The success or failure of your door hanger campaigns isn’t decided by just a single run. Keep trying out new strategies and measuring your results. Your church may discover new ways to appeal to different audiences in the process, as well as spread the word about your church and its efforts much further in the long run.

6. Partner with businesses whenever possible.

Collaborating with businesses who are eager to support your church’s promotional efforts can help you not only in funding, but also in the variety of offers you can present people with. They can also help you find more households to target from their customer/client lists, and assist you in future community efforts that will also involve your door hanger promotion.

7. Make sure your door hangers are printed on heavy card stock.

You wouldn’t want your door hangers to be swept by the wind even before your targets see them, do you?

Bonus tip: set up your door hanger advertising to a great start by investing in a door hanger printer that produces high-quality promotional printing at affordable prices. If you’d like to know more, check out the print products and instant price quotes we have to offer at Digital Room.com.

We hope this post helps you a good deal on getting started with your church door hanger advertising campaign. As always, if you have questions, related stories, or additional ideas you’d like to add to this post, we’d love to hear from you in the comments!

Custom Product Label Printing for Groceries and Convenience Stores

1. New Product Launches

Increase customers’ interest in your new products by clearly marking them as new releases. Include any improvements you’ve made in this new product compared to its previous incarnations, if applicable. This method can work well with promos you launch with this new product. For instance, if you’re launching a contest for this new product and require inclusion of the labels as proofs of purchase in the entries, your staff will also be able to easily distinguish the new product’s labels among your others’.

2. Repackaging Products For Sale

The word “sale” can increase conversion in customers further since it calls to their desire to save money while gaining more value. Convince customers that they’re getting a great deal by including how exactly the sale works; for example, you can highlight that you’ve increased the volume or quantity of the packaged product you’re selling while maintaining or even lowering its original price.

3. Labeling Products for Your Own Store

Whether you want to produce customized labels for products you’ve manufactured yourself, or simply want to mark products in your shelves as coming from your retail store, professional custom label printing can help you achieve that goal. You can use these labels to include contact information of your store or use them as proofs of purchase when your customers line up at the counter.

4. Marking Products as Consumer Samples or For Free Distribution

You may need to mark some of your products as free samples for potential customers to try out, or you may need to mark them for free distribution when you’re donating them for a community cause. Clearly marking them as such in your custom product labels will not only help your staff when taking inventory or customers when they’re adding items to their shopping carts, but also prevent these products from being resold unlawfully.

5. Event/Personal Product Labels

If you find the need to use some of your products as trade show or convention samples, labeling them as such can greatly help remind people of their experiences with you at the event when they take these products home. Personal product labels for when you hold special events for your store’s benefit also help your business stay in people’s top of mind awareness more vividly.

Create and proof label designs for these different purposes with your goals in mind, and these custom labels may well be able to contribute to your food retail store’s success. If you need to have custom adhesive labels printed with quality, affordability, and great customer service in one great package, try out the expert promotional printing services of Digital Room.com today!

Labels

The most obvious option is labeling your items. Labeling special clearance or sale tagged merchandise is a great way for your display to be eye catching and pop out to the patrons that frequent your store. Print your labels with bright colors, or on bright paper to really make those tags stick out from your other racks of merchandise.

Guide Stickers

Apple uses stickers in their stores to help clients understand where things are located. This is a simple technique any business can adapt. Got a sporting goods store? Use stickers of equipment, or banners depicting team sports gatherings that are symbolic of the item being sold. This will not only tell people where they are going, but also provide powerful visual reinforcement that puts your audience in the activity itself.

Menu Stickers

Many small businesses are crafted out of the food and beverage business. Make a list of your top selling items and place wall graphics to remind your customers of what is selling. For example, placing a sticker for a particular smoothie next to a pastry suggestion sells both items. You don’t have to have your full menu printed out; perhaps individual stickers on a roll will do the trick. The goal is to suggestion sell, not to kill the customer’s ability to make a decision.

