Not Just Pretty | Building An Effective Small Business Brand

Should You Print Your Own Marketing Materials?

Clients often ask me if they can print their own marketing materials in order to save money. This is a tricky question, because, yes, of course it's possible to print your own marketing materials so long as you have access to a printer and some paper. So, of course, you can either take a PDF from your designer and print it, or lay something out in Word or Publisher and run it off.

But, beyond the question of whether you can print your own marketing materials is whether you should. This often boils down to a simple question of whether printing materials yourself will present the right image for your company — whether the materials you produce will actually look good enough to represent your company well. And, of course, whether printing the materials yourself will actually save you money, or if it will be worth the time it will take.

And, whether you should depends on a few factors:

• The age of your business. If you're just starting your business, then printing some materials may make sense. Printing yourself would be a cost-effective way to start getting clients in the door, and this way you can start by testing your designs and marketing messages. If you've been around for a while, clients may expect to see professionally printed materials.
• Your confidence in your text. You could use your early home-printed materials to test your marketing text with your audience — there's no use in professionally printing hundreds of copies of anything and then discovering that it doesn't connect with or make sense to your audience. Or that you've accidentally misrepresented some bit of information. Try printing a few at home to see if they're effective before producing thousands.
• The actual amount of money (and time) that you'll save. Printing things at home still has a cost associated with it. There are the hard costs of paper and ink, along with wear and tear on your printer. And, then there's the expense of your time — how much are you willing to spend waiting for your printer, fixing paper jams, feeding in new paper, and trimming the finished prints down to size? With the option of printing many pieces digitally these days, and discount printers available online (like www.psprint.com), the cost of professionally printing materials is not really that large — so do some research and see if you can afford to have your materials printed. It may pay off by saving you time and irritation.
• The loss of credibility that you'll face. What goes through your mind when you receive a packet of printed materials that are obviously printed on a home or office printer? Do you wonder if the business is stable? If they're worth their asking price? If they take pride in their work? Do you think about their level of sophistication? You don't want any of these sorts of thoughts going through a new prospect's mind. You want them to get your materials, be impressed, and then to consider hiring you — you don't want to create more questions in their minds.
• The likelihood that your competition's materials will look better. Unless you're in a very "homey" industry (like a babysitter or errand running service), then there's a good chance that your competitors are printing their materials professionally. You want your materials to look as good as — if not better than — your competition's materials. This includes print quality and design.
• What marketing materials you're planning to print. Printing a flyer out on your home or office printer sends out an entirely different message than printing your business cards yourself. So, ask if printing your piece at home is appropriate for the actual piece itself.

In the next article, I'll talk specifically about which types of marketing materials make sense to print yourself, and which ones you shouldn't print at home — and why.

Letterhead Fonts

QUESTION:

I am trying to create a quick letterhead template for my company. Is there

a certain type of font I should use for the address block?

ANSWER:

Here are the qualities you want to watch out for in your letterhead address block font:

1. Make sure your letterhead font is legible and prints well. If you're going to send faxes on your letterhead, test the fonts you'll use to make sure they're still legible after going through the fax process.

2. Think about how you'll use your letterhead. If it's a digital letterhead that will be used on several different computers, it will be easiest to choose a font that comes preinstalled on most computers so that you'll be able to open and use the letterhead with no technical difficulties. If you're going to be the sole user, then you might want to invest in a font for your letterhead that will make it more unique.

3. Think about the personality of your company, and match the font to the personality. Sans serif fonts are good for technology-oriented companies, and give your company a more approachable and friendly feel. Serif fonts are more traditional and can make your business look more established. In any case, you probably don't want to go with anything that looks like handwriting or is too decorative. Script fonts are also harder to read.

4. If you have a logo, you should make sure that the qualities of your logo font coordinate with the font that is used in your logo. This does not mean that it has to be the same font, but it's a good rule of thumb to match some of the characteristics - whether the "o" in both fonts is round or oval, for example.

Objectifying Your Small Business's Logo

A common thing to hear at the start of a logo design project is, "I just want a picture of a [insert object here] to be my logo." The object could be a hammer, a car, a golf club, a spine, a pile of books, a map—you name it. This object may or may not have a direct relationship with the business that the logo will be representing. For example, I've been asked to draw a sea horse logo for a financial planner, and recently, a client requested that I work a cat into the logo for her exercise company.

There are two major issues inherent with designing a logo with a picture of an object in it. The first is that your logo instantly becomes a "representational logo," and you'll want to evaluate whether this form of logo serves your business best. The second issue is that before committing to using that object as the face of your business, you'll have to carefully consider the type of object that you're including in the logo and all of its' possible meanings to the viewer.

So, let's tackle the issues with the first one first: The fact that your logo will be a representational logo.

