Cheap Printing Alternatives in the UK
Cheap Printing Alternatives for UK Businesses
As the world gets smaller, entities such as NAFTA, R U Ready? WTO and the EU create a demand for multi-lingual printing products. Many companies have opened themselves to the World Wide Web thus expanding their markets on an international level. Promotional materials such as brochures, company profiles, data sheets and other forms of business communications are now required in an array of languages.
Small and medium businesses find themselves throwing out outdated printed materials due to frequent changes in specifications, contact information and market conditions. All of these demands increase printing costs.
The Intelligent InvestorEach year companies in the UK spend thousands to millions of pounds sterling on printed materials. In analyzing the different purposes of printed materials, companies can significantly save time and money by exploiting new online and printing technologies.
Read the Cheap Business Printing White Paper for low cost printing alternatives.
Online Printing – Make it Your Advantage
The reality is, your amazing products or services don't mean that much if nobody knows about them!
Effective marketing can make the difference between success or failure. Your business needs print materials that get noticed and fulfil their purpose – informing customers, building your brand, generating new leads, or whatever goal you've got in mind. Of course, that also means choosing an option for your brochures, business cards and stationery that fits within your budget.
For small and medium-sized businesses, going to a traditional printing company usually means significant design and print costs. Special business printing services – the creation of your marketing materials – are best performed via one of Europe’s online printers. An online print company provides the highest quality at a very low cost; the best return on your business investment.
How does online printing really work?
1. Choose the print product you want to create
2. Customize the design with your own text and logo
3. Pay,... and you're done!
Really no easier or cheaper way to get the printed materials your business needs.
The Advantages of Online Printing
Low Cost
Creating your office stationery and marketing materials through online low cost printers is a lot friendlier to your business's bottom line. Whereas traditional printing companies have to spend significant amounts on overhead, an online printing company can reduce many of these hidden costs, passing the considerable savings on to customers. The money you save can be reinvested back into your business as a further boost to your sales and marketing.
Convenience
Online printing offers no comparison when it comes to accessibility and convenience. Any of your print orders can be placed 24/7. There is no need for you or your marketing staff to spend time on calls to, or meetings with, printing company representatives. Everything can be done online and in a matter of minutes.
Fast
Time is one of those precious business commodities that you simply can't buy. By creating completely customized, high quality marketing materials using an online printing company, time saved can be reinvested in your business – on innovation, customer service and other elements in your marketing mix. Hassle-free online printing let's you do more with your valuable time.
High Quality
By combining small print orders from many customers and producing these with maximum efficiency, an online printing company can produce customer orders on large printing machines that normally cost too much for smaller companies to access. That means that your small or medium-sized business gains access to the same printing equipment as large corporations – at a lower cost!
Deciding how to make your business marketing materials is an important decision. Using an online print company means you can save 30-90% of your time and money while still getting a top quality product.
All Time Top 10 ads from Super Bowl
Individuals or companies alike – we all need to communicate our products or services via smart or at least well-liked marketing. One way of coming up with new ideas is to look at some of the best commercial ads ever produced. The commercials - past and present - demonstrate several marketing techniques we can apply elsewhere. Some ads are actually up to 30 years old but greatly appreciated work of art.
FYI Super Bowl advertisements cost about $2.6 million for a 30-second spot (2007/2008) so you might want to consider the sales effect before you decide to go for this audience.
The Introduction of the Macintosh (1984) - Steve Jobs wanted to launch the Macintosh with an inspirational commercial that was as revolutionary to the product itself. Apple turned to its advertising agency - Chiat/Day. The agency hired the best science fiction oriented director they could find, Ridley Scott, whose previous movie Blade Runner, possessed the visionary feel they were striving for. To Jobs’ surprise, the entire board hated the commercial. Panicked Apple ran back to Chiat/Day to try and get them to sell back the ad time. Chiat/Day, still enthusiastic about their ad, was very hesitant, and only managed to sell off 30 seconds. Rather than take a loss on the 60 second ad, Apple decided to go ahead and run “1984.” The spot ran during the Super Bowl and many witnessed the groundbreaking commercial. For the week following the Super Bowl, talk shows and news stations ran the ad dozens of more times, totally in awe of the production and vision. Apple received over $5 million in free publicity from these re-runs of the commercial. The ad was such a big hit that it was ranked as the top television commercial of all time in a 1999 TV Guide survey.
