Sleep at Night - Have a Marketing Plan!

I met with a prospect a couple of weeks ago who called us after receiving a series of our direct marketing pieces, email newsletters and other marketing pieces. In his words, "...it was time to do some marketing..."

After our first meeting, I was excited! My client is contemplating venturing into a new market that can augment his current business (which, like others, has been hard hit by the economy). He has put together a rough pro-forma and is convinced that moving in this new direction will have an immediate, positive impact on his business. I felt this was a perfect opportunity for AlphaGraphics to help execute his marketing plan - great timing!

Unfortunately, I'm afraid we may be too late... After a few more conversations, I've discovered that his business is in a lot more trouble than I thought and we might not have the time we need for our campaign to start bearing fruit. This leaves us in a difficult situation - while there is funding to START a direct marketing campaign, is there enough to finish one? That will be the topic of our next conversation...

You may be asking, "what is the moral of this story"? What I learned is that a small business must be executing effective marketing ALL THE TIME! Marketing is not effective when it is "turned on" and "turned off". It needs to be constantly executed, evaluated and "tweaked". Additionally, effective marketing takes a lot of creative energy and time (determing your "theme", the offer, building the artwork, assembling your target list, etc). As you know, energy and time are both in short supply for small business owners...

An easy solution is to build a 12 month marketing plan! This can be as simple or as complex as you like... In our case at AlphaGraphics of Aurora, we found an MS Word calendar template and mapped out our themes and set dates for execution (mailers, email marketing, etc) for every month of the year. So far, so good - we're spending less time brainstorming what to do next and more time executing effectively. The results are paying off - we've earned 5 new customers in January and the year is just getting started!

So, help your sleep patterns by creating a marketing plan. By laying out your monthly marketing acitivites, you can spend more time in the sales and fulfillment aspects of your business AND keep growing even during the down times. Good luck!

AlphaGraphics of Aurora is a full service printing and marketing services company. Contact us at 303-261-1334 or us636@alphagraphics.com. You can learn more about us (or upload at file) at our website: us636.alphagraphics.com.

Aurora Marketing Services

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube... the list goes on and on! As a small business person, you are constantly told that you need to be using social media, but how do you get started?

Like most of you, I initially thought of Facebook as an online site where people can tell us about the mundane things in their lives... I wasn’t really interested in what my high school classmates were eating for breakfast. However, I’ve changed my tune... yes, you DO need to be using social media - the trick is, using these tools to generate revenue without you spending hours in front of your computer?!?

Our goal for the month of September is to help you to understand “Social Media: Getting Started on the Cheap and Easy”. We hope you’ll join us in exploring ways to increase your reach to your customers without “breaking the bank” to do it. There are a lot of great tools out there, you just need to be wise on how to use them...

Ken Eiken

keiken@alphagraphics.com

us636.alphagraphics.com

Proofing Your Project

The proofing process is critical to your project’s success. Not only for the quality of your project, but the timely completion too!

The most important section to proof is the contact information. While text errors describing your product or service could be ignored by a client, an error in your phone number, email address or website can terminate a relationship or prevent a contact!

Check all content twice, but triple check your contact information.

AG of Aurora Proof Process

Types of Proofs

You have the option of receiving a digital or printed proof. The digital option is faster, but there are two pitfalls of which to be aware:

1. The color on your monitor will not accurately reflect the color on the final printed piece.

2. The size will likely not be 100% accurate. For example, if you preview a business card on your monitor and it fills your entire screen, it’ll appear much larger than it really is. If you’re proofing a new design, you should print it on your printer at actual size to review.

We can also provide a printed proof. The only draw back is that the process is not as fast as a digital proof.

Proofing Checklist

o Verify that all pages are in the proof with proper order and page numbers.

o Check all images and photos for placement and quality.

o Review fonts.

o Is the text crisp and spaced properly? (see blog for more details.)

o Are the margins and bleeds correct? (see blog for more details.)

o Triple check all names, addresses, emails, websites, and telephone numbers. Scan QR codes and check the content for accuracy.

o Double check spelling and punctuation.

o Verify that colors are correct, especially PMS (Pantone Matching System) numbers, if applicable).

o Measure the final trim size and check folds for accuracy. We can provide a printed proof, trimmed and folded for review.

o Verify any finishing elements like die-cuts, embossing, foils, varnishes, etc.

o Confirm the final paper stock

Proofing a QR Code

Tying in your printed materials with digital content is a great way to improve the impact of your marketing materials. A QR code is simply a picture, so you’ll need your smart phone to decode it. We scan the code on multiple phones using different apps in our shop, but it’s imperative that you proof it as well.

Did you know that you can scan the code on your phone directly off of your computer screen? You can! But sometimes the lighting in the room will make that difficult. In those cases, just hold your hand over the phone to block some of the ceiling lights.

When proofing, in addition to reading the text content, please click on the different buttons to verify that they bring up the website address that you wanted, check the email address, and/or verify that the map brings up your location.

If you follow these steps, you’ll greatly increase the probability of creating a perfect project and your project will be ready for you sooner!

