What’s the most important thing you put on your business cards?

We all grew up with the cut and dried template of the perfect business card dangled in front of our faces. The one that listed our name, our company, our job title and our company information. Back when there were only a handful of businesses running around. Your customers have a little bit more to choose from these days.

With that in mind, your business card has to do a lot more than just toss out your name and your phone number. So what’s the most important thing your business cards should say?

Your job title isn’t enough. Somewhere on your card should be a description of your services. Are you a carpet specialist or a carpet installation specialist? A cleaner? A master of carpet repair? “Specialist” is a widely used frame that’s way too broad for most of today’s niche businesses. If your would-be customers don’t see your particular niche when they look at your card, you’re going to get filed back in the part of their brain that isn’t going to remember you next week.

Are any of the “old” components you were putting on when you were printing your business cards any less important just because you’re thinking about starting fresh? Absolutely not. These “fresh” cards should still have your name on there somewhere. That lets you capitalize on any personal connection you hope to build. You need not only a phone number, but also an email address and website URL where they can go for more information on your businesses and services.

A fax number is good, although not necessarily essential. It’s a small step for most people to pick up the phone, call a business and ask for their fax number.

What’s the most important thing you put on your business cards?

Tags: business cards, marketing, printing

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One Response to “What’s the Most Important Thing You Put on Your Business Cards?”

1. “No Honey, We Can’t Get Business Cards for the Cats!” How Far is Too Far When It Comes to Your Personal Brand? | Digital Printing, Offset Printing, Bindery Services East Ridge Printing Rochester Printers says:

   August 15, 2011 at 3:24 pm

   [...] How far is too far when it comes to promoting your personal brand? Is the easy availability of business cards leading us to overdo it, or are we just seeing the newest trend? Will business cards soon become as [...]

Are you a rebel? Do you live to live outside the box? Push your limits? Boldly go where no man has gone before? Guess what? You’ve already got the tools you need to take your business printing out of the box it’s in right now and up to the next level.

But What Does That Mean?

Dean was the original rebel. Imagine what you could learn...

I know, I know. When you think about rebels, men and women feeding paper into a printing press probably isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. It’s more of a James Dean thing, am I right?

Stop! You’re thinking inside the box again!

There’s more to taking your company out of the box and into the wide realm of success than coming up with a great business plan. It doesn’t matter how cool you are, or how great your products are, if no one ever gets to hear about it. That’s where your business printing comes in.

You know how people always say “You are what you eat”? Whether you’re handing out brochures, hanging up posters or creating a banner for your trade show booth, you are what you print. Your printed marketing materials are a sign of your ingenuity, your creativity and your company’s ability to innovate.

In other words, most people assume what they see is what they get. What do you want your customers to see?

5 Steps to Take Your Business Printing to the Next Level

1)      Use Bold Colors. Humans are very visual creatures. Bright, bold colors catch our eyes much more quickly than say, grays and blacks, or even pastels, which is why I didn’t realize we’ve had a calendar hanging on the wall of the office for the past couple of months until yesterday. When you’re constantly surrounded by color (and advertisements filled with them) bright, bold colors can make the difference between the printed materials you see and the ones you tune out.

2)      People love people. There’s a reason so many companies feature faces rather than abstracts in their advertising campaigns. People love people. They relate to people. When they see people in print, they picture themselves in their shoes…and that’s great for business.

3)      Create using professional design software. I’m not saying you have to go out and drop a small fortune on a graphics designer, but you can definitely tell the difference between business printing that originates in Microsoft Word or Publisher and printing that starts its life in Photoshop or InDesign. Adobe has a great suite of tools you can install on your desktop or notebook, and while it’s a little pricey the end result is more than worth adding a couple of zeroes to your credit card. (You can also install their program suites in bits and pieces to isolate what you need.)  

4)      Say what you need to say and no more. Now, I’d like to clarify a little bit on this one. If you’re writing a technical manual or an employee handbook or a very precise how-to, feel free to elaborate. On the other hand, if you’re making a poster that needs to catch their eye as they’re walking by, pick a catchy headline and go with it. Just make sure they know where to go if they want to find out more.

5)      Use your imagination! You can please. You can shock. If it’s what you’re going for, you can even appall. What your business printing can’t do is look just like the 18 other posters wrapped around the block. Think out of the box!