Coke's famous "Mean Joe Greene" (1979) - This TV spot was listed as one of the top ten commercials of all time by "TV Guide" magazine. Chances are you remember every line and camera angle, but can you name the two teams that played the same year? By 1988, Coca-Cola was voted the best known and most admired brand in the world. Still, Coca-Cola did not institute a uniform marketing program in each of its global markets. The company often tailored the flavor, packaging, price, and advertising to match the tastes in specific markets. This ad was replicated in a number of different regions using the same format but substituting famous athletes from those regions (e.g., ads in South America used the Argentine soccer star, Maradona, while those in Asia used the Thai soccer star, Niat).
E*Trade “Monkey,” (2000) - In the glory year of the dotcom ads, the online trader proudly blew $2 million on a spot featuring a dancing monkey. "What are you doing with your money"?
Terry Tate: Office Linebacker by Reebok (2003) - TV commercials created by Rawson Marshall Thurber, for Reebok, based on a short film pilot he created in 2000; Tate was first shown at Super Bowl featuring Lester Speight as "Terrible" Terry Tate, an American Football linebacker who "gives out the pain" to those in the office who are not obeying office policies. It's easy to understand why the company's productivity has increased 46 percent--an extra minute at the water cooler and you're road kill.
Monster.com's "When I Grow Up" (1999) - This commercial was named to Time magazine's list of "The Best Television of 1999" (Dec. 20, 1999 issue). Born in the state of Massachusetts in the year 1999, monster.com is a great, popular website for employers and job-seekers alike.
McDonalds let Michael Jordan and Larry Bird play for a Big Mac (1993). Larry Joe Bird (born December 7, 1956) is a retired American NBA basketball player, widely considered one of the greatest players of all time. Michael Jordan so dominated the basketball world that, for the second half of a pro career that spanned 1984-98, there was no debate about the game's supreme player. This shoot-out creates a lot of nostalgic feelings but it actually never revels who wins the Big Mac...
Herding Cats ad from EDS (2000) - "This man right here is my great grandfather. He’s the first cat herder in our family. Herding cats. Don’t let anybody tell you it’s easy." - you just read the intro. The producer recruited real cowboys and real cats and took them all to Tejon Ranch, 70 miles north of Los Angeles.
Tabasco smoking up a Mosquito (1998) - another way of telling your customers that your product lives up to the expectation of being HOT. This ad is simple, funny and violent. With no dialogue, no music and only two characters (including the exploding insect)...
Xerox assisting monks (1977) in facilitating copying many many years before you were born... This commercial has won every single award given by the advertising industry, including the Cannes Film Festival's Gold Lion and the first cash prize ever given by the New York Advertising Club. It also was judged by The New York Times to be one of the top 25 commercials of the 20th Century and is in the CLIO Hall of Fame.
The Budweiser Frogs (2005) are three life-like puppet frogs named "Bud", "Weis", and "Er", who began appearing in American television commercials for U.S. Budweiser Beer during Super Bowl XXIX.
Do you agree now that the Super Bowl ads are better than the game?
To wrap up this input session on how to advertise your products or services I would like to end with a great Condom Commercial - Enjoy! 
McKinsey Survey – Global Perspective on Marketing Online
HOLD ON.... this is a longer than average blog, but there is a reason for it - start reading.
A McKinsey survey of marketing executives conclude that companies, around the globe, now more actively include online tools as essential components of their marketing strategies. However, the executives also point out that they use digital tools less frequent than their importance actually suggest. Main reasons for a less active role in the online community than actually preferred are:
- Internal knowledge level about social networking (blogging, forums, expert groups) and online marketing is too low
- The marketing executives for these multinational companies conclude that their marketing agencies lack the capabilities required in order to effectively use the digital marketing tools available.
