A fortune cookie has an average taste at best. So why do people look forward to eating them? Because of the little piece of paper inside the cookie. You know, the one that tells a story: your fortune.

The text on the fortune is rarely profound, yet we still excitedly break open the fortune cookie to see what it says. Why? Because those simple and sometimes silly words illicit an emotional response.

Your products and services are like a fortune cookie. In your mind, they are second to none, but to your audience, you may be one of many.

Your values, vision, and especially your story are like the fortune in the cookie. Your prospects and customers want the fortune as much if not more than the cookie itself because that’s how they connect and how they will remember you.

Strive to make your services and products the best they can be. But don’t forget to tell the stories behind them, so you can connect with your clients emotionally. That’s the key to what will make you unforgettable.

There was once a man named Charlie who sold insurance for a living. Charlie was a salt-of-the-earth kind of guy who enjoyed what he did. Charlie had a friend named Steve. Steve was in his late thirties and happily married, with a wife and two kids.

Charlie and Steve would play the occasional round of golf with some friends. Charlie would tell Steve about the importance of having life insurance for someone in his situation, but without being pushy.

Steve had his reasons for not buying at the time and would always put it off. Charlie, being the good, persistent salesman that he was, would bring up the topic regularly without being annoying.

One morning while Steve was at work, a colleague who was about the same age, with two kids and in seemingly good health, had a sudden, unexpected heart attack and was taken by ambulance to the hospital.

Guess who Steve called that very afternoon to get the paperwork started for the life insurance policy he had been putting off for years?

What’s the moral of our story as it pertains to your business? You can have the greatest product, the best service, and a great price, yet some of your prospects will still not buy. The reasons are many, and some are a mystery that you won’t be able to solve right away.

While you’re scratching your head trying to find those answers, your real job is to continually market your services by educating your target audience about what you can do to help them achieve their objectives. Why? Because one day soon, your prospect will be ready to buy, and she will remember the persistent, but pleasant person who has been looking out for her best interest all along.

Charlie knew that secret, and now you do, too.

Lists are more than just an effective way to grab attention. They’re also great at getting key points across quickly and increasing readership. Here are a few tips to help you use lists more effectively in your marketing:

• Use abbreviated or partial lists on marketing pieces, such as postcards and email campaigns, and encourage readers to visit your website to learn more.

• Promote your company’s competitive advantages with a “top 10 reasons” list.

• Popularity sells. Use a list to advertise your biggest selling products, such as “Our Top 5 Most Popular Products from 2012.”

• Use a list to announce or introduce new products or services.

• Use a list as an alternative to long paragraphs of text, and enable readers to quickly scan your key points.

• For greater effectiveness, keep your lists brief, such as “10 Ways to…” or “15 Tips to…”

• Structure your list logically (largest to smallest, most to least popular, or simply your strongest tips first).

• If your list includes more than just a few words for each key point, consider using bold sub-headers with brief descriptions behind them.

• For “top 10″ style lists, always number your entries, so readers can easily follow along.
• Be sure to include a source whenever appropriate, especially if your list contains hard facts or data.

In order to be successful in business, you must portray confidence. If you aren’t confident in your abilities or the quality of your products and services, why should a prospect or customer have confidence in you?

The words you choose in sales and marketing are very important and should portray a positive, confident image of your business. That’s why you should never start a marketing or sales pitch with an apology. If what you have to say is important, you should always say it confidently, with no apologies.

Starting a conversation with an apology (“I’m sorry to both you…”) suggests that what you have to say isn’t really important and may influence prospects or customers to think the same.

Rather than apologizing or downgrading your approach, try showing confidence by saying, “I have an exciting new product I’d like to share with you, and I need a few minutes of your time. Do you have a moment to discuss this now, or can I make an appointment with you at a later date?”

If you’re promoting a product or service of value, you should never apologize for getting in contact with prospects or customers to promote it. So, if your sales pitch isn’t important, don’t use it. If it is important, don’t apologize for using it.

Everyone likes to feel appreciated. That’s especially true when it comes to your customers. Appreciation marketing can help you develop lasting relationships and make customers think of you the next time they’re ready to purchase.

