Word Count:
361

Summary:
Do you think that art is better today or when it was being created in the days of the Renaissance?

Keywords:
Postcard Advertising

Article Body:
Do you think that art is better today or when it was being created in the days of the Renaissance? Obviously, the works of Michelangelo and his contemporaries has stood the test of time. The profound strokes by Da Vinci continue to confuse art historians to this day. The mastery of their mediums could not be disputed, but what about their position in society? Much of the work was closely related to what the public was thinking about, as religion related equally to governmental policies as it did with spirituality. However, this is where I begin to falter in my leaning towards the masters.

I’m not sure what art means to an artist and I’m not sure what it means to art historians, but I can offer my personal considerations as someone who passively appreciates the art that is all around. It seems that art is goes beyond the innate need for beauty by humans. Art tells the stories and histories of people, gives a voice to the wants, desires, and hopes of the present and for the future.

If this is the case, then art should not exclusively be commissioned by governments and religious leaders. True history and life happens in the streets to those whose lives are ultimately affected several times removed by decisions made in far away offices by people they will never meet. This is where the commissioning of art should be made; these are the stories and histories that need to be told now and preserved for the future.

This isn’t to say that its only the underclass that should be producing revolution art. Everybody has a stake. Everyone has a piece of the story. I think the fact that art can be found everywhere and in everything today gives us a profound advantage in a competition with those brilliant artists of the Renaissance. Aesthetics and art are found in everything from the design of mundane tools to advertising postcards to the painful words told in a poem at a small coffee shop. The ubiquity of art created by anyone with something to say finally has placed art in its proper place?everywhere.

Word Count:
443

Summary:
Full color printing services are probably one of the most expensive printing services in the past but with the development of new printing technologies full color printing has become an affordable printing service.

Keywords:
FULL COLOR POSTCARDS, postcards

Article Body:
Full color printing services are probably one of the most expensive printing services in the past but with the development of new printing technologies full color printing has become an affordable printing service.

One form of advertising material that commonly utilized full color printing is a postcard. Postcards especially those that have undergone the full color printing process have a more aesthetic appeal than those plain postcards usually sent by excessively thrifty companies.

Receiving a postcard evokes a great feeling of gladness since postcards is a way of saying that you are always remembered and cared for. However, in order to stir up the feeling of anyone or in the case of business postcards stir up the feelings of its target market it is important to have it done in full colors. The various hues of colors would be the determining factor onto the effect of the postcard to its receiver. It’s a fact that colors really do affect the mood of people which makes it even more worthwhile to hire the best full color postcards printing provider there is.

No other advertising material is known to create such great impact on customers like what postcards can accomplish. Postcards have the ability to make its receiver smile and feel happy for no special reason at all.

There are options involve when thinking of using postcards for any advertising endeavor like the option of creating the postcards yourself. However, the problem with creating your own postcard is the quality of the output since it may not meet your company’s set standard for quality. The problem may be caused by the wrong choice of printer or the lack of expertise and knowledge when it comes to the process of full color postcards.

The second option is sending your postcard printing project to a professional printer one that specializes in full color printing. These providers may be found either online or offline. The advantage of online providers over its offline competition is in terms of comfort that is derived from using online services.

In fact, it doesn’t really matter if you are a novice or an expert in using online interactive forms since there are very easy to follow instructions provided by various online printing providers. Aside from that, online printing provider has the necessary online software system that enables for a quick and hassle free sending of all printing projects that is not present when dealing with local print shops.

Aside from that, there are also some online providers that offer free proofing of all submitted printing projects to provide the client company with an overview of the outcome of sent project.

Business owners can’t afford to make mistakes when it to comes to their promotional materials. They spend a considerable amount of money in it so they would want them to bring greater sales and profits to their business. Thus, if the postcard reveals a glossy, professional attractive picture, the recipient will likely look at the picture and turn it over to see who sent it. Then before putting it aside they might think of visiting your store on their next shopping spree.

If you do not have an idea on how to design and create your own postcards asking the help of professional printers can help in creating attention-grabbing and effective postcards. These professionals have experience in advertising and printing so they can give advice on how to go about with your postcard printing.

But what should you look for professional printers? First off, understand that reputable printers have time frames in completing their jobs. So ask the printer that you are considering how long it would take for them to finish your project. Have some guarantee from them about the work that will be carried out. Also, know the exact price that you will pay as often there are discounts for large print jobs. This can save you a lot of money so ask the print shop about this. Ask also for a sample of how the finished product will look like for your approval before the entire order is processed.

Printing services are increasingly becoming more affordable these days. With new technologies used in printing, each print job costs cheaper as production volume increases. The speed of turnaround time has also increased with modern printing machines. Most printing companies can print hundreds and even thousands of pages every hour. Additionally, with the selection of printing techniques available today, whichever technology you use you will find that these printing services will meet your printing needs. It is just a matter of finding the right printing service for your print job.

Thus, to create an arty promotional material for more effective business advertising, turning to the professionals is a good idea. If you want to earn more profits always remember your business purpose ? that is to sell your goods and services. With your people-pleasing postcards, your prospects can easily be reminded of your store.

This law transcends market conditions, the activities of your competition, acts of terrorism, time of year, the alignment of Mars with Jupiter and all the million and one explanations we frequently fall back on when business is slow. All these conditions may be present but there is still a way to rise above them: just promote more heavily and frequently and business will start to pick up again. It never fails.

It’s almost a natural instinct when times get a little tight or business is slow to cut down on expenditure. You hear people talking about tightening their belts. Too often the first expenditure companies seek to cut is their marketing and advertising dollar, and that is a serious error, a guarantee of contraction. You have to step up the promotion, not cut back. The trick is to find ways to get the maximum results with the minimum expenditure, but never to cut back and promote less. That’s suicide. Here’s one way to increase promotion while keeping costs down.

You don’t have to open a postcard!

We have found more and more brokers are turning to high quality, four-color postcards as the best form of direct mail. It’s time to pass on the information for those who haven’t yet discovered this cost-effective way of getting the word out and the business in.

This is especially timely advice as the national anthrax scare ? whether you give credence to it or not ? has resulted in a certain caution when it comes to opening envelopes from unknown sources. One great advantage of the postcard is that it doesn’t have to be opened ? there is nothing hidden about it and nothing to be scared of.

Quite aside from the anthrax angle, the fact that a postcard doesn’t need to be opened has another advantage: it has a chance to get its message across before it is dropped into the garbage can as “junk mail.” An envelope can be tossed in the trash without even being opened, allowing the hard-hitting promotional material inside no chance at all to get its message across.

The chances are fairly high that if you have a brightly colored image on the front of your postcard it will attract enough attention to get an initial glance. If your headline is a good one and invites further interest, then your postcard will be read and you will have succeