Tag Archive for: printing

Advanced Printing Techniques: Spot UV and Raised Varnish 

Pel Hughes is one of the country’s leading print companies. Serving businesses in a variety of industries—including those who work directly with consumers and B2B enterprises, we offer advanced printing methods that can produce stunning effects. Two advanced printing techniques you should know about are spot UV and raised varnish. These printing methods produce striking materials that evoke the senses. Following is helpful information about both.  

Spot UV 

Spot UV is a printing technique that embellishes materials. You’ve likely seen this effect before on event invitations and business cards. This technique produces a lustrous effect with a raised finish. While spot UV could be applied all over, it is best used for specific elements of a design. This embellishment can produce a striking visual effect by applying this treatment to specific areas such as logos and important areas of text. The name of this technique comes from the drying process. UV exposure is used to cure the varnish, giving it a noticeable sheen.  

Raised Varnish 

Like spot UV, raised varnish adds striking elements to a printed piece. It can be used in conjunction with spot UV, too. What makes raised varnish special is the fact that it adds a noticeable texture to printed materials. For example, raised varnish can be used on a business card to draw attention to a company’s name. When combined with spot UV, the area treated is not only lustrous, it provides a textural dynamic that evokes the sense of touch. Combining these two powerful embellishments adds depth to your materials’ designs.  

The Five Senses and Advanced Printing Techniques 

When it comes to building your brand and selling your product(s), striking materials make for great sales tools. Not only can properly-executed print help facilitate in-person sales, it can help drive engagement with your brand when you can’t sell a product. For instance, a beautiful business card with a raised varnish and/or spot UV can make a lasting impression on a potential customer or client. 

 If your business card stands out from your competition, you can increase the likelihood of your brand’s products or services being used. One way you can stand out from the crowd is to deploy effective sensory marketing tactics. Sensory marketing refers to evoking as much of the five sense as possible with your consumer experience and your advertising. There exists compelling research to support the effectiveness of sensory marketing as numerous researchers have found that non-conscious stimuli that we can touch, taste, smell, see, and hear drives our purchasing decisions and brand loyalty.  

Something as simple as a raised logo on your business card or company stationary could produce a lasting positive impression on others. These thoughtful little details that entice our eyes and our touch could help you develop positive associations with your brand.  

If you’re looking to take your print materials to the next level with Spot UV and raised varnishes, the experts at Pel-Hughes are here to help. We offer state-of-the-art printing services, in-house fulfillment, and a team of dedicated graphic designers to help you develop stunning print pieces like direct mail, catalogues, business cards, letterheads, and more. Give us a call at (504) 486-8646 to learn more.  

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.