7 Print Marketing Tips That Will Help You Crush It: Want to embark on a print marketing campaign? You made the right choice – and we’re here to make sure you absolutely kill it. Read on for get tips.

Are you a small business owner or campaign manager that wants to embark on a print marketing campaign, but you just don’t know where to start?

Is the idea of learning how to use Photoshop to make a brochure as appealing to you as a lobotomy?

Print marketing isn’t dead. It also isn’t even close to being obsolete. Print marketing is still a fantastic tool for improve your business and getting your name out there.

Print marketing isn’t as simple as one would think, however. It requires a bit of work (definitely more than a simple email campaign).

But it’s worth it. And we’re sharing all these awesome tips you need to help crush it with your campaign. Ready to dive in? Let’s do it.

Seven Print Marketing Tips For Your Campaign

These tips will have you on your way to making the best print marketing plan ever.

1. Tip: Keep The Design Professional

This is important. Design and visual appeal is everything for a print marketing campaign.

Think about it– have you ever received a flier taped to your door for a local restaurant with very unprofessional and visually unappealing design? It probably made you instinctively judge the establishment as cheap. Your credibility relies heavily on how you present your business in your marketing campaign.

Professional design does not mean costly design either. In fact, a professional designer can be less costly in the long run.

Finding a talented professional design is a fantastic choice for your small business print marketing campaign because their designs, due to their quality, won’t require constant redesigns.

A professional designer will work with you to figure out exactly what you want without sucking up your valuable time.

If you’re interested in finding professional help with printing companies and designers, there are many resources

2. Get Involved And Approach People

This may seem useless to some. Nothing makes you want to do a backflip into oncoming traffic like a guy making eye contact with an armful of flyers on the sidewalk coming towards you. Also, people notice well-designed posters!

Real talk– people don’t want to be bothered on the street. People also don’t like holding useless things. A lot of people don’t like reading useless things either.

However, you’re getting your marketing campaign into physical hands– that’s a big step. If you follow step one, then the visual appeal of your pamphlet or menu will get your potential customers interested after you’ve handed them the material.

When creating a handout material or business cards, try to avoid an obnoxious sales-driven pamphlet. Don’t go cheap or opt for those free business cards. This tends to be a turnoff and could lead to your flier being thrown in the nearest trashcan.

Provide useful informative content in your hand-given flyer that you would be interested in that leads back to your brand or business.

Try not to get discouraged if you’re rejected — some people are just in a hurry.

3. Tip: Brush Up On Print “Language”

If you’re reading this article, you’re likely a novice printer looking for some extra help.

Learning the language when it comes to print can make it much easier to clarify what you want. Don’t be afraid to ask your designer to walk you through weird designer terms that you don’t know–a good designer will be more than willing.

Check out resources that can walk you through the language, too. Learning before you schedule a consultation with a designer can make expressing yourself much quicker and clearer.

4. Tip: Learn The Basics Of Graphic Design

Even if you’re opting to rely on a pro to do the design work, it wouldn’t hurt to get a solid idea of what graphic design seeks to do in print marketing.

While it takes years and a good education to learn everything about graphic design, these facts can at least make you a little more well-rounded:

• Keep the design simple and don’t assault viewers’ eyes with too much stimulation.
  Break up text and don’t use too much of it– you’re creating a pamphlet, not an instruction manual!
• Use headers, dividers, and other sectioning tools to lead the eye where you want it to.
• Use charts, graphs, and other visually stimulating informative tools rather than tables.
• Use white space. It is more aesthetically pleasing and makes your print look much more inviting to read.
• Caption your photos. Readers want to know what they’re looking at and a caption can be very inviting.

There are a number of great sites to design your own small business marketing materials like Vistaprint, and they always have coupons available, even for Canadian customers! A number of them offer free sample kits so you know what to expect before placing an order.

5. Tip: Ask For Testimonials for Your Small Business

Are you an already established business with some regular happy customers? Ask them for written testimonials and reviews to include in your print campaign.

Be sure to pick out your most satisfied customers, of course. Don’t use that firmly passive aggressive Yelp review from Susan for this one.

Use phrases like “What are other people saying about My Business?” and “Here’s what our happy customers have to say!” to draw attention to the testimonials.

Don’t fabricate these, either. Nobody likes a liar, and quite frankly, the average chimpanzee can spot a fake review with all of its weird enthusiasm and keywording from a mile away.

6. Idea: Focus on your audience

Pretty obvious, right? It’s really important to keep your target audience in mind when creating any kind of marketing campaign, not just print.

Brainstorming is the most in-depth you can get when fleshing out exactly who your customers are and what they want, but it also doesn’t hurt to make fairly minimal observations of your target audience.

For example, say you are a hip artsy coffee bar near a large college campus. Your audience is young college students that enjoy art and are likely art students.

Your design should reflect this, as should the content you provide in your print marketing campaign. For this demographic and business, you should keep the design of the pamphlet on the avant-garde or minimalist side. The content you include should be discount coupons for students or hours for your happy hour.

7. Idea: Press Releases Are Very Useful for Small Business!

A press release is an official statement that is issued to newspapers, websites, and other publications of interest that provide information on a particular thing.

When you release a new product or promotion, create a press release to send to local publications that may find interest in it.

If you can provide your business data in this press release that can prove a trend in your specific industry, industry publications will be very interested in it and will write about your business. There are a number of good press release / news release sites out there like PRWeb and prnewswire.com.

Start Printing!

Print marketing truly is far from dead. With these handy tips, you’ll crush your print marketing campaign and reel in those customers!

Do you have a print marketing tip or coupon to share that could help out a small business looking to start their own campaign? We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a note in the comments!

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