Tags: business printing, commercial printing, design tips, poster design tips, printing, printing tips

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One Response to “Rebel! 5 Steps to Take Your Business Printing to the Next Level”

1. Rebel! Let Savvy Marketing Take Your Business Printing Out of the Box | Small Business Marketing Savvy says:

   July 16, 2011 at 1:17 am

   [...] settle for ordinary business printing when you could create something extraordinary? Visit East Ridge Printing to discover fun and [...]

Have you ever looked, really looked at an iceberg? Look at the tip, the sides, the broad base before it dips into the ocean and out of sight. Now, I have a question for you, and I want you to think about it very, very carefully.

What is that iceberg made of?

The heftiest part of the iceberg is the part you'll never see.

I heard that. You rolled your eyes, didn’t you? It’s pretty obvious that an iceberg is made of ice. H2O. Frozen water. From top to bottom. The composition might be slightly difference from top to bottom, but at its heart it’s still ice.

So if your marketing plan is just the tip of the giant branding iceberg, shouldn’t it have basically the same composition all the way through? That single concept is where many companies go horribly, horribly wrong when developing a multi-channel marketing plan for their business.

Before you try and create any kind of marketing plan, sit down for a minute and think about how you want people to see your business. What’s your brand? Where’s your voice? What do you want to say? That message, that brand, should carry over into every phase of your marketing plan for your business. Take Campbell’s “Mmm, mmm, good.” It’s on every piece of marketing they do. The Gerber baby. The GAP logo (which I have on excellent authority has been put back where it belongs as the imposter they tried to implement was run out of town).

Find your brand. Find your voice. Then build your multi-channel marketing iceberg.

Tags: Branding, Business, marketing, marketing campaign, marketing plan, multi-channel marketing

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One Response to “Build Your Business Multi-Channel Marketing Campaign Like Mother Nature Built the Iceberg”

1. Tweets that mention Build Your Business Multi-Channel Marketing Campaign Like Mother Nature Built the Iceberg | Digital Printing, Offset Printing, Bindery Services East Ridge Printing Rochester Printers -- Topsy.com says:

   October 14, 2010 at 7:19 pm

   [...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by East Ridge Printing, East Ridge Printing. East Ridge Printing said: Build Your Business Multi-Channel Marketing Campaign Like Mother Nature Built the Iceberg http://goo.gl/fb/t4O7J [...]

I know we’ve already posted one blog today, but while digging through the web this morning I came across a great post on About.com on making yourself memorable. How many times have you gone to a trade show or other networking event-or worse, some random family event-only to discover the next morning that you wrote down a phone number and don’t have a clue who it belongs to? Whoever that person was, they weren’t memorable enough that you got up the next morning thinking, ‘Where did I put that piece of paper? I really need to give so-and-so a call today.’

That kind of urgency is exactly what you’re looking for when you’re networking, but that’s not going to happen until you master the art of being memorable.

The question is, how are you going to make sure the people you meet remember you the next morning? Here are 5 tips from industry’s more interesting, fascinating and yes, memorable people on what it takes to make the kind of impression that makes your business impossible to forget:

1)      Be unique. When you look at a bowl of lemons with a random strawberry tossed in, what are you going to remember-the number of lemons in the bowl, or the fact that there was a strawberry sitting on top? People remember the unique, the distinctive and yes, the downright strange. Don’t be afraid to break the mold.

2)      Be involved. Everyone loves to talk once you get them on the right subject, and there’s nothing like a great conversation to open the door to that early morning phone call from someone who wasn’t quite finished. You can’t have a great conversation (or even a mediocre one) without getting involved, however. If you spend the whole night by the food table, the only one who’s going to remember you is the caterer.

 3)      Make them laugh. Why don’t sharks eat lawyers? Professional courtesy! Believe it or not, the last time I heard that joke was while sitting a table full of…yep, you guessed it…New York City lawyers! Just because you’re networking professionally doesn’t mean you can’t bring a sense of humor to the table. Everyone likes to spend time with someone who can make them laugh.

4)      It’s better to be quiet and appear a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt…but it you can open your mouth and not look like a fool it’s even better! I hear people say over and over again not to bother doing your homework before you go to a networking event. I say that’s ridiculous. Not too long ago I had the chance to attend a political function in Washington D.C., and before I went I took the time to scour the newspapers for headlines I normally wouldn’t look twice at so I had some idea of what might be discussed and enough information to form an educated opinion about it. Stay on top of what’s going on and you’ll find the evening flows a lot smoother for everyone.

