Printing & Copying

 This DM news article speculates about the many benefits of future high-tech envelopes:

 http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/direct-mail/41485.html

An offline extension to a website? It's a bit of a stretch.

I get involved in a lot of design work and it is one of the most enjoyable aspects of marketing, but it can also be one of the most frustrating. I came across these "rules of thumb" for design and they have helped me working with clients on many occasions. I truly can't remember what the source was so if it is you then please let me know so I can give the proper credit.

(Thanks to my brother-in-law Jim for the witty quotation in the title)

Design Rules of Thumb

Good not Perfect - Web products, and content that is correctable and improvable on the fly, we need to decide when good enough is good enough because it can always be changed.

It’s not the number of steps that cause delays in development - it’s the space between the steps.
Have you ever been frustrated with how long it takes to accomplish projects? It’s not the number of steps in your project plan that determines how long the project takes, it’s when you take a breather between every step that causes delays. Good project management minimizes the space between the steps and stays focused on achieving the milestones and ultimate goal.

Freeze and Go!
Changes should be collected and released on a simple schedule (quarterly, semi-annually, etc.)

Prefer action over study
If you or your team is studying something to death - remember that death was not the original goal!

Brainstorm, Mock-Up, Build, Alpha, Rebuild, Beta, Pilot, Test, Launch, Evaluate, Re-Do.
There’s the process. It’s pretty simple, and many make the mistake of trying to skip a step. Each step can be quite small and contained. You don’t need to bet the organization’s future on a single initiative.

Remember the rule of six (6) in usability testing
You get very diminishing returns after asking the same question of like people. Sometimes we think that we can reduce the risk from the implementation of our innovative product features and functions by testing it with hundreds of users.

Remember the 15% rule
Humans have extreme difficulty in actually seeing a comparative difference of less than 15%. I once read that research shows that when we see the light from 100 candles, we don’t see a difference in brightness until 115 candles are lit. Interesting - I understand that the same thing is true of sound volume, color variation, and other matters of human perception.

Use the 70/30 rule
“I agree with 70% of the plan and can live with the other 30%.” That’s the key to consensus decision-making. Lord knows the time wasted trying to achieve 100% agreement to all points and ideas. If you can lead your team to agree to this principle, you have made a major step forward in breaking the logjam of unmade decisions in “almost” complete projects.

Remember the old 80/20 rule standby
No matter how few or how many users you have, 80% of your usage / revenue / statistics, etc. will come from 20% of your users. If you remove 80% of your users who aren’t delivering good user numbers, you’ll still be getting 80% of your use from 20% of your users. Remember that 80% of users, who are not using your product or service a lot, are your non-users and also your future or emerging new users, users who are still getting comfortable with the product, users from other demographics where you’ll discover new products and services to create, and users who are just at a different point in the adoption curve.

Remember the 90/10 rule
It’s true enough that 90% of your costs in both time and money are in implementation, not development. Never underestimate the amount of time and effort that will be required after you have given birth to your baby product or service. Just like human babies they require a lot of effort, expense, care and feeding, training, and support to bring them up to their full potential. And like kids, be patient, they’re marvelous when they’re all grown up!

Remember FABS
Understand the differences between features, functions, and benefits. It’s easy to design hundreds of features and functions into a product or service. It is hard to know which ones are the most important to each user. The true skill is in knowing what the benefit of each is. If it doesn’t meet someone’s true need, then seriously question whether it’s worth doing. It should also meet the need of your priority target user. Then you must market and sell the benefits to your users – not the features and functions.

Ask the three magic questions:

1. What keeps you awake at night?
2. If you could solve only one problem at work, what would it be?
3. If you could change one thing and one thing only, what would it be?

I have discovered that these questions are truly magic. They start conversations with users rather than delivering simple answers. They’re open-ended instead of closed-ended, yes or no answer questions. Just set the context and ask away.

Respect diversity
There’s an enormous amount of diversity out there, and it is not just traditional diversity around income, gender, sexual orientation, race, culture, ethnicity, or language. Of particular interest to information professionals is diversity of information literacy skills, learning styles, and multiple intelligences.