Nametag Stickers

If you have a small gym similar to Curves, own a café where customers spend lots of time, or just a place people come to look around and have fun, nametag stickers are a clever way to encourage customer interaction, and identify your employees. This is pretty uncommon, and probably highly dependent on the mood your business wants to evoke, but encouraging interaction amongst your customers gives you a leg up. By providing a hang out spot for people, you encourage inevitable repeat business.

Floor Stickers

Ikea uses vinyl floor stickers to lead their customers through various displays in store. By providing simple stickers in the shape of footprints or on wooden flooring, Ikea has created an effective sales technique through suggestion selling. Things to include on your floor stickers might be: related products, suggestive display ideas, and small factoids about the products you carry. Customer’s love little tidbits of intriguing information like historical origins or famous people that have used the products they want to buy.

Window Stickers

H&R Block has an effective window sticker marketing campaign. By providing helpful tax saving tips on the outsides of their offices, H&R is able to bring in more foot traffic, especially during tax time. Window stickers that suggest aspects of your business to your client can be an effective way to get a passerby in your retail space. Once you have them there, only good customer service and a quality product can keep them there.

Stickers on Beverage Cups

A clear backed label wrapped around a plastic cup goes a long way in terms of brand awareness and brand management. If you have an iced beverage or smoothie, clear plastic cups will not only show off the delicious creations you produce, but also suggestion sell people when they see your customers enjoying your products.

Never underestimate the suggestion selling power of a sticker marketing campaign. Remember that you have a lot of options with the type of sticker that you print. Vinyl graphics are more durable, better for foot traffic, rolled stickers are good for windows and walls. Most stickers are no good for outdoors. If you need help figuring out which custom sticker you want to go with, give The Digital Room a call and our design professionals can help assess your job to figure out how you can get the best quality printing for the lowest price. Call today at 1-866-266-5047!

Night Club Flyer Design

• Include a mood invoking picture – If you are featuring a DJ, your picture could be a silhouette of someone spinning turntables, or a shot of a pumped up crowd cheering for the show.

• Mention those Involved – Since many night clubs rely on outside promoters to arrange their shows, make sure to include who is responsible for planning and preparing the event. Also list who is performing and the times of each set.

• Use colors – People respond well to colors, and night clubs have been using colorful lighting to create the right atmosphere for years. The psychology of colors will come through in your design if you have a clear picture of the mood you wish to evoke.

Nightclub Flyer Distribution

• Have a street team – If you can’t afford to pay for a team of distributors, you can offer discounts for those that help your promotion. Many night clubs in Los Angeles, for example, might include a street team to hand out night club flyers. This allows free entry into a club for a small amount of work.

• Never leave your Flyers – If you drop off your flyers or leave them on a counter somewhere, that is most likely where they will stay. Never rely on your audience to take it upon themselves to view your ads, bring it to them

• Distribute flyers with coat and bag check tickets – Have your staff give a flyer out when patrons pick up their items from coat and baggage checks. This is the perfect opportunity, as most people will be grabbing their items toward the end of an exciting evening. Reminding them to come back for more would be a great decision.

Flyer Printing

• The importance of the show – to cut costs, develop a ranking system to decide important shows in your upcoming calendar. As a promoter, you should know which bands or DJ’s you expect will draw in the largest crowd. The more important the show is, adjust your quantity accordingly. You can get a 14 pt cardstock full color night club flyer cheaply if you order larger numbers. If your show is smaller, opt for black and white or single color flyers at cheaper costs.

• Paper Quality – Your night club flyer is one of the first points of contact, aside from word of mouth, that your clients will see. Let them know your club is a place of quality and respect by distributing flyers that look appealing. Using thick cardstock is a great way to ensure your flyers won’t end up crumpled in the back of someone’s car after a show.

The Digital Room has experience in offset flyer printing for night club flyers. With offset printing, promoters can save money by ordering large quantities, while still enjoying the benefits of excellent paper and full color printing. Design and support professionals are standing by to assist you in the preparation and proofing of your designs. Visit The Digital Room’s website, or call us today at 1-866-266-5047!