What is a representational logo? And is it the right choice for my business?

"Representational logo" simply means that the icon of the logo has a picture in it that looks like a recognizable object. A representational logo is often most appropriate for a company that's on the smaller side, or one that provides business-to-consumer, or personal services (think dog walking, house painting, carpentry).

You rarely see representational logos for successful professional services companies (think accountants, lawyers, engineers), unless those companies are very small. So make sure that having a representational logo matches to the level of sophistication that you'd like your company to reach. You can evaluate the level of sophistication in terms of the object you choose to use as your logo and how the object is drawn. For example, a cartoon of a pile of money may not convey the right visual message for an investment specialist.

It is true that some big companies do have representational logos—the apple for Apple Computers, for example. But they've already made their business name a little abstract by combining words that don't go together conceptually, so having a representational logo in this case can help to make their incongruous name more memorable.

Choose your object wisely

If you commit to a representational logo, you should choose an item that makes sense in some way with your business—either based on your business name, what you sell, or if there's a more complicated story that you'll wind up having to explain to prospects. Also remember that you're signing up for your company to always have some sort of link to the item in the logo—so you may not want to start out with a picture of a product that you sell.

For example, say you operate a foods company making chips out of carrots, and you decide to go with a carrot in the logo. Then your company decides a short while later to change directions and start manufacturing chips made of corn instead. Suddenly, the carrot logo is less appropriate for your business; and unless you find some way that it does integrate into your new business direction, you might run into trouble.

You'll also want to think about the meaning of the item that you choose as your logo. Some items already have a traditional symbolic meaning—for example, a butterfly is often used to symbolize change or transition because it goes through a metamorphosis. Research your item so that you can become sure that you're not missing any of its' potential meanings. And in this way, you can make sure that your item doesn't have any unintended negative connotations as well. 

A representational logo isn't right for every business. But if you decide that a representational logo is the right choice for your business, then making sure that you choose your object wisely can help you to ensure that your logo will be a good fit for your business and that it will support the growth of your brand. 

Aviary online image editor

Aviary.com offers free vector editing (their Illustrator replacement is called Raven) and photo editing (called Phoenix) - has anyone used these tools? This might be a great resource for small businesses looking to make edits to their designs, or even create designs.

How to Design Mailing Labels in Microsoft Word

Small businesses might find designing a set of mailing labels to be a cost-effective way to brand their business mail and packages.

If you send business letters only occasionally, then printing mailing labels in small quantities on an as-needed basis is usually less expensive than printing a batch of envelopes.

Mailing labels are not only less expensive, but they're less of a commitment to create and use. The smallest quantity of envelopes many printers will print is 500 — and if you don't send mail often, then it can take quite a while to go through that many envelopes. Instead of printing up 500 or 1000 envelopes with your business address on them, and then possibly not using them up before you have to move, you can print just a sheet or two of mailing labels at one time. That way, if you wind up moving, as many small businesses do during their first few years, you'll have minimal waste.

The third big advantage to mailing labels is that you can use them on many sizes and types of envelopes and packages — not only on #10 business envelopes, which is the most common size for small businesses to have printed. You can even use them on Priority Mail envelopes.

To cash in on these advantages, you need to know how to design mailing labels in Microsoft Word. Here are the steps you'll need to take, along with instructions on how to lay the labels out.

1.Gather the design elements you'll need. For many mailing labels designs, this just means that you need a copy of your company logo. If your logo is laid out in a horizontal orientation, you'll have the best results on many mailing label types, since they tend to be horizontally shaped. You can use a vertical logo, but make sure that you don't scale it down so much that your company name is illegible or that the design elements bleed together. You'll also want to use a high-resolution file of your logo — I recommend a 300 DPI, TIF or JPG format file in RGB color mode.

2. Gather your other marketing materials to use as reference material. In many cases, it's most important that your mailing label match your letterhead the most closely, so it can help to have a copy of your printed and/or digital letterhead nearby as you create your mailing label design. You won't have a ton of space on the mailing label for design elements, but making sure that the designs you do use match will ensure that your communications are cohesive.

3. You'll also need your address to appear on the mailing label. Decide if you're using your physical location, or if you will be using a Post Office or UPS Store mailbox address for greater privacy.

4. Decide what kind and size of mailing label you'd like to create. The first question is which brand to go with. I recommend going with a standard Avery label as the base sheet for the mailing labels, because they are widely available at office supply stores, they are easy to print, and they peel and stick well, with no frustration. You can also get them for either inkjet or laser printers, depending on what you have available.