Here are a few ways to show customers your appreciation:

• Send a hand-written thank you card every time someone does business with you.  Larry and I remember purchasing a suitcase at a smaller store in the mall years ago, and they sent us a thank you card, for a suitcase no less!  We thought that was pretty darn cool, so Print & Copy Factory started sending thank you cards to our customers.
• Reward repeat customers with special deals, exclusive discounts, and coupons. You should be tracking what your customers are purchasing from you, and use this to sell add-on services or products as a form of up-selling.
• Send holiday (we have a large selection), birthday, or anniversary cards. These simple, pressure-free greetings will help increase top-of-mind awareness throughout the year.
• Offer useful information and helpful tips to educate customers and promote your expertise via blogs, newsletters, social media, and the like.
• Invite customers to an exclusive appreciation event designed for existing customers.
• Collaborate with non-competitive local businesses to create a coupon book or discount program across a range of industries – check with the local chambers, some of them have welcome packets that they give to new members that include your marketing items – I know the Ferndale Chamber has one).
• Create a customer loyalty program, such as a loyalty punch card, upgrade offers, or cash rewards after reaching a specific purchase level.
• Respond quickly to customer questions or requests, and follow-up to be sure all questions were thoroughly answered.
• Ask for customer feedback in the form of surveys and response cards. (we also do this, using a pre-paid postcard, encouraging the correspondence)
• Send out a voucher or postcard for a free gift, redeemable at your business.
• Send out re-order cards.
• Send discounts and coupons “just because” to thank customers for their business.
• Include statement stuffer coupons with bills not only as a thank you but also to encourage customers to make additional future purchases.
• Give away free-bees, such as coffee mugs, pens or even hats with your logo on them, they stay with the customer longer and help you advertise too!

If you’re interested in any of the above print marketing ideas or need help brainstorming the perfect promo to show customers your appreciation, our creative team here at Print & Copy Factory is eager to help. Give us a call today!

Poster marketing has been a popular way to spread the word for more than 200 years, dating back to posters for everything from World’s Fairs, recruitment, and war propaganda to bicycles and bullfights. Today, posters continue as a flexible marketing tool for publicizing upcoming events, promoting ideas, and advertising new products and services. Here are a few benefits of poster marketing:

Versatility. Posters can be printed on a variety of surfaces, protected with  laminating, and mounted or framed. As a result, they can be used either indoors or outdoors in any number of ways.

Simplicity. Because posters are created for viewers on the move, some of the best posters don’t say much. Effective posters capture the viewer’s attention immediately — often with large, eye-catching graphics, a catchy headline, and a web address that is easy to remember. You can then provide more detailed information on your website and entice readers to join your mailing list for additional updates.

Any size you need. When creating posters, think about where you plan to display them. While the most popular posters are 24″x36,” this large size would be overpowering on corkboard displays (which would be much better suited to an 11″x17″ poster).

Fresh factor. Because posters offer a high-quality, low-cost marketing solution with fast turnaround, replacing posters frequently with new content is a great way to prevent your advertising efforts from going stale.
Give us a call if you need help creating posters that will make an exciting addition to your marketing materials. Our creative experts specialize in bringing great ideas to life!  360-738-4931  or email:  service@printcopyfactory.com

Even if your marketing document is coming together perfectly — with compelling copy, a stunning layout, and quality photos — remember it’s not complete until it’s “finished.” A document’s finishing touches help portray its overall quality and importance and can take it to the next level.

Here are a few finishing touch options that will help you create a marketing piece you and your customers will love:

• Spot varnish is available in gloss, matte, or satin finishes. Gloss varnish is often used to enhance the colors of printed photos and make ink colors throughout the piece appear more vivid. Matte varnish is used to reduce glare and improve the readability of small text. Satin varnish offers a blend of both. A contrasting spot treatment can really make a logo or other information pop (such as a glossy logo on a matte background).

• Metallic inks are available in a variety of colors and are a great way to add interest with a shine and luster not available in standard inks.

• Foil-stamping is an easy way to create focus on text or imagery, such as enhancing a classic, elegant logo.
  

  Finishing touches

• Die-cutting is used to create a unique shape, outline, or edging.

• Embossing involves creating a raised 3D impression using a custom die under high pressure.

• Laminating can greatly increase durability and offer water protection. In addition to protecting a printed document, lamination can also enhance its appearance.
• Other finishing options include (among other things) collating your pieces into sets, separating, folding, stapling, punching or drilling, padding, scoring, numbering, index-tabbing, packaging/shrink wrapping, and spiral, wire, comb, saddle-stitch, or perfect binding.

No matter your finishing need, from simple to spectacular, we can help you determine the perfect finishing touches to help your product really stand apart from the competition.

We were recently asked by the Ferndale Chamber, to write an article about what Print & Copy Factory has been doing to go “green”. We have been busy at Print & Copy Factory – always looking for solutions that work for our community and customers. Going green is can be related in many different aspects and I would like to visit three of the top green things we have been focusing on.

For one, we have been working on creating a “Lean Manufacturing Culture.”  Which is so powerful in many ways, as less is more, and production is smoother. And the customer of course benefits because less time is less money!! If you have not heard about going Lean, you can check in with our buddy down the street from us, Paul Akers of Fastcap, www.fastcap.com. <http://www.fastcap.com.> He has been implementing LEAN for over a decade and even provides tours of his shop. He is selling a book on his website that explains it very powerfully. We have started this in January, and it is a process. The most powerful benefit that we have seen so far is that the employees are empowered to improve processes with less, and more importantly, take on generating themselves as leaders, which permantes to their home and community.

