Tag Archive for: print

A Quick Guide to Understanding Printing Lingo 

Every industry has its own vernacular and the printing industry is no different. For customers, however, these words may be unfamiliar. To help, our team has compiled a handy guide to help you learn more about common lingo you might hear among print professionals. Understanding this terminology can help you learn more about the wide range of services that Pel Hughes has to offer.

Digital Printing

In the past, printers relied on screens and plates to produce materials. Today, however, printers can print items from digital files. Digital is highly efficient but there are still instances where traditional print methods are necessary. 

CMYK, RGB, and Pantone

Choosing color is one of the most important aspects in branding and advertising. CMYK and RGB are color systems—each with different purposes. Pantone is not exactly a color system; it’s a color library with about 1800 variations. 

Unfortunately, color doesn’t translate the same across different mediums. For example, RBG (which stands for red, blue, and green) is used to convey color on computer monitors and device screens while CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) is a color system utilized in printing. 

These different color systems can make printing from digital artwork a little tricky. When digital logos, ads, and other graphics are generated it is important that they are compatible with CMYK to ensure that your materials match your digital ones once they’re printed on paper. Knowing your pantone color numbers can be of great help to your graphic design team and the printing professionals you work with, too.

Weight

In the print world, “weight” refers to the thickness of the paper you’re using. Thicker paper is more substantial, making it ideal for business cards and brochures. Lower weight is ideal for corporate letterheads. 

Variable Data 

Variable data makes it possible to print materials with interchangeable elements without stopping the print process. A great example of variable data is printing envelopes, personalized direct mail, or letters with different addresses or names. 

2Up

This term refers to the number of prints on a piece of paper. Utilizing as much space on a piece of paper as possible saves money and reduces waste. 2UP is particularly useful for producing post cards, packaging, and business cards.

Bleed

Bleed entails a print extending beyond its cut lines. For instance, the term “full bleed” involves printing beyond paper’s cut lines to avoid unwanted margins around an image or background color. When a full bleed is needed, printers will have to use larger paper to avoid unwanted breaks in color around an image’s borders. 

It’s important to bring up bleed with your graphic designers so that they can accommodate your needs when developing your images in Photoshop, InDesign, and other software programs. 

The pros at Pel Hughes utilize the latest technology to help you develop stunning print campaigns. We offer expert assistance with direct mail, banners, signage, business cards, and more. Our team can help you develop cross channel marketing that will set your enterprise apart from the crowd, too. 

We have worked with businesses and organizations in diverse industries throughout the United States. Give Pel Hughes a call today at (504) 486-8646 to learn more about our services. 

3 Ways to Effectively Track Your Print Marketing Campaign

Whether it’s digital or in print, your marketing campaign is only as successful as the metrics that generated from your strategy. One of the reasons that digital marketing has become so effective is due to the large amount of tracking points that can be collected. Unfortunately, many marketing teams believe that tracking can only be done with digital campaigns. However, when used correctly, tracking is just as important (if not more) for print marketing campaigns. 

Tracking print marketing campaigns can help you determine if your marketing dollars are resulting in leads and eventual revenue, as well as what specific parts of your marketing are responsible for those leads. Below are three ways that your business can start to effectively track your print marketing campaign.  

 

  • Vanity URL’s

 

Most print material these days comes with a regular web address. And for good reason. It’s a good way to connect the consumer that views your print materials with your online presence. However, it’s virtually impossible to determine which leads are attributed to the consumer going to your webpage based on your print material, or if they found another way there. A vanity URL solves this problem. 

A vanity URL is short, easy to remember, and most importantly, it’s unique. For example, let’s say you run plumbing company. Instead of printing your standard http://www.this ismyplumbingcompany.com web address, you add a simple URL such as ourplumbing.com. You then redirect that to the plumbing page on your website. From there, it’s simple to track which visitors are arriving from the vanity URL and how well the print material is generating leads.

 

  • Unique QR Codes 

 

Another effective way to track your print marketing campaign is to make your materials digitally interactive. By allowing your audience to be interactive with your print piece, you can call users to take action that signals they’ve viewed your printed material. A great way to do this is through the use of unique QR codes. 

By adding a unique QR code that takes users to a specific website or trigger a download of an app, you can use that interactive feature to measure overall engagement. Once you track and measure the data from this engagement over time, you can then tailor your print marketing materials to what is most effective for your audience. 

 

  • Human Dialogue 

 

Although it may not be as modern as QR codes or as fancy as vanity URL’s relying on what your audience tells you is a tried-and-true method for tracking your print marketing campaigns. It’s simple: ask your audience how they heard about you, with “printed materials” as one of the options. This can be done as part of a form when they are checking out at your website, or even as part of a more formal survey that is sent out after they make a purchase. 

Unfortunately, you likely won’t get extremely comprehensive results using this method. But collectively, this will help you determine the proportional impact each of your strategies has on bringing new people to your business. These questions will also help in validating more qualitative ROI results, and add a valuable additional method for obtaining useful information for your marketing team. 

Employing these strategies will help your business understand whether your printed materials are effectively reaching your audience. And perhaps more importantly, they will help to create and launch better marketing efforts in the future.

Keep Print Alive in Today’s World

To truly capitalize on advancements in the worlds of marketing and communications, businesses must find ways to make print work with new channels.

Here are three ways that print can be made interactive:

Use QR Codes to Drive People to Mobile-Optimized Sites

The numbers behind the growth in mobile marketing truly are impressive. More and more of your customers and prospects are visiting websites on their mobile phones. By adding a QR Code to your printed materials, you will be able to reach that mobile audience. QR Codes truly can make print interactive. By driving people a mobile-optimized site where they can watch a video, learn more about a product, or sign up for future alerts, you will further build your database and increase brand awareness.

Promote Social Media Pages for a Company or Product

Companies of all sizes and across all types of verticals are turning to social media to help better serve their customers and interact with prospects. However, they need people to know those pages exist to truly maximize the impact. One way

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to do this is to promote the social media sites on printed materials. Many people use their smartphone to hop onto sites, such as Facebook or Twitter. They may do the same thing after learning that your company has something to offer on those sites.

Use SMS/Text-Messaging as the Call-to-Action

While we may place less phone calls on our cell phones than we did two years ago, SMS/Text-messaging usage seemingly continues to rise. A number of companies have found ways to engage their fans and build their mobile marketing database by inviting people to send a text message to opt-in for a special offer.

There are plenty of tools and channels to choose from when trying to make print interactive, so see what works best for your audience and take it from there!