- Absence of meaningful metrics. (what gets measured gets done...)
“Numbers never lie, liars do numbers…” That was me saying that, based on my personal experience. Keep this in mind when someone present statistics to you. Despite my healthy scepticism to statistics, here comes some interesting numbers from the McKinsey’s Survey - In 2010 respondents expect that a third of their products or services will be purchased on the Internet! The worlds largest multinational companies now start to direct their marketing machinery towards a more active role on the Internet - things will happen.
The Power of Social-networking!
If you have ever worked with social networking, you know the immense power of blogs, release of online articles, user forums and much more. Economist released an article this week - "Social-networking and video-sharing sites are booming" - in which they state that YouTube has more than 200 copycats only in China (10% of these are backed by venture capital). Here is China's response to YouTube - Todou.
How do you get started with Social-networking?
Well, that's actually a good topic for my next blog, but until then take a look at this Keyword tool supported by Aroon Wall. In Aaron's Keyword tool you type in any word and out comes a VERY info-heavy table with links to all blogs, articles, tagging, forums, news about this subject. Your challenge is now to identify the discussion groups and topics that you want to actively contribute to. You will quickly find that this type of active engagement, not only improves your knowledge about customers, suppliers and investors but you also regain some of the control you feel that you lost with the explosion of social networking.
I will give another example; try Serph and type in your company name. Serph will, within seconds, provide users with a list to all blogs, user forums and you have it, that display what customer all over the world have to say about your services and your brand – pretty intriguing and energizing!
Executives interviewed by McKinsey comments on the Social-networking trend
”Collaborative tools such as blogs, wikis, and social networks are being used in advertising, product development, and customer service. At the simplest level, for instance, 22 percent of the respondents say that their companies host user forums for customers to help one another. Just over a third of all survey respondents—and just over half of those whose companies advertise online—say that their companies use some kind of collaborative or interactive tool to advertise. About 22 percent are using these tools for customer retention, which fits into the common understanding that they help build relationships between customers and companies. More interestingly, nearly as many respondents, 19 percent, use collaborative tools primarily for brand building. The enthusiasm for experimenting with these tools is clear: more than a third of the respondents don’t know what marketing objective their investments in collaboration and interactivity serve, yet some 15 percent of companies’ online-advertising budgets go to such tools.”
My main conclusions:
- For entrepreneurs, there are still powerful business opportunities when it comes to establishing start-ups within the so called "Internet bubble". You have just read about multinational power houses, who's marketing executives conclude that one of their biggest concerns, and reason for limited activity on the Internet, is actually internal and external lack of knowledge & experience.
- If you are not already working with social networking – get started
- 2010 is closer than you think
Boost Page Titles via Google Adword & YAHOO!
I have previously commented on how to write relevant titles on your web site. Here comes a great way of reviewing these titles (read: keywords) that you want to optimize your different web pages for.
Your SEO work begins with identifying relevant titles (keywords) for a specific content/service on one of your web sites, you identify generic keywords or keyword phrases via keyword analysis tool on the Internet (Wordtracker, Keyword Discovery, Digitalpoint etc). Such phrases are qualified guessing of keywords/keyword phrases that potential customers write in the different search engines in order to find YOUR web site in the Internet.
But such keyword analysis is only the beginning of your SEO related keyword work. All keywords are subject to seasonal trends, more or less strong in converting your customers, easier or harder to optimize for, and so on...
Using the PPC (Pay Per Click) advertisement on Google, YAHOO!, MSN and so on gives your a very powerful tool to understand just what keywords or keyword phrases that your customers trigger on. You can follow all the customers once they have clicked on the PPC add by analyzing, page views, time on your site, conversion, sales, revenues and so on.