5)      Don’t spend the whole night making your sales pitch. About a month ago my oldest son’s Cub Scout troop marched in the parade at our county fair. This event always attracts huge numbers of businesses looking for a way to sell their goods and politicians looking for your vote. I don’t remember a single one of the people who walked up to me and handed me their brochures before selling me their pitch. I will never forget, however, the woman from the miniature horse farm who stopped to let my kids pet her horses and spent a few minutes talking to my daughter about her first day of school. It isn’t always about closing the deal.

Tags: Business, make your business memorable, memorable, networking

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One Response to “5 Tips to Make Your Business Memorable”

1. Small Business Marketing and Networking Techniques That Make Your Business Memorable | MinuteWithMike says:

   September 15, 2010 at 5:57 pm

   [...] their clients are going to be talking about them long after they walk away. For more information on small business marketing techniques guaranteed to make you someone they’ll never forget, visit East Ridge Printing on [...]

How many times have you wished you could turn back the clock to add 7 or 8 hours to your day? Whether you’re overscheduled, haven’t mastered the more intricate components of effective time management or simply fall prey to distractions from the time you get up to the time you go to bed, if you’re constantly ending your day with a to-do list that’s longer than the one you started with it’s time to step back, re-evaluate, and put these simple principles into play to help you crank your productivity into overdrive.

1) Prioritize your day. Sure, you’ve got 100 things on your desk, half of which should have been done yesterday, but what’s really important? What projects are going to cause huge amounts of stress if you allow them to be pushed to the back burner? These are the projects you want to concentrate on first.

2) Make a schedule and stick to it. What time are you going to be in the office? What hours are you available for meetings? When will you be working on specific products, and what times of the day are reserved for routine tasks? If you commit to a schedule you’ll not only get more done, you’ll also feel better when the you get to leave work at work at the end of the day.

3) Kick procrastination to the curb. We all have jobs we don’t want to do every now and then, but putting them off

They tell you not to live your life by the clock, but sometimes it just works.

only makes the misery last even longer. Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can just as easily get done today.

4) Delegate. There’s a reason businesses have “teams” and not soloists. You can’t do it all. No one expects you to do it all. And the sooner you stop trying to do it all and start handing some of the responsibility over to the people who work with you, the sooner the end of that to-do list is going to come into sight!

5) Schedule your distractions. Everything takes twice as long when you have to stop every five minutes to answer the phone…or check your email…or talk to a colleague. Schedule your distractions and ignore them for the rest of the day. The more peace and quiet you get, the more you’re going to get done and the more productive you’ll be.  

6) Take a break. Seriously. You actually get more done when you stop and take small, regular breaks throughout the day than when you push yourself to the point of boredom. Why? Because when you’re rested and enthusiastic you’ll bring some energy to the project, and energy always increases productivity.

7) Shake it up. Don’t work on the same project from the time you punch in until the time you punch out if you can help it. Spend an hour working on one project, then an hour working on another. By not working on the same thing day in and day out you’re not burning yourself out.

Carry a notebook. Remember when we talked about managing distractions? Well, not all distractions are outside our head. Some are still up in there, lying in wait for the minute we turn our backs. Ideas, thoughts, to-do lists, phone numbers…all of these take up residence in our subconscious and irritate us to no end when we’re trying to finish our work. By writing them down when they pop into your mind you can keep your head clear and your day moving forward instead of stalling out halfway through.

9) Keep your office clean and organized. Thomas J. Peters said, “If a company has a clean desk policy they’re nuts, and you’re nuts to stay there.” I know I personally prefer controlled chaos to sterility in my working environment, but let’s face it. There’s no way you’re going to get from one to done on your to-do list if you have to spend the entire day looking for the resources you need.

10) Don’t forget to sleep! When you’re rushing from the time you get up until the time you go to bed, it’s easy to let little things like sleep fall to the wayside. Unfortunately, that also means that you’re running at something slightly less than your best the next day. Take the time to get a good 8 straight and watch your productivity go through the roof!

Tags: increase productivity, productivity, small business

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One Response to “10 Ways to Increase Productivity, Kick Your Energy Into Overdrive and Cram 27 Hours’ Work Into a 24 Hour Day”

1. Glendora Egleton says:

   August 28, 2010 at 7:13 am

   interesting site I will follow you to my twitter now too

Welcome back! I’m hoping the reason you’re here is that you tuned in yesterday for our discussion on direct mail marketing and catching your neighbors’ eye. If you missed out on yesterday’s post, make sure you stop by there after you’re finished here. In the meantime, here are the highlights:

1) No one really has time to get to know every business owner in town personally the way they used to.

