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Eco-friendly Tip #4: August 2008Eco-friendly: eco-logically and eco-nomically friendly.Many eco-friendly marketing solutions are not only good for the planet, but good for your pocketbook, also. Take email newsletters, no printing necessary. How about a web site? It's an online brochure with infinite space and unlimited editability, which can be designed and hosted for a fraction of the cost of printing a brochure. That's not to say that printing is history, there are just more options. Postcards are an excellent option for printed marketing materials. With a postcard you can compile or buy a mailing list targeted to your particular niche, printing is often done on a gang run and you can either mail them bulk rate all at once, or send a few at a time. As a small business, Moonlight Designs chooses to send out a couple hundred postcards a week. It was first done for financial reasons, but it was soon realized that if all of of the postcards had been sent at once, too many responses to handle would have come back. It's a numbers game, the more postcards you send out, the more clients will call. Don't forget to include a call to action on your mailing, a coupon or a special offer will get responses. Moonlight Designs has been designing for the print industry for over twenty years and creating web designs for at least ten. When planning your marketing strategy, be sure to include a graphic designer with the experience to handle both your web and printing needs. They are both important parts of your plan. Mind your own business, and hire an expert to handle your design needs. This month's offer: Postcard Design4x6" two-sided: $100.* Moonlight Designs: Eco-friendly marketing solutions for your business. Moonlight Designs will be publishing a monthly e-newsletter highlighting eco-friendly design and marketing practices for your business. Sign up to have it delivered directly to your inbox. You will be entered in a drawing to get the going special for free - winner will be selected quarterly.727-644-1496*Logo design, custom photography or illustration and copy writing included for an extra charge. Eco-friendly Tip #3: July 2008Gang Run, part 2.Last month's tip concerned saving resources and money by printing on a gang run that consisted of four equally sized brochures. This month's tip expands on that subject by introducing a gang run with different sized pieces. In this case I'm illustrating a pocketfolder, a 4x9" rack card and 11 business cards up on cover stock. Many cover stock press sheets come in a 20x26" size. Say you plan to print 500 pocket folders, If you were to run only the pocketfolder, a lot of paper would go to waste. So why not tag on a rack card and a few business cards? If you need more cards for a certain person, you can run that card in multiple place on the sheet.
In addition to saving money and paper with a gang run, you will also benefit by running similar colors together. Color can vary from run to run, or even press operator to press operator, so running multiple pieces at once will insure that the color on all of these pieces matches. So next time you are ordering printing, ask your sales representative about a gang run. Eco-friendly Tip #2: June 2008Maximizing use of paper (and money) with a gang run.When a commercial printer prints your job the press sheet size is usually much larger than your the size of your piece. For example, if you are printing an 8.5x11" brochure, the printer doesn't run 8.5x11" paper through the press. Your brochure will be imposed on a larger press sheet-the most common size being 19x25". Four 8.5x11" brochures can fit on a 19x25" sheet. So you only need 1,000 brochures? The printer will impose it 4-up and run 250 sheets through the press. How does this affect you? The majority of the cost at a commercial printer occurs in pre press. So if you only run 250 sheets, your cost per piece will be much higher than if you were to run 1,000 sheets. But you say you don't need 4,000 brochures? If the printer were to run 1,000 sheets, it would cost much less per piece, and use less plates, chemistry and energy to run the job through that press. The larger the quantity, the better the savings, not only in money, but materials too. So how do you get the cost (and the carbon footprint) of your brochure down? Simple, use a gang run. Does your business need more than one brochure? If you plan to use 4 different brochures, just run them all at the same time.
You really don't need 4 brochures for your business? Do you know of three other businesses that may be interested in taking on this venture with you? Don't have three other businesses? There are companies that specialize in gang runs. Be very careful when choosing one because quality can vary. Moonlight Designs has been using gang run printers for years and can recommend a printer that fits your needs. So, save money and help the environment by utilizing a gang run at your printer. Using soy inks and recycled papers will be an even more environmentally friendly choice. Eco-friendly Tip #1: May 2008Every business needs a website.First, let's look at this subject from the perspective of the consumer. When was the last time you got out the phone book in search of a local restaurant? Did you just hit a search engine it instead? And when you found that resturant's presence on the web, you probably saw a sample menu and were even able to place a take out order online. There were directions to their locations, and of course phone numbers. Why would you even bother looking through the phone book? The competitor without a website just missed out on your business. Even if you did get out the yellow pages, the largest presence a business could have in there is a (very expensive) full page ad. A website can consist of infinite pages full of information about the business for a fraction of the cost of a yellow pages ad. So a restaurant needing a web presence is a no-brainer. How about an air conditioning and heating contractor? There is really no call for an a/c contractor to put a price list on the web because most of this type of work would be estimated anyway. Clients aren't going to need directions to drive to the business, the business will send out a technician. But there is still the need for the business to attract clients and the price of the website pales in comparison to a phone book ad and more and more customers are just hitting a search engine to find a business. So for a business like an a/c contractor a small web brochure would still be a fantastic marketing tool. How about a day spa, yoga studio or a hotel? Certainly any of these businesses would benefit from a site with a listing of their services and amenities and directions on how to get there. You get the picture. Every business can benefit from having a presence on the web. A website can be like a brochure or even a catalog without paper. But how do you make sure that your business shows up well placed in the search engines? One of the important factors to consider when designing a website is Search Engine Optimization (SEO for short). The primary purpose of your site is to drive customers to your business. A website should have the proper keywords used in all of the right places in order to rank in the search engines. In addition to SEO, there's SEM, Search Engine Marketing. This is paid for search engine placement. In addition to good search engine placement your website should match any other marketing materials you may have. This is called Branding. Branding is a whole other newsletter, but in order to keep your brand consistent you should consider a graphic design firm that can handle your print needs as well as your web needs. Moonlight Designs can handle both for you. As for design in general, you need a designer that will listen to your needs and create designs that not only clearly communicate the intent of your business, but who can also render your image effectively both for the web and for print. Moonlight Designs is your solution! Moonlight Designs: Eco-friendly marketing solutions for your business. 727-644-1496 |
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