Please post any questions or comments that you may have or give us a call! We’ll be happy to help.

Thanks!

AlphaGraphics of Aurora

15801 East Centretech Circle

Aurora, CO 80011

303-261-1334 (office)

877-685-0618 (toll free)

303-261-1338 (fax)

us636@alphagraphics.com (email)

us636.alphagraphics.com (website)

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Discover AlphaGraphics : Open House

(Aurora, CO; May 11, 2011) 

Please join us for our Open House on May 19 at 4-6pm. Come learn about our extended services from marketing to print to mailing. Take an personalized tour of our facility and ask questions on how we can customize our services for your needs.

In addition to learning about AlphaGraphics of Aurora, come meet the new owners, Ken and Char Eiken who bring a new perspective to our team, especially in helping you sell to your clients. And meet the rest of the team -- Darrell, Brenda, Steve, and Victor -- with a combined experience of 70 years.

About AlphaGraphics of Aurora

At AlphaGraphics of Aurora, our mission is to “Help our customers communicate with their customers.” AlphaGraphics of Aurora is a full-service printing and marketing services company serving Aurora, CO including Buckley AFB and areas east of Quebec Street from 51st  Avenue to Belleview Avenue. For more information, contact Ken Eiken at 303-261-1334.

Thanks!

AlphaGraphics of Aurora

15801 East Centretech Circle

Aurora, CO 80011

303-261-1334 (office)

877-685-0618 (toll free)

303-261-1338 (fax)

us636@alphagraphics.com (email)

us636.alphagraphics.com (website)

# # #

Bleeds, and Crops, and Margins, Oh My!

Second in a series of print production blogs. Up next, we’ll discuss color.

Hint: When you're producing your own project in a page layout program like Adobe InDesign, let the software manage the bleeds, margins, and crop marks for you.

The edge of a sheet of paper is a fun, but challenging area to design around. Having art and design go off of the page is a great way to expand your message and brand!

The challenging part is to keep all relevant content far enough away from the edge so it’s not lost in the trimming phase of the production process. A safe amount of margin space for business cards, postcards, and the like is one-eighth of an inch (0.125”). This allows the paper a small amount of room to move around during traditional or digital printing without the risk of content being cut off.

The opposite end of the margin is the bleed, content that you do want to cut off. Allowing the same amount of space outside the page prevents cutting that yields a small amount of blank paper from showing. 

In between the margin and the bleed is the edge of the page and this is where crop marks help in the production process. By defining the edge during printing, the bindery department will know where to trim the page.

So be bold and straddle the bleeding edge!

Please post any questions or comments that you may have or give us a call! We'll be happy to help.

Thanks!

Design Department

AlphaGraphics of Aurora

15801 East Centretech Circle

Aurora, CO 80011

303-261-1334 (office)

877-685-0618 (toll free)

303-261-1338 (fax)

us636@alphagraphics.com (email)

us636.alphagraphics.com (website)

When to Avoid Using PhotoShop?!

First in a series of print production blogs. Up next, we’ll discuss “bleeds”.

Hint: When you're producing your own project that includes text, use a page layout program like Adobe InDesign.

Adobe PhotoShop is a brilliant program, but as with all things, it has limitations. When it comes to the quality of text in your project, you'll either have to increase the resolution to a level that may make the file unwieldy or keep it at a resolution that would sacrifice quality.

PhotoShop is a raster program, meaning that the image you see is composed of individual dots. As you can see from the associated graphic, dots result in a jagged or blurry edge. The first rule of design is to make sure your reader can consume your message as easily as possible; blurry text interferes with that goal.

Another reason to avoid PhotoShop when setting text is that it's simply harder to do than using a page layout program like InDesign. PhotoShop is not designed as a sophisticated text layout program. A page layout program is easier for initial production, but, even more importantly, editing a content heavy piece like a brochure is faster and much less frustrating.

Besides quality and ease of editing, another consideration is final application intent. Are you using the final piece on a website? If so, a document created in a layout program will have a smaller file size than one created in a paint program which results in faster access.

Please post any questions or comments that you may have or give us a call! We'll be happy to help.

Thanks!
Design Department

AlphaGraphics of Aurora
15801 East Centretech Circle
Aurora, CO 80011
303-261-1334 (office)
877-685-0618 (toll free)
303-261-1338 (fax)
us636@alphagraphics.com (email)
us636.alphagraphics.com (website)

A Note Regarding Friday's Email

We received a lot of nice feedback on Friday and over the weekend, thank you!

As some of you guessed, it was indeed an April Fool's email. On the other hand, we also received a number of very nice emails congratulating us on the new partnership and some concerns that we might be serious in renaming a state park. Of course, only the citizens can re-name a state park; however, if you're looking to re-brand your organization, give us a call. We'd love to help!

WINNERS
We would like to thank Karen Kerrick of Executive Transportation, Kristen Van Ryswyk of Horan & McConaty, and Alexa Sonn Cohn of Alexa's Supper Club for their fun contributions. You've won a Starbucks gift card.

Thank you all again for your wonderful emails!

The crew at
AlphaGraphics of Aurora