2) Businesses are all looking for that personal connection when they’re looking for someone to do business with.

3) Direct mail marketing offers the best of both worlds; an easy, hands-off way to reach local businesses and a venue with which to express your willingness to build a personal relationship with your clients from the very beginning.

So How Do You Turn Your Average Direct Mail Postcard into a Paragon of Modern Marketing?

It’s the million dollar question-literally. Direct mail materials can bring in hundreds of thousands of dollars in business, but only if you know what you’re doing. With that in mind, here are a few simple tips to turn your direct mail marketing materials into million(ish) dollar money makers:

• Choose an image that your target audience is going to relate to. Using your company image on the cover might sound like a good idea, but it’s not going to inspire the same irresistible urge to flip the postcard over and sneak a peek at the back as a postcard bearing an image from their industry.

• Talk to your customers, not at them. Yes, granted, it’s not like you’re going to get a whole lot of immediate feedback from a direct mail marketing piece, but that doesn’t mean your customers need to feel like they’re trapped in a used car lot with a rabid car salesman and nowhere to run!

• Be personable while remaining professional. There seems to be a mistaken belief out there that when you create a direct mail marketing piece you have to be a cut-and-dried professional. There’s plenty of room out there for warm, friendly sales teams, so don’t let the opportunity pass you by!

• Be true to your brand. The whole point of personal service and building a relationship with your clients is to convince them that you’ve got what they want. There’s no possible way you’re going to be able to do that if your direct mail marketing pieces don’t reflect who you and your company really are!

Tags: digital printing, direct mail marketing, marketing materials, marketing to local businesses, printing

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2 Responses to “How to Create Personalized Direct Mail Marketing Materials for Your Local Customers”

1. rmalove says:

   August 25, 2010 at 3:14 pm

   I’m always happy to wander off topic and talk mobile apps, but as this is identical to four other postings I’ve received from other bloggers I have to assume that this is automated blog spam and delete this comment from our site. That being said, feel free to come back (in person) and talk technology any time!
2. How Direct Mail Marketing Brings a Personal Touch to Your Business | Daily Marketing Tips says:

   March 15, 2011 at 8:13 am

   [...] Ridge Printing. The Rochester printers are a premier provider of digitally printed, personalized direct mail marketing materials and postcards for today’s business. Check it out at http://www.eastridgeprint.com. [...]

Marketing’s the name of the game around here. Not only our own, although we try and pay plenty of attention to that, but also creating amazing marketing materials for our customers. That means that over the years we’ve seen it all, we’ve heard it all, and not much takes us by surprise anymore. Therefore, we sometimes forget that business owners can find themselves drowning in the number of options they have for their small business marketing materials!

What do you really need? What don’t you really need? What’s just taking up time, space and money and what’s really going to help your business grow? How do you know before you invest a ton of time and money what small business marketing materials are honestly going to bring in business for your small business?

Unfortunately, when it comes to marketing materials it’s really a matter of trial and error. With that in mind, here are a few tips to help you slash your way through the jungle of small business marketing materials to find the solution that’s right for your business.

#1: Is it representative of your business? The best marketing materials are ones that really show off what your business can do.

#2: Does it reach your target market? There are a ton of companies posting their information here, there and everywhere, so mass marketing just doesn’t bring in the business it used to. Instead, you have to make sure your materials are going to reach the people you’re marketing to. For example, if you’re marketing to local businesses a small presentation packet and personal sales rep may do a lot more than marketing out on the web. On the other hand, if you’re a B2C company trying to reach the general public it’s going to be much more cost effective to post flyers and brochures than to send someone knocking door to door.

#3: Will it grab their attention? There’s a reason marketing materials don’t read like textbooks! You have exactly 3 seconds to grab the eye of the average consumer before they move on to something more interesting. If you can’t accomplish that, in that amount of time, you’re barking up the wrong tree.

#4: Do they work? Redundant question? Not at all. The best way to judge the success of your small business marketing materials is to set up a system to judge the success of your small business marketing materials! After all, how will you know what’s working and what’s wasting money if you never take the time to find out?

