The cost of letterheads and stationery is considerable and businesses, especially the new ones usually try to save money by avoiding their usage. This, however, is counterproductive as letterheads and stationery is extremely important for your business. They help to convey a more professional image of your business and hence lead others to take you seriously. It is therefore essential to invest in letterheads and stationery.
Letterheads and stationery can really burn a hole in your pocket especially if you are a new business but this doesn’t mean that it is not possible to save money on this key investment. You just have to be proactive and look for unconventional solutions, which can slash the cost by as much as half the amount.
The first thing that you can do to save money is designing letterheads on your own. This may sound bizarre since most of us generally don’t have the artistic prowess to achieve feats like this. However, you will be happy to know that it is indeed possible and that we really don’t need to make the letterhead from scratch.
We can leverage the power of the internet to make our lives much easier. All we need to do is take some time to research and make use of countless templates of letterheads available on the internet. We can then choose from these templates and customize them as per our will to better suit our needs. The best thing is that we can select a number of templates, tinker with them, and then print out samples to evaluate how they will look on paper before making the final selection. This will provide you with a greater deal of flexibility as you have more designs at your disposal than you would have otherwise.
Furthermore, it will be much cheaper to print your letterheads on your own than go to a printing service. Furthermore, you don’t have to adhere to the minimum order quantity of the vendors and thus can print as many letterheads as you need. This is especially crucial for growing businesses to which the letterheads will be rendered useless in the event that they change their business name, logo, letterhead etc.
In case you are looking for something original for your business letterhead and stationery, you can greatly benefit by outsourcing. This doesn’t mean that you hire a marketing firm to design your letterhead but you can easily get an original letterhead by employing the services of an art student.
These students are hungry for exposure and will gladly work their heart out in order to gain valuable practical experience and adorn their portfolio with professional work that they will do under you. This means that these students will happily work at a nominal fee or no fee at all while providing you with a letterhead of an excellent standard. Therefore, it is surely an excellent way to get an original letterhead at little cost, which will help you truly stand out.
It is indeed possible to save money on letterheads and stationery if you are proactive.
Most Common Mistakes When Printing Promotional Flyers
Promotional flyers are very effective in marketing your product, getting noticed by your potential customers and providing the right information about your business. You don’t have to spend too much to print promotional flyers whereas its benefits are many. Thus, promotional flyers have become a relatively inexpensive marketing strategy to reach out customers. But, you need to make sure that you address all common pitfalls that are being repeated by your forerunners while printing.
Given below are the common mistakes committed while printing promotional flyers.
Not testing with a mockup first
Just because you have your finished design in front of you doesn’t mean you know exactly how it will look when it’s printed. A raw design file often looks very different from a finished printed product, especially if it needs to be cut or folded into shape. For that reason, a digital mockup template is incredibly valuable. Not only will it give you a better idea of how your printed design will appear, it gives you a much more attractive image for when you want to show the design to clients or potential employers.
Think from just your perspective
Many business people design promotional flyers thinking how it benefits them. In fact, you need to put yourself in your customer’s shoes. Understand what a customer expects from your product and design your promotional flyer to answer all their concerns.
Use of wrong headline
The headline should be selected in such a way that it is really attractive and capture the attention of readers at first sight itself. But, many try to provide details that are not at all important for customers. For example, your customers are least bothered about your business name. Your headline should be catchy and make them understand how they benefit by your product or service.
Just List down services
The objective of promotional flyer is to list down your services. It is true. But, you should be able to convince your customers regarding how you would help them to solve their problems. In other words, your services should be associated to different benefits in the view of customers. You can also explain how those benefits would help them to solve their worries or issues.
Lack of contact information
Many promotional flyers excite customers with offers and fail because of lack of contact information. This simple mistake put all your efforts into vain. If the customer decides to purchase your product, but could not get information to achieve it, then that is the most utter failure you have come across. You should provide contact information or your ecommerce site address so that customers can get in touch with you immediately or as and when required.
Difficult to read
The promotional flyer should be easy to read. The color and font should be chosen carefully. Your customers should not get strained while going through it. Don’t try to overstuff your promotional flyer with lack of spacing. Your customers need not have to refer dictionaries to understand the content. It should be simple, at the same time clear and easy to digest.
Leave back side empty
As promotional flyers are usually single page advertisements, you need to make use of both sides. You can include the main message on the front page and less important details such as customer testimonials, frequently asked questions and answers, locator etc on the back side.
Cover photo credit: Maurizio Pagnozzi / Behance.net