Sacrifice
Every organization has thousands of ideas that are worthy of consideration. No organization can do them all. That’s the tough part. When you have 100 good ideas to choose from, the critical skill isn’t choosing five, but sacrificing 95. Learn the skill of temporary sacrifice. You can store your good ideas in an idea parking lot and bring them forward into the strategic planning process as projects are completed. If you don’t focus and choose to limit your energy to achieving success on those that will deliver the most value to your enterprise and users, then you are choosing mediocrity.

Know any more rules of thumb you can share?

How many times have you taken donuts into an office only to have the receptionist take them to the coffee room and the only person who knows you brought them is the receptionist?

Have you ever taken donuts to a meeting, had half of them left over only to have the box taken away to be eaten by people who don't know you brought them?

You can try taping your business card to the box, but that looks a bit tacky and they may take the top of the box off and your business card can't be seen.

Or you can order donut boxes that guarantee everyone will know who brought them. How?

Simply go to Thanks a Dozen and start taking credit where credit is due. A while back I wrote about a great promotional tool from Thanks a Dozen and as a marketing guy I sent away for my free samples never thinking I would not only receive them, but that I would be so impressed.

Are Donuts a Big Deal?

Here in Canada one of the leading chains is Tim Horton's. To put donut consumption in Canada into perspective Tim Hortons has ten times the franchise penetration in Canada per thousand people than that of Dunkin' Donuts' in the US. There are a reported 10 billion donuts consumed in the United States each year and Canada is one-tenth the size, so Canadians eat 1 billion donuts, but with 10 times the penetration of franchises I wonder if we eat 10 billion? But we are off the topic.

Taking Donuts to a Client

Why do people take donuts to clients? Here are a few good reasons:

1. Buy more time on calls...
2. Stay remembered by those you contact...
3. Become friends with the gatekeeper...
4. Warm up cold calls...
5. Develop name recognition for your service or business...
6. Easily target your market niche group with a product everyone enjoys...
7. Just say "Thanks!"...

Imagine I am taking donuts to a Real Estate office to do a presentation on Email Stationery for inboxFX. I can take donuts from Kripsy Kreme, Dunkin Donuts or Tim Horton's in boxes like these and advertise these giant companies and give them all the credit:

Or I can take the donuts out of the box (following sanitary procedures) and deliver them in a branded inboxFX Email Stationery donut box like this. Who's your donut giver now?:

Here are a couple of other preliminary samples of branded donut boxes from clients:

And you are not limited to donut boxes. We also offer the following boxes:

Bagel Boxes
11 5/8" x 4 5/8" x 8 5/8" plus roof
There is a business card slot on one side of roof
Foodsafe box holds up to a dozen bagels and 2 tubs of cream cheese

Cookie Boxes
6 3/8" x 3 3/8" x 3 7/8" plus roof
Business card slot on one side of roof
Foodsafe box holds donut holes, cookies, popcorn & other treats

Candy Boxes
4 3/8" x 1 7/8" x 2 1/2" plus roof
Does not contain a business card slot
Foodsafe box holds candy, gum or other treats

Pizza Boxes
14" x 14" x 2" (standard large size)
Does not have a slot for your business card
Foodsafe box is perfect for piping hot ready to serve pizza!
Convenient and cost effective way to promote your brand

Tissue Box Sleeves
4 3/8" x 4 1/2" x 5 1/2"
Slips snugly over a standard box of tissue (tissues not included)
Offers long-term exposure to your brand right on your client's desk

Can I Customize the boxes?

Yes. We will do that for you. Here are a few samples.