We are also part of the “going paperless” movement, which for a printshop to say is almost sacrilegious! So not only is it a mind twister, but, it is thinking outside the box for us as a business and for products for our customers businesses. Even though we feel that there is still a major importance on printed materials, we have recognized the importance of us providing websites for our customers as well. If you think about it, websites are like a moving and growing brochure on the internet. The benefit of having us help with your website is it matches the marketing of all your printed materials too! One stop shopping is green isn’t it?

Also, we jumped in fully with the social media aspect of relationship building, by providing classes for our customers. When the economy went down, people’s marketing budgets did too, and so creating ways to help our customers find and build relationships was key for their success. We also have developed services of providing and creating email blasts (marketing) and setting up facebook business pages for our clients.

As a printshop we find the technical advances are a benefit to going greener, but mostly when people think of going green in a printshop they think of recycled paper, and the printed process so let’s discuss that.

One of the most misleading conceptions about recycled paper is that you think you are saving the environment by using them. It is important to know the whole story so you can make wise choices.

When we started our business 20 years ago, recycled papers were just being introduced into the marketplace, and we saw many problems with the products. Recycled paper was not only very expensive, but it was hard to print on and create a sellable product that customers would be happy with and used to, compared to virgin papers. Recycled paper has to go through more lengthy processes, such as bleaching and chemical baths to get the pulp back into a sellable product. This in fact, is more harmful for our environment. And the chemicals, the acidity of recycled papers, the broken down paper fibers caused many printing inconsistencies. The chemistry needed to create the right levels of ink (oil) and water to imprint a beautiful image was difficult to count on reliablity from order to order and even during a print run.  This caused a great deal of waste, running extra paper to get the colors up to quality. Also, recycled papers tend to have more paper powder on the sheets causing build up on rollers, creating more machine jams.

The good news is however, over the years, we have seen the recycled paper be developed to a better product that is consistent and easier to run on the machines, and now have become a main staple of our printshop. Most papers we use have a percentage of recycled content in them.  Because things have drastically improved with the recycling processes and paper manufacturing techniques, we also have generated a new line of digital presses that are more acceptable to running these papers. We mostly use digital printing presses, that allow us very little setup, and very small, short runs and very inexpensive pricing, compared to the traditional printing setup costs.  With traditional printing, we used to have a press room full of machines, that included printing inks, chemistry and film and plates, not to mention large amounts of set-up.  Now, we run a large percentage of our business on our digital presses, providing our customers can get beautiful full color printing, on high quality paper, for just very small runs and with less chemicals! Even though Digital printing may be more expensive in the larger runs, it is being green, because none of those chemicals, film/plates and setups are needed.

With this technology, it even creates more products that we offer such as VDP (variable data printing) creates “Green – Direct Mail” meaning, you are no longer needing to send out mass mailings, we can help you select and  generate specific leads with personalized mailings, at a smaller quantity, with major high ROI (return on investment) results.

One of the most frustrating mis-conceptions about print is that people are discounting/disconnecting with this valuable media in the way they market their business. The statistics still show that Print Drives Both On- And Off-Line Sales.
Print is a powerful media… and its power is multiplied when used as part of a multi-channel
campaign. Print enhances the impact of television, telemarketing and the internet by providing an extra dimension that’s warm, inviting and highly personable. Use it to reinforce your brand’s message, introduce new products or services and drive traffic to your website.

From printed ads in magazines and newspapers to postcards, direct mail packages, catalogs, door hangers, newsletters, billboards and more, companies everywhere are using print to effectively Increase their sales. They understand that:

Print Gets Read – 80% of households either read or scan advertising mail sent to their household.[1]

Print Gets Response – 2.24% direct order response rate for printed catalogs, compared with just 0.48% from emails. In fact, catalogs have the second highest response as a marketing option, after telemarketing.[2]

Print Influences Decisions – 76% of customers have been directly influenced to purchase by direct mail.[3]

Print Drives New Business – 70% of customers renewed a business relationship because of a direct mail promotion.[4]

Print Leads to Repeat Business – 70% of customers renewed a business relationship because of a direct mail promotion.[5]

Print Increases Online Search – 67% of online search is driven by offline messages; 39% ultimately make a purchase.[6]

Print Increases Online Sales – 76% of internet users surveyed have been directly influenced to purchase an item or service thanks to a direct mail piece.[7]

With results like these, it’s no wonder so many successful organizations choose print.