Brochure Folding

• Half Fold – Standard brochure fold

• Trifold – this is similar to the style of folding you might use when sending a letter.

• Z-Fold – Your brochure will open up like a Z, providing plenty of space for your designs and images

• Accordion fold – Similar to a Z fold. This makes your brochure open up like an accordion, giving you ample space to work with

How to decide

• Half Folds will be good to endorse a single program, you can have lengthy paragraphs and staff photos spread throughout the inside folds with your logo on the front and back covers.

• Trifolds are great if you anticipate leaving your brochure in a rack or on a counter. This way, customers can pick up your brochure and open it for information on specific programs or exercise equipment you may have in your gym.

• Z-Folds give you lots of space but in slim sections. This is great if you have a series of bullet points discussing the many aspects of your gym. For example, bullet points or a small table detailing your scheduled fitness classes would be great paired with an image on top of the text.

• Accordion folds allow you the opportunity to be more image conscious. With so much space to play with, use images of gym members in action, or small snapshot staff photos to highlight the best parts of your gym.

Where to Print

The Digital Room is equipped to meet your gym brochure printing needs. Our design professionals are standing by to upload and proof your brochure designs before you are ready to print them. We can even offer you assistance in the design preparation phases of your printing job. If you are considering building a brochure for your gym, take a moment to browse our brochure design templates, or call us at 866-266-5047!

Image courtesy of Flickr

Print out Important Dates

Having your own custom color calendar is a great way to incorporate a “save the date” marketing campaign. If you are a seasonal business, you will need your clients to remember you certain times of the year. By planning out your offers ahead of time, you can easily remind your potential clients of when your services might be most valuable to them.

Distribute at the Start of the Year

Get to the customer before your competition does by distributing your color calendars before the start of the year. You can begin with the list of clients you may have already built up, but if you are ready to take your marketing to the next level, The Digital Room can assist you in acquiring a larger list and can even assist in distribution. This small service is inexpensive compared to the benefits you can receive.

Use Seasonal Calendar Images

If your seasonal business involves lawn care, during the summer months you should place images that will help your customers paint a picture in their mind of what you can do for them. Pull from your own example photos or surf the internet for royalty free images that fit the mood your business is attempting to evoke.

Send Your Calendar effectively

Where are your clients most likely to require your services? If you service mostly businesses, distribute your material accordingly. This way you can be sure that the reminders of time go to the proper place. This small step can lead you to a much higher conversion rate since your potential customer would be reminded of your services constantly.

Offer Sponsorship on Your Calendar

By offering sponsorship on calendars, localized businesses can recoup some of their costs and create mutual benefits by offering cross promotion. It starts by asking local businesses in your area if they are interested in exposure. The Digital Room makes getting printing quotes simple, so figure out your expenses and work to get sponsorship to cover the costs. Lending a small space on your calendar could be beneficial, especially if the service you help advertise is related to your own.

Make Your Calendar Useful

Paying a little bit extra for a wall or poster calendar might be more useful when your clients fill in their own personal dates. If you give someone a calendar to refer back to, you build yourself a system for repeat advertising with just a small space to mark certain personal dates.  Custom Calendar printing is a fantastic way for seasonal businesses to create reminders all year round.

When you are ready to print your custom color calendar design, trust in the Digital Room. The Digital Room offers poster calendars up to 27”x39”, Card calendars up to 11”x17”, and wall calendars up to 12”x12”. The Digital Room can even accommodate custom and bulk orders with significant discounts on offset printing. For assistance proofing and printing your custom color calendar, visit the Digital Room today or call us at 1-866-266-5047!

Keep the Theme of the Catalog in Mind

Is there a picture that will single handedly capture the theme? Often times, designers will focus on a central theme. For example if you are designing for a speech or keynote, you should probably show a defining picture from the subject’s life. Think about what colors might represent the event or product you are designing the catalog for. Schools usually have colors associated with them, so it should be easy to come up with a color theme from those. Most companies have colors already in their logos you can draw from for inspiration. These colors are like flags that hint at what’s in store for the audience.

