Small Businesses and Printers

How can a small business or start up use a printer?

Let's make a list of simple start-up ideas:

1. Design your logo
2. Help you with the rest of your brand
   
3. Print business cards and letterhead
4. Run a direct-mail campaign
5. Print and distribute a brochure about your company
6. Publish a catalog of your products
7. Help you with a newsletter
8. Print flyers for local distribution
9. Print any internal, specialized forms you may need to run your business
10. Connect you with other people in your business

Hmmm....that last one is interesting. You, mean network with people? Oh, yeah, connect me with people either in my same business or potential customers. Maybe a partner or supplier. Yes, your printer probably belongs to chambers of commerce and other networking groups and most likely, is a small business themselves.

Not a bad list.

The Executive Pressman

www.executivepress.com

Direct Mail Ideas

Now that you have decided to use direct mail as a marketing tool, how can you ensure the campaign's success?

Here's a list of a few things to consider:

• Provide a coupon or some other incentive and give it a time limit. For example, so many cents off until the end of the month.
• Participate in a co-op mailing. Is there a valued partner you can team with to make sure teh mail gets attention?
• Test the program. Try sending the initial mailer and offer to a smaller sample than you plan just to see the response.
• Use the mailer to drive traffic to your website. There they will find teh rich content they are looking for to make a buying decision.
• Use a catchy headline. Underlined copy or colored blocks also help draw attention to what needs to be read.

There are more. These are some basic ideas to start with.

The Executive Pressman

Direct Mail: Making Sure Your Program is a Success

Before you embark on that direct mail project too far, make sure you have the right elements in place to make the program a success. Here is a short list of things to consider as you devise your strategy:

• Are your lists in order?
  
• Are they correct?
  
• Are their duplicates?
• Is the list matched to the offer you are making with the mailing?
• Can you monitor the results?
• Do you know what works and what doesn't in terms of design and copy (message)?
  

A successful direct mail program is more than just printing a post card and stamping it. You have to be very deliberate about who is getting and when and what you expect them to do with it once they receive it.

Thanks to our friends at Frugal Marketing dot com for the ideas presented here. Here's the whole story (http://www.frugalmarketing.com/dtb/directmail.shtml)
The Executive Pressman