Custom boxes require a minimum order of 250 units (or more) and there is a one-time set-up fee of $ 149.00 for all but the candy box which is $ 49.00. Artwork is extra. The printing prices are as follows:

Donut Box - 10" x 4-3/8" x 5-7/8" plus roof - Qty 250 $ 3.29 - Qty 500 $ 2.99
Bagel - 11-5/8" x 4 5/8" x 8-5/8" plus roof - Qty 2000 $ 3.62
Cookie - 6-3/8" x 3-3/8" x 3-7/8" plus roof - Qty 250 $ 1.99 - Qty 500 $ 1.89
Candy - 4-3/8" x 1-7/8" x 2-1/2" plus roof - Qty 300 $ 1.19 - Qty 1000 $ 0.80
Pizza - 14" x 14" x 2" - Qty 250 $ 3.79 - Qty 500 $ 3.39
Tissue - 4-3/8" x 4-1/2" x 5-1/2" - Qty 250 $ 3.29 - Qty 500 $ 2.99

Do you have stock boxes?

Yes. Go to my storefront by clicking here and check out all of the designs.

Here are some samples. We will print your logo and contact information in the white ovals on the side plus there is a slot for your business card in the roof:

Thanks for the Referral
A great product for those in any business who depend upon the referrals of others. Available in a yellow version as well.

"We Appreciate Your Business"
Comes with either a red or blue stripe and is customized with your logo/slogan. The box stresses how much their business is appreciated by you!

Little White House
A great product for Mortgage Companies, Title Companies, Banks, Realtors and Home Restoration businesses.

Have a Great Day
Displaying a cloud Background with a Daisy and "Have A Great Day!" on the roof. These boxes can be used by most every business to market their products or services.

Home - Auto - Life - Insurance
If you're in the insurance field...what a great way to thank present customers and gain new ones. Illustrated with a home (red), a car (blue) and a man (orange) with the words "Home - Auto - Life" on the handle. Of course, when personalized with your logo/slogan this really makes the ultimate promotional gift.

Yummy Box
Displaying rich earth tones with various "yummy" words...the Yummy Words Box provides more than a dozen or say ways to say “Thanks!”

There are lots more to choose from at my storefront at Thanks a Dozen.

It's no secret that I believe the only postcard worth sending out must accomplish 4 things:

1. It grab the reader's attention
2. It gets them talking
3. It makes them laugh
4. It gets saved on the refrigerator for weeks

To do this you have to find the right picture for the right headline and that is not always easy.

Here are few samples of postcards that I have created in the past. All of the postcards are in their concept stage only and are not the actual finished product I would provide a client. Many thanks to Inmagine, a stock photography company for the images. (My apologies to any other postcard designer that has used the same headline, but there are only so many good ones out there.)

Call me if you are interested in developing a series like these. Go to About Me for contact info.

Click on the thumbnail for a larger version.

Okay I admit that they aren't all funny, but do you think they get read?

Full Title: A Brief Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century. Part First; In Two Volumes: Containing A Sketch of the Revolutions and Improvements in Acience, Arts, and Literature, during that Period. By Samuel Miller. Vol. II. Published According to Act of Congress. New-York: Printed by T. and J. Swords, no. 160 Pearl-Street, 1803.

 [The following passages are excerpted from the final chapter in Miller's A Brief Retrospect of the Eighteenth Century]

RECAPITULATION.

WE have now made a hasty tour through one of the departments of the subject which we undertook to examine. From the foregoing survey, which, however tedious it may have appeared to the reader, is, in reality, a very rapid one, the eighteenth century appears to bear a singularly distinct and interesting character. In almost every department of knowledge, we find monuments of enterprize, discovery, and improvement; and, in some, these monuments are so numerous, valuable, and splendid, as to stand without parallel in the history of the human mind. There have been periods in which particular studies were more cultivated; but it may be asserted, with confidence, that in no period of the same extent, since the creation, has a mass of improvement so large, diversified and rich been presented to view. In no period have the various branches of science, art and letters, received, at the same time, such liberal accessions of light and refinement, and been made so remarkably to illustrate and enlarge each other. Never did the inquirer stand at the confluence of so many streams of knowledge as at the close of the eighteenth century.

