Color Printing

It is almost always a good idea to use color in your marketing literature.  Color enhances your materials and makes them stand out, which is tough to do considering the vast amount of marketing pieces out there. 

Of course, each color evokes a different feeling.  Choosing the right color to use in your advertising efforts is one of the most important decisions you will make.  Some colors make the viewer feel warm; others give off a cold feeling.  One of the most popular colors is blue – light blue in particular.  Below are some of the feelings that this color makes people feel.  Use this as a guide if you are considering doing your next color printing project in blue.

Calm

Light blue is a calm color.  It is often associated with still waters, which makes people think of a relaxing evening on a boat.  If you want people to feel calm as they view your marketing materials, consider using light blue as your primary color.

Quiet

Blue is also a quiet color.  Do not use this color if you are going for a busy, exciting advertisement.  Blue is not the partying type of color.  It prefers quiet and calm. 

Peace

Blue is also the color of choice for evoking a peaceful feeling.  You should be getting a good idea of how blue is regarded by customers.  It is a calm, quiet, and peaceful color.  If your product or service relates to those types of feelings, blue is your color.

Water

Obviously, blue is often associated with water.  Whenever you are going for a wet feeling – and especially if your business is water related – you will want to use blue as your primary color.

Cool

Because blue is associated with water, it is also considered a cool color.  The only time to avoid using blue in your marketing efforts is in the middle of winter, when you are not purposely trying to accentuate your customers’ cold attitudes.

Clean

Finally, blue is a clean color.  This makes sense, since people usually think of water when they see the color blue.  Blue is a good color to use when you design simple, uncomplicated literature.  Or you can use blue to help a cluttered, busy design look more toned down. 

I remember an amusing joke the comedian Jerry Seinfeld would often use in his standup act. Paraphrasing it, the joke went something like this: According to a poll on the things people fear most, the number one fear was giving a speech in front of other people. The second greatest fear was death. That meant that if people were going to a funeral, they’d rather be the person in the casket than the person who has to give the eulogy.

Public speaking is not any easy thing to put yourself through. Most people don’t like to be up in front of a crowd where any little mistake is going to make them look foolish in front of all of those people. But what can you really do about it?

There are certain things you can do to help beat your fear and help you give a better speech. The first is simply acknowledging that you are afraid of it. It sounds simple and it sounds like it wouldn’t do anything, but you’d be surprised how much of a difference it can make to admit to yourself that you’re afraid.

The next thing is simply respecting yourself. Take the things you know and understand how important they are and how much it will help everyone else for you to tell it to them. This should help you boost up your confidence.

Next, and this is something a lot of people don’t think about, design and make all of your own visuals. If you planned on using leaflet printing to hand out some leaflets, make them and print them yourself. If you wanted some flyers to give to people, or maybe you had a color poster you were planning to use as a prop, make it yourself.

You can get design programs like Adobe Photo Shop in order to do the work, and if you’re handling all of that color printing on your own it gives you a level of control you wouldn’t normally have. This can help make a big difference mentally when it comes time to get up there in front of everyone else.

You might also want to go to the place you’re going to give your speech at ahead of time to get a feel for the place you’ll be speaking in. The fewer surprises you have the better.

Also, keep your presentation simple. The more complicated things get the more chances there are for things to go wrong. Keeping things simply allows you to have a greater control over what’s going on.

Lastly, do your best to be yourself. The more casual you feel and the more casual you appear the more knowledgeable you’ll seem. If you look nervous people aren’t going to be as likely to take you serious.

It can be a nerve wracking experience, I know, but if you handle things right, you’ll survive the experience.

I’ve heard it from a lot of people and I’ve thought it myself plenty of times: that isn’t my job. What I mean is that you have what was your job and then someone asks you to do something else. That first, gut reaction that I know a lot of people have is that same thought: that isn’t what I do.

Why do so many people react in a way like this? Sometimes it’s going to be a desire not to do more work, but many times it’s a certain fear of having to do a job they’ve never done before. Here is something they need to learn.

In the world of design this is going to be a very true and understandable fear. After all, in other industries if someone asks you to do something like make some copies and you’ve never used a copy machine, it isn’t hard to figure out if you did it right or not. If you have copies you did it right, if you don’t you didn’t.

But in the world of design and commercial printing you can be asked to design some full color flyers, do your best to make them, and then be told afterwards they don’t look right. Maybe you missed some specific detail that goes into a great color flyer and you were unaware of it.

In other words, you won’t always know that you did your job right until someone else looks at it and gives you the okay. This can make for a very nerve wracking situation for the first time you design something you have no experience with. No one wants to be told that they need to go back and start it over from scratch.

But if you really want to get better at what you do, you need to start reveling in those challenges. Sure, it isn’t going to be easy going from designing primarily flyers to having to design a business brochure, or being told the company needs some pamphlet printing done and so you need to get started designing one even though you never have before.

Each time you try something new you’re being provided with a lesson to learn how to design them. Sure, it might get sent back to you with several corrections, but then, now you know what not to do in the future.

I always enjoy being able to expand my knowledge base, and I know it makes me do a better job in the long run. And really, knowing how to make a great flyer might end up helping me with my brochure designs in ways I hadn’t really thought of before.

Don’t just stick to one area of commercial printing when you can learn how to do all of it. 

The closest possibility to you now is your storefront window.  Many business owners fail to take full advantage of the space on your business front.  Exciting colors and an enticing message will convert would be passers by into new customers.

Catalog printing and booklet printing allow for economical direct mail campaigns.  Ideally these should be targeted at an under served niche market.  Many business owners today fail to incorporate these tried and true methods into their overall marketing strategy.

The outdoors also provides many marketing opportunities.  This can range from a billboard to employing the power of poster printing.  A well placed poster can speak to thousands while costing less than your morning latte.

Television and radio are now affordable to the small business owner.  There are many programs providing discounted rates for unsold time.  Make your spot professional and place it on programs your market is likely to watch.

Obviously seeing you are reading this online you are aware of the multitude of interactive marketing possibilities.  However, don’t become too focused with your online segment to the detriment of other avenues.  A well rounded marketing plan translates to a successful one.