The most powerful tool-box is the keyword overview tables provided by Google and YAHOO!. These keyword tables gives you:
- Number of impressions (read: searches on that keyword when your add has been displayed)
- CTR (Click Through Rate), i.e. number of people clicking on the adds vs number of impressions = Clicks / Impressions
- Average Cost for displaying your add, which indicates the competition and thus competitors interest in the keyword
- Conversion on that keyword, i.e. how many of the customers clicking on your add that actually performs a purchase on your site.
None of the statistics above is accessible via generic keyword analysis tools. Go in and activate an Adword account- it takes 5 min and will cost you a couple of US dollars. It is all worth it!
Note that it will take your roughly a month before you get good enough statistics in order to draw some powerful conclusions. Start with low bids and work your way up so that you do not spend unnecessary money on bad advertisement.
CNBC interview – Branding Opportunities – Rob Frankel
5 minute CNBC video about successful marketing with Rob Frankel.
Clients such as Disney, Burger King and US Forrest Service
Listen at Rob Frankel being interviewed by CNBC's Liz Claman.
Rob's answer to - What is the key to successful branding?
- "The key is to understand how misunderstanding branding really is!
- Become the only alternative for your customer
- Branding is not about you! Brand from outside in.
Online Marketing via Pay Per Click
I will elaborate on Optimalprint’s decision related to online marketing via Pay Per Click, a perfect complement to Direct Mailing. For Optimalprint’s commercial launch we evaluated costs and benefits related to Affiliate Online Marketing Programs versus setting up a Pay Per Click Campaign ourselves.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
PPC is the advertisement used on websites, advertising networks, and search engines. Your company pay when a potential customer clicks on your ad. You enter into an auction by bidding on the keywords promoting your ad, called "sponsored links" or "sponsored ads". Such ads appear next to, and sometimes, above the natural or organic results. The placement you get depends on your bidding price.
Online Affiliate Marketing Programs
Affiliate marketing is a method of promoting web businesses (merchants/advertisers) in which an affiliate (publisher) is rewarded for every visitor, subscriber, customer, and/or sale provided through his/her efforts. In short - you pay a middleman for assisting you in displaying your ads on the right websites for the type of traffic that you set out to reach.
Optimalprint’s Situation
Such affiliate marketing services usually have a payment model consisting of a non-refundable fixed fee for setting up the affiliate online marketing solution and then a pay per click cost. These two cost parameters vary widely between industry, country and competitors. Large markets and industries with more competitors typically render higher PPC cost. The affiliate online marketing tool evaluated by Optimalprint would cost € 2000 in a non-refundable set up fee per country, followed by a pay per click between € 1,5 - 4,5. On top of the PPC cost, the middleman added a 30% commission on all clicks.
Decisions and Benefits of Running our own PPC Campaigns
Optimalprint did not enter into an affiliate program. For Optimalprint, now launched in Sweden, Norway and Denmark, with France and UK soon to follow, our set up fee for the affiliate marketing programs would be €10.000. In addition, implementing PPC by ourselves render a significantly lower PPC cost. We pay € 0.1 to € 1 per click, which is roughly 5-15% of the Internet affiliate marketing program. If your company have 1.000 clicks, executing the PPC campaign by yourself would render roughly €2.000-3.000 in lower PPC cost per month. Furthermore, by running our own PPC Campaigns we have full control over Click Through Rate (CTR), i.e. the % of people that actually click on your ad divided by the number of impressions that your ad gets. Tweaking and improving the structure and text of your ad depending on the CTR is very effective.
Considerations before implementing your own PPC-Campaigns
- Time – Implementing your own PPC Campaigns for a country is very time consuming. In addition it requires a lot of tweaking related to structuring your ad and adapting text and keywords depending on how your customers interact. We spend more or less 5-7 hours per week and country performing follow-up and continuos adoption. An affiliate program would save us a lot of time.