But, in order to bring more immediately and distinctly into view the leading characteristics of the last age, as deducible from the statements which have been given, an attempt will be made to sum them up in the few following particulars:

1. The last century was pre-eminently an AGE OF FREE INQUIRY. No period in the history of man is so well entitled to this character. Two centuries have not rolled away, since the belief that the earth is globular in its form was punished as a damnable heresy; since men were afraid to avow the plainest and most fundamental principles of philosophy, government, and religion; and since the sporit of liberal inquiry was almost unkown. In the seventeenth century, this spirit began to show itself; but it was reserved for the eighteenth to witness an indulgence and extension of it truly wonderful. Never, probably, was the human mind, all things considered, so much unshackled in its inquiries. Men have learned, in a greater degree than ever before, to make light of precedent, and to throw off the authority of distinguished names. They have learned, with a readiness altogether new, to discard old opinions, to overturn systems which were supposed to rest on everlasting foundations, and to push their inquiries to the utmost extent, awed by no sanctions, restrained by no prescriptions.

This revolution in the human mind has been attended with many advantages, and with many evils. It has led to the developement [sic] of much truth, and has contributed greatly to enlarge the bounds of literature, science, and general improvement. It has opened the way to a free communication of all discoveries, real or supposed, and removed various obstacles which long retarded the progress of knowledge. But this spirit of inquiry, like every thing else in the hands of man, has been perverted and abused. It has been carried to the extreme of licentiousness. In too many instances, the love of novelty, and the impatience of all restraint founded on prescription or antiquity, have triumphed over truth and wisdom; and, in the midst of zeal for demolishing old errors, the most sacred principles of virtue and happiness have been rejected and forgotten. . . .

6. The last century is pre-eminently entitled to the character of THE AGE OF PRINTING. It is generally known, that this art is but little more than three centuries old. Among the ancients, the difficulty and expense of multiplying copies of works of reputation were so great, that few made the attempt; and the author who wished to submit his compositions to the public, was under the necessity of reciting them at some favourable meeting of the people. The disadvantages attending this state of things were many and great. It repressed and discouraged talents, and rendered the number of readers extremely small. The invention of printing gave a new aspect to literature, and formed one of the most important eras in the history of human affairs. It not only increased the number, and reduced the price of books, but it also furnished the authors with the means of laying the fruits of their labours before the public, in the most prompt and extensive manner. considering this art, moreover, as a great moral and political engine, by which an impression may be made on a large portion of a community at the same time, it assumes a degree of importance highly interesting to the philanthropist, as well as to the scholar. . . .

7.  The last century is entitled to distinction above all others, as THE AGE OF BOOKS; an age in which the spirit of writing, as well as of publication, exceeded all former precedent. Though this is closeley connected with the foregoing particular, it deserves a more distinct and pointed notice. Never, assuredly, did the world abound with such a profusion of vaious works, or produce such an immense harvest of literary  fruits. The publication of books, in all former periods of the history of learning, laboured under many difficulties. Readers were comparatively few; of course writers met with small encouragement of a pecuniary kind to labour for the instruction of the public. Hence, none in preceding centuries became authors, but such as were prompted by benevolence, by literary ambition, or by an enthusiastic love of literature. But the eighteenth century exhibited the business of publication under an aspect entirely new. It presented an increase in the number, both of writers and readers, almost incredible. In this century, for the first time AUTHORSHIP BECAME A TRADE. Multitudes of writers toiled, not for the promotion of science, nor even with a governing view to advance their own reputaiton, but for the market. Swarms of book-makers by profession arose, who inquired, not whether the subjects which they undertook to discuss stood in need of further investigation; or whether they were able to do them more ample justice than their predecessors; but whether more books might not be palmed upon the public, and made a source of emolument to the authors. Hence, there were probably more books published in the eighteenth century, than in the whole time that had before elapsed since the art of printing was discovered; perhaps more than were ever presented to the public, either in manuscript, or from the press, since the creation.