Conceptualize your design

If you don’t draw it out on paper, you may not know where to place the elements of your layout. Acquainting yourself with the space on paper is the fastest way to get the design part down. Be very clear with where you will place the title, the company name and any images that will make up the background. If your cover will span the entire catalog, make sure you measure that out on paper.

Look for Inspiration

Just like Stephen King will tell writers their best teacher is someone else’s work, so it goes for Graphic designers. There is an awesome archive of catalog covers for design inspiration on the net, and with some searching you can find them on Flickr as well. Follow top design blogs and take notes! If you surround yourself in great designs, you will produce brilliance.

Get professional printing and binding

It’s next to impossible to get DIY binding and printing to look as good as a printing house can make. Most printing houses will even take care of book binding, saving you time and headaches. Always get your design proof, even if they only give you a PDF. Proofing insures you know what you are buying into. Remember that books don’t come in one standard size, so will your printing house allow you the opportunity to print custom sizes? These important details are the finishing touches on your book cover design.

If you want solutions for your catalog printing needs, The Digital Room has you covered with simple file uploads, support staff (including live chat) and affordable prices. When you are ready to bring your catalog to life, call us at 1-888-888-4211, or simply visit the Digital Room site!

But does that rule still apply? Must business cards conform to a standard size, color, and thickness? Yes… and no.

Can I Get Away with a Non-Standard Size Business Card?

Why NOT to use off-size business cards:

Many businesspeople build up their Rolodex by collecting business cards. Some store their card collection in books with clear plastic envelopes designed for thin, 3.5×2” cards; others run the cards through a specialized scanner that reads the contact info and stores it on a computer; and some people just form their collected business cards into a stack, rubber-band it, and carry it around.

In each of these cases, a business card that is too large, too small, an irregular shape, or too thick is just a nuisance. Such as card will probably not find a permanent home in many colleagues’ collections.

Why you CAN use custom-size business cards:

The Internet: In last few years, many businesspeople have started collecting and updating contact information via email, smartphone, or on websites such as LinkedIn, rather than with physical business cards.

Because of this, business cards have increasingly become a kind of novelty gift that accompanies in-person social networking. The other person has your information, or will retrieve it easily online, and therefore has little need for your business card. But if your card is unusual, interesting or fun, a colleague may accept it just as they will collect personalized pens, buttons, t-shirts or toys from prospective vendors or business partners.

Slim Cards: Professionals are increasingly using so-called “Slim Cards” in a smaller 2.76×1.1” size, largely because these cards are available through online printing sites that accept small runs at moderate prices.

These smaller cards, often with visually-striking full-color designs,  have gradually become more acceptable. Indeed, with portable computing devices becoming more sophisticated, Slim Cards may be the last physical business cards anyone uses.

The best site for creating and ordering unique business cards online is DigitalRoom.

Flyer Printing Benefits for Business Conferences and Trade Shows

You Can Get Event Specific

Imagine planning for a trade show and being able to print a few hundred digital flyers branded specifically for that event. There’s a reason why the service is so popular, it works. Conference and trade show attendees are more likely to reach for the current, up-to-date flyer than its generic counterparts.

Getting event specific has other advantages too. For example, let’s say you’re participating in a panel or hosting a presentation over the course of the conference. You can include that event-specific information in your flyer.

You Can Target a Specific Audience

Many of my clients serve multiple industries. For example, a uniform company might work with everyone from high-end restaurants to sanitation services. Let’s face it – the marketing for those various industries needs to be different.

So, instead of attending each and every industry-specific conference or trade show with the same flyer, you can print short runs of customized digital flyers that target that one particular audience in attendance.
Everything from your design to your marketing copy can be focused on one specific type of customer. And you can do it all without having to break the bank on thousands of copies.

For more information on our digital flyer printing service, please visit Digital Room’s flyer printing product page.