Brand Rezonance

I am not going to use the now-commonplace “R” word, but talk about its lesser known cousin, returns. More than anytime else, the benefits which you get out of every rupee spent is taking up centre-stage and has moved from being relegated to corporate boardrooms to being talked about on the streets by all business-owners. It has become the dire necessity of every business to differentiate.

So where do we start?

Before beginning on deciding a print promotion strategy, you may want to sit back and decide the whos, whys and hows. Who will receive the material you’ll lovingly fabricate, why should they keep it with them and how will it help you get more business? Here are 10 tips.

1: Start with your personal announcement tool: In case you are wondering what this is, it is just what your business card is supposed to do. Would you like people to remember your card when you dole it out generously at networking events? Then it is imperative that there is a conversation around it. Get an innovative title, get bold graphic design, experiment. For example, if you are a CFO, you could change it to Minister of Finance. Of course, being cheeky also means that you need to develop the ability of being able to carry it off.

2: Include a memory hook: A good tagline can do wonders in helping people remember you. Add this in all your material. I once knew of a printer who “could print everything except currency.”

3: Size does matter: Walk into any print shop and you will instantly be greeted by various sizes of print material. A4, A3, Letter. Fuddled? If you are not able to decide which size is right for your brochure, do some research. Several times, brochures have worked just because they were of a different size than average. The same goes for all your print material.

4: Guerilla print campaigns: If you are planning a direct mailer campaign, better make sure it is more than just a piece of paper. If you can customize it to a target segment, then it could be the icing on your cake. For example, a campaign targeted at architects could have the messaging printed on blueprints.

5: Culture works: In certain cases, aligning a direct mailer campaign to a cultural artifact could help convey the message creatively. For instance, kites have been used by several companies to communicate messages that relate to it. And then, our country has no dearth of cultural pointers; one has to just make sure they are used sensibly.

6: Give them something useful: Since you will invest time and effort to design and produce promotion material, it may be worthwhile to make it useful. Common ideas that work are calendars, year books, diaries, scribble pads and post-its. Invest in a design agency that can help build the theme of your products and services into these articles.

7: Customize if you can: Remember, if you are looking to generate new sales leads through the print promotion campaign, not everyone likes to receive the same communication. Personalise or customize if you can, add a bit of flavour by a handwritten note of greeting or thanks.

8: Include a newsletter series: Newsletters are simple, effective methods of print communication and have unusually long shelf life. If you can bundle a whole lot of useful information along with a bit of your product or service related material, newsletters often end up being retained by most recipients as compared to brochures. As an example, an IT systems provider could include useful tips in each issue as a cover story, say about open source applications that reduce costs.

9: Occasion-based marketing: Annual occasions, festivals or events provide a special avenue to help build recall for your product or service. Say, you send an intelligent prank along with your material so that it reaches your prospect on the 1^st of April. Needless to say, one needs to heed tastes and sensibilities while running such a campaign.

10: Plan your execution: The entire print marketing schedule for the year should preferably be planned in advance with tracking mechanisms in place. It is also important to follow-up through digital methods. Also, in keeping with environment issues, one should plan well to avoid any waste.