This unprecedented and wonderful multiplication of books, while it has rendered the means of information more easy of access, and more popular, has also served to perplex the mind of the student, to divide his attention, and to distract his powers. Where there are so many books, there will be less deep, original, and patient thinking; and each work will be studied with less attention and care. It may further be observed, that the abridgement, compilations, epitomes, synopses, and selections which are daily pouring from the press in countless numbers, and which make so large a part of modern publicaitons, have a tendency to divert the mind from the treasures of ancient knowledge, and from the volumes of original authors. Thus, the multiplicity of new publications, while they would seem at first view, highly favourable to the acquisition of learning, are found, as will be afterwards more fully shown, hostile to deep and sound erudition. . . .

Some of the world's most advanced printing technology has helped bring priceless art to the streets of London. Life-size reproductions of masterpieces from the likes of Constable and Da Vinci have been unveiled across central London. (Below a record shop owner surveys a copy of a priceless Da Vinci!)

Hewlett Packard used new technology in its DesignJet 10000 printer when creating the display of the National Gallery's Grand Tour. The process involves printing on a new vinyl called Epiflex.

All in all its a great bit of exposure for the National Gallery, its Grand Tour around the streets of London, AND Hewlett Packard.

In a recently released IRC study (commissioned by Pitney Bowes), consumers show they clearly prefer traditional mail over other media, such as email, for new product information or confidential business information.

Remarkably, the percentage of respondents preferring conventional mail for confidential business communications stood at 86%, unchanged from the 2004 survey.

Relevenat Links:

http://members.whattheythink.com/news/newslink.cfm?id=27529

http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/research-studies/41432.html

I have published a few newsletters for clients and while the layout is a snap, making them effective is no easy task. I think that is why so many Realtors turn to services that have monthly templates and a spot for them to add their branding.

As a method of staying in touch with clients and prospects newsletters can be effective, but if it isn't topical, timely and terrific (I need another "t" to go with the first two) I think they can work against you.

I have gleaned a few ideas in my travels and thought they might be useful for aspiring newsletter writers:

Editorials
Subscribers welcome columns written by an in-house or industry expert.

Case studies
Readers love real-life how-to's that they can apply to their own business. Case studies provide valuable specifics: How much did it cost? What problems did they encounter? What was the ROI?

Photographs
Lots of them. Choose photos that are worth a thousand words. If you are using “people” photos, a close-up of a speaker works better than a wide-angle shot of a roomful of attendees.

Product reviews
Readers will appreciate your informed opinion and unbiased reviews of everything from software to computer equipment to business trends.

Interview with an expert
Spend a few minutes talking to an expert and publish valuable information and insights you learned.

Advice column
Write a “Dear Abby” column, with an expert who solves a subscriber's problem. Use actual questions from subscribers.

FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
Answer the key questions you deal with on a daily or weekly basis.

How-to's
Give easy-to-follow instructions for completing a task, such as writing effective emails.

Calendar of events
List local events.

Testimonials
Share testimonials from customers. Not only will you build business, you'll help subscribers understand all the ways they might work with you.

This list is not exhaustive, but it will give you a place to start. Remember if you are sending a stock newsletter out and it does not resonate with your clients it will not be as effective in building good will.

Yay! Just a quickie for now...Hopefully I'll have a little time to update more thoroughly during the upcoming weekend...

Can you believe that my business cards ordered June 5 arrived a couple of hours ago? With ground shipping from California to Florida?  And they are absolutely perfect?

The cards are fabulous and shiny and crisp and bright...

I'm thrilled with overnightprints.com on this order!

Woohoo!

Ok. Have to go wrangle boy down for a nap so I can take my meds (more on that this weekend) and sprawl on my bed for a few winks...

Hugs all around!

Happy Friday!

Bek

The workshop is scheduled for September 25 - 27 in Pittsburg.

http://members.whattheythink.com/news/newslink.cfm?id=27496#

<snip>

Additional information on the PIA/GATF Center for Lean Practices is available at www.gain.net (“Research and Consulting”) or by calling Ken Rizzo at 1-800-910-4283 ext. 835.

<snip>