[1]United States Postal Service (2007). Household Diary Study.
[2]DMA Response Rate Report (2008).
[3]2009 Channel Preference Study.
[4]2008 DMA /Pitney Bowes Direct Mail Survey.
[5]Ibid.
[6]iProspect Offline Channel Influence on Online Search Behavior Study (2007).
[7]Exact Target, 2009 Channel Preference Study

_________
The environmental impact of print on paper
Responsible:
90% of the paper consumed in the United States is produced in the United States [source <http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/forestry/forestry_profile.cfm> ].
33% of papermaking material in the United States comes from recycled paper; 33 percent comes from wood chips and scrap from sawmills; and 33% comes from virgin trees [source <http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/forestry/forestry_profile.cfm> ].
Renewable:
90% of the wood harvested in the United States comes from private “tree farms” [source <http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/forestry/forestry_profile.cfm> ].
56% of forests in the United States are private ownership; the remaining 44 percent are public ownership [source <http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/forestry/forestry_profile.cfm> ].
Recyclable:
87% of Americans (268 million) had access to curbside and/or drop-off paper recycling programs in 2010[source <http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/forestry/forestry_profile.cfm> .
63.5% of the paper consumed in the Unites States was recycled in 2010 [source <http://www.agmrc.org/commodities__products/forestry/forestry_profile.cfm> ].
This website is a clearinghouse which brings together in one place information and links to other websites that tell the story about the effectiveness and environmental credentials of print on paper.

resources:

http://www.chooseprint.org/index.html
http://printgrowstrees.com/facts.html <http://printgrowstrees.com/facts.html>
http://www.tappi.org/paperu/all_about_paper/earth_answers/earthAnswers.htm <http://www.tappi.org/paperu/all_about_paper/earth_answers/earthAnswers.htm>
http://www.printcopyfactory.com/resources/green-solutions.html <http://www.printcopyfactory.com/resources/green-solutions.html>

One of the most cost effective ways to grow your business is by letting your customers do the selling for you via referrals. Here are a few tips on how to grow your business through customer referrals:

• Create a customer referral program. For example, provide custom printed referral cards that provide an exclusive discount to new customers. Also reward existing customers based on how many new customers they recruit.
• Educate your customers with the information they need to market your products. Make sure your customers have access to adequate print literature, website links, blogs, newsletters, and other materials relevant to your company.
• Differentiate your business based on a key feature or benefit you offer that your competition doesn’t, such as free shipping or low-price guarantees. These differentiators make great selling points to entice new customers.
• Ask for referrals. If you’ve just talked to a happy customer who complimented your business, ask if they would be willing to refer others on your behalf.
• Popularity sells. If your business has a very high number of referrals, promote the fact on your marketing materials and website. For example, “More than half of our new customers are derived from customer referrals” would make a great tagline somewhere on your website or in your product literature.
• Ask new customers how they learned about your business. It’s always exciting to see real-world results from your marketing efforts, especially from word-of-mouth.
• Include a statement on the back of your brochures, business cards, and other collateral that encourages customer referrals. “A customer referral is the finest compliment we can receive” would be a good example.
• Don’t forget to show your sincere appreciation to customers who refer others to your business. A handwritten thank you note is a great way to follow-up, and that one extra step will reinforce the reasons why they recommended you in the first place.

If you’ve ever eaten at a fast-food restaurant, surely you’ve been asked, “Would you like fries with that?” or “Would you like to supersize your meal?” Cross-selling involves presenting customers with complementary products or services to consider above and beyond their initial purchase. Here are a few tips on how to successfully cross-sell (or up-sell) your products to increase revenue:

• Use cross-selling as a way to help customers try to solve a problem, rather than just to sell more stuff. Educate them on products or services you have to offer that may meet their needs or new items that weren’t available before.

• Suggest relevant items that complement and make the initial purchase more valuable (such as selling a memory card, camera case, and batteries with a new camera). Also consider offering items that vary in price, such as an $8 case, a $15 case, and a $25 case. The least-expensive items will most commonly be added as impulse buys.

• Position products in lucrative places on your website to cross-sell complementary items, or direct customers to other items they may be interested in. For example, Amazon.com offers suggestions of items that are frequently bought together, as well as “Customers who bought this item also bought XYZ.”

• Promote bundled packages that provide a price break to purchase extra items together. For example, “Save $15 when you purchase our XYZ camera, case, and memory card value bundle.”

• Reinforce cross-selling efforts with customer testimonials or expert recommendations. Popularity sells, and people are more likely to follow suit when they see what others are doing.
• Timing is key when up-selling products. Don’t try to promote an extended warranty until after the decision has been made to purchase an item.

Done properly, cross-selling is an effective way to boost revenues, while at the same time helping customers get more value from their purchases.