- Countries, Languages and website structure – Launching Optimalprint in France is a challenge for us since we do not know the local conditions and website structure. Meaning that the quality of the websites, how effective they are in terms of converting the traffic, and the quality of that traffic, is not known to us. With an online affiliate marketing program, that knowledge is accessible via the supplier. A business partner that knows the local market and the country’s websites. Knowing the local website landscape will give support to your online marketing campaigns.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Effective PPC Campaigns require that you also link your Keyword campaigns to your SEO activities. The most effective PPC Campaigns arise when your selected keywords are found both in the organic search result and the sponsored links / ads. An affiliate marketing program can provide powerful placement of your ad on websites that rank high in terms of CTR and conversion.
CONCLUSION: Limited financial resources required us to implement PPC Campaigns ourselves, rendering important learnings and understanding about conversion, CTR and PPC Campaign structure. As Optimalprint grows we will most likely enter into some Affiliate Internet Marketing Program. However, with the knowledge related to PPC activities that we have now pursued, Optimalprint's procurement of Affiliate Marketing Services will be performed with much more accuracy. I strongly recommend all of you to get started with your first PPC Campaign before entering into an Affiliate Marketing Program.
Good luck!
Direct Mail Marketing
When launching Optimalprint we tried direct mail marketing. Customer respons was poorer than anticipated so we started to dig into the questioning of what actually we could have done better. Here is a short summary of our findnings, read full version - Effective Direct Mail Marketing Guide
Direct Mail Marketing – Primary Advantages with Direct Mail Marketing
- Target Advertising - targeting a specific group of customers.
- Personalization of Marketing Message to customers specific needs based on previous transactions and gathered customer data.
- Optimization of Marketing Message - Because of its direct accountability, direct mail marketing can be tested to find the best address list or customer target group; the best product offer; the best timing for your sales or marketing campaign (and many other factors). Then the winning tests can be rolled out to a wider audience for optimal results.
- Specific data collection on customers - Responses (and non-responses) can be added to the database, allowing future mailings to be better targeted.
Successful Direct Mailing Campaign in 8 steps:
1. Define primary purpose of your Direct Mail Marketing Campaign (see ex below)
- Information regarding launch of your newly established company
- Increase sales and customer contacts
- Decrease customer churn
- Increase profitability from existing consumers
2. Marketing decisions based on customer knowledge
Message, Total cost for the campaign, Sales targets, Effect on churn levels on existing customer base, Hit rate, Break even.
3. Consider existing customers purchase history and demand before testing
Most important aspects of effective direct mail marketing is which customers to contact. Logical starting point for understanding how to construct your customer target group is to analyze your current customers. When you understand existing customer base you can effectively expand your customer target group by identifying similar companies that are not your customers today.
4. TEST your direct mail marketing assumptions – GO LIVE
Collect approximately 500-600 customer addresses and divide these customers into 2-3 customer target groups, test different marketing messages and observe customer response, hit rate, number of sales and effect on revenue
5. ANALYZE the Direct Mail Marketing Test, draw your conclusion and Decide
a. Did you reach your primary purpose defined under section 1.?
b. If your objectives where not reached find our why?
c. What communication message and was most effective?
d. What print material (flyer, brochure, postcard etc) and was most effective?
e. What sales channel was most effective?
f. When and how did the customer contact you?
6. Take care of contacting customers
The more response alternatives your give your customers the higher the hit rate. Assign responsible contact people and plan for peak of incoming traffic. Secure mail server access and proper storage of the incoming customer mails. If you work with coupons plan how to administrate and store the coupons.
Make sure your company’s telephone can handle simultaneous calls, a “call back” solution perhaps?
7. DECISIONS for the full Direct Mail Marketing Campaign!
What message shall be communicated? What product offerings or services should be in focus? and much more....
8. IMPLEMENT Your Direct Mail Marketing Campaign
Think through cost of distribution, competitor respons... etc
FOLLOW UP and draw learning’s from your direct mail marketing campaign!
Which customers did respond and which did not repsond and why? What did the customers purchase? Average Order Value compared to estimations and a lot of other
GOOD LUCK WITH GROWING YOUR BUSINESS AND REVENUES
Please help me improve this Direct Mail Marketing Guide further and do correct me if you believe that my conclusions need improvement.