The next question is size. Standard Avery Label sizes that work well for #10 envelopes, catalog envelopes and packages include:

5160	1" x 2.63"	30/sheet
5163	2" x 4"	10/sheet
5164	4" x 3.33"	6/sheet

Choose a label size that will allow plenty of space for your logo. If your address is long, you may want to choose one of the larger sizes. Also, if you ship more packages, the larger labels will stand out more on those, while still working for #10 envelopes. You may even consider designing a couple of different sizes for different uses.

5. Once you have these elements together (your logo, your other materials and your contact information), use them to design your mailing label. You can have a professional designer create a graphic file to insert into Microsoft Word, or you can just use Word to create the design using the following steps:

a.	Make a new Word document to act as your mailing label template using the "Tools > Labels" command, and go through the dialog box to select the right size of label. This will pop up a page with a grid on it the size of the labels you've chosen.
b.	Now we'll design one mailing label, and later we'll copy and paste that label into all of the label boxes.
c.	Take a digital copy of your logo and embed it into the file by using the "Insert > Picture > From File" command. You'll want to insert a high-resolution file (300 DPI) and to use an EPS, TIFF, JPEG or some other file format that Word accepts.
d.	If needed, scale the logo. Click on the logo to select it. Click and drag on a corner point to make the logo smaller or larger. Hold down "shift" while you do this so that you can constrain the proportions of the logo and so that it doesn't get stretched out.
e.	Use Word's Drawing toolbar to add in shapes, color bars, background colors, lines or other visual elements to match your other materials. You can access the Drawing menu through Tools > Customize Toolbars/Menus and then selecting the Drawing menu. It has a variety of tools for creating shapes and coloring them in.
f.	Create a text box (also available in the Drawing menu), and insert your address there. Choose a font that matches your address font on your letterhead.
g.	Once you are happy with your design, select all of your design elements and copy and paste them into the other label boxes to create a full sheet of labels.

6. Now it's time to print. After you've followed these steps to design a mailing label, just grab a box of Avery labels (make sure you get the right size for your design) and start printing. You can print as many or as few sheets as you need, and easily reprint on demand from your saved file. 

If you follow these steps, you'll be able to create a mailing label design in Word that will allow you to easily brand your postal mail and packages. This will make all of your mailed communications look more professional and appear consistent with your other marketing materials. 

Another Option For Printing Envelopes

This is a follow-on to the last article I wrote on "Envelope vs. Mailing Label: Fight!". In addition to printing envelopes professionally, or printing mailing labels, you could try printing directly onto the envelope with your laser printer or inkjet printer. I've had varied results with this method - depending on how well your printer works and feeds the paper. Also, it is time-consuming to have to stop what you're doing, feed the printer an envelope and then wait for it to finish before sending your mail. But, it is a third option for printing your envelopes, and may make sense if you need to print a very few envelopes and your printer works well.

Rebranding and Logo Design

Does rebranding your business mean that you need to – or should – redesign your logo?

Here are some questions to ask yourself to determine whether you need to redesign:

• What is the purpose of this rebranding? What changes are you making in your business, and does your old logo match the new brand?

About the logo:

• How long have you had it? How much have you used it?
• Do you like the logo? If you do, it might be worth keeping. If not, this might be a good reason to change it.
• Do your clients react well to your logo? If they do like it, are the clients you're working with now your ideal clients for the new brand?

About whether redesigning the logo is appropriate or if it should be started over:

• How much are you changing what you're doing in your business with your new brand? If you're moving too far away from what you used to offer, then you would be better served by starting over with a fresh logo, to visually signal that you've made a change.
• How well does the logo print/ reproduce on your marketing materials?

Get More Leads From Your Website

Here are a few quick ideas in that area:

• Including more calls to action and making them relevant to each page/offer.
• Putting your newsletter sign-up box on every website page (all your clients won't come in through the home page), and possibly improving that offer to make it more appealing (do you have a free sample you could give away?)
• Distributing your articles online with links back to your website to improve your search engine results and to get a wider audience base.

Follow Up To Yesterday's Post: Landing Pages

I was thinking more about yesterday's post about Following Your Print Pieces With A Website.

I think I should have been more specific. Instead of just following your printed pieces with just a link to your home page, you should create a customized page as a follow-on to your specific offer for the most impact. This is called a landing page.

A landing page allows you to talk exactly about the offer you're making. Instead of referring your new client to the vastness of your website, and making them look around for something that they're interested in, you can make sure that you send them to the precise page that you want them to land on and then give them more information about your offer.

Follow Your Print Pieces With A Website

You can make your marketing materials more effective by including a call to action and a website address on your print and emailed materials, and then creating your website to offer more information and help the sale along to the next stage. Depending on the offer, your client, and the price point, the website may - or may not - be able to make the sale for you.

You've probably seen this in action on postcards and flyers. But, don't forget to use it on brochures, and even on your business cards (the back side is perfect for that). And, you can put a call to action on the bottom of your email, and use links in your email newsletters.