Tags: marketing materials, small business, small business marketing, small business marketing materials

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3 Responses to “Slashing Your Way Through the Jungle of Small Business Marketing Materials”

1. The Etiquette of Small Business Blogging, Blog Commenting and Networking on the Web says:

   September 29, 2010 at 3:41 pm

   [...] print shop in Rochester, NY that specializes in personal branding, marketing and offset and small business marketing projects for businesses of all shapes and sizes. He’s also the admin of Business Innovations, [...]
2. The Etiquette of Small Business Blogging, Blog Commenting and Networking on the Web « celeb/newgossip.net says:

   October 16, 2010 at 9:22 pm

   [...] print shop in Rochester, NY that specializes in personal branding, marketing and offset and small business marketing projects for businesses of all shapes and sizes. He’s also the admin of Business Innovations, [...]
3. real | New Concepts For Success says:

   October 17, 2010 at 11:51 pm

   [...] print shop in Rochester, NY that specializes in personal branding, marketing and offset and small business marketing projects for businesses of all shapes and sizes. He’s also the admin of Business Innovations, [...]

If you tune in to the news regularly, you probably caught the story of the woman who quit her job and exposed her boss’s nefarious Farmville playing habits in one fell swoop. Even though it turned out to be a hoax (you’d heard about that, right?) it still makes an excellent point: We really need to work on ways to stay on task (and off Farmville!) when we’re at work!

Now, I know it’s easy to get dragged into multi-tasking when you’ve got time to kill. It’s tempting to leave Farmville running in the background when you’re in a tele-conference where your sole role is to sit still and listen, or to have a Facebook chat up and running in the background when you’re waiting for a page to load. The problem is, this isn’t as innocuous as it seems.

www.thechive.com

Of course, the question isn’t whether or not you should be playing Farmville in the office. You already know the answer to that. The question is, how do you curb the wandering eye that makes it impossible for you to stay on task in the office in the first place? Here are 5 steps from leading productivity experts designed to make it easy to turn off Facebook and turn on your own creative mind:

1) Schedule your day in small bites. All of us feel our attention span start to wander when we’ve been plugging away at the same project for the last 4 hours. Instead of giving in, try giving time boxing a try. That means you dedicate, say, 30 minutes to an hour to working on a project, then move on to the next one when your time is up. That way work stays fresh and engaging, and you’re less likely to wander away.

2) Save auto-pilot for when you really need it. It’s hard to stay on-task when your brain is bustling but you’re doing jobs you could be doing in your sleep. Schedule repetitive tasks for times when you know you’re not functioning 100%. (For example, during that sleepy period right after lunch!)

3) Prioritize. I don’t know about you, but I get frustrated and easily distracted when chances of actually finishing my to-do list dwindle down to nothing. Where’s the motivation when you know you’re never going to get done what you need to get done?

Prioritize. Start your day with what absolutely has to be done, and accept the fact that you might not get all the way from A-Z in the next 8 hours. You will actually do more if you can work without that sinking feeling of failure that comes from being overwhelmed, since your mind will be able to focus on one task at a time instead of all the tasks it still has to do.

4) Reward yourself. You might not have any say in when raises and bonuses come out, but what about your next cup of coffee? Promise yourself that when you finish that report you’ll take a 5 minute break to grab a cup of Joe. The prize at the end of the tunnel makes the journey worth it, and because you know that coffee’s getting farther away with every status update you post you’ll be less likely to do anything that’s going to push that reward any farther away.

5) Pop on headphones and kick on some music. Whether you’re working from home or sitting in your own little cubicle, offices are filled with distractions. By tossing on a good pair of headphones and kicking on some music you’re not only drowning out those distractions, you’re also assuaging your mind’s need to multi-task by giving it something to focus on along with work (which is great for those repetitive tasks we were talking about earlier).

**A word to the wise: Be careful when you choose the music you listen to at work. The last thing you want is for your distraction buster that’s meant to help you stay on task at work to become a distraction of its own!**

Tags: employee productivity, farmville, increase employee productivity, playing farmville at work, stay on task, stay on task at work

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2 Responses to “5 Steps to Stay on Task at Work (or, Why Playing Farmville at Work is a Really Bad Idea)”

1. Scranton PA Chiropractor Reviews says:

   August 17, 2010 at 7:41 pm

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2. 10 Ways to Improve Productivity and Stay on Task at Work | Coin Sorter says:

   May 5, 2011 at 2:56 am

   [...] as well as great tips and ideas for today’s small business. To learn more about how to increase productivity and stay on task at work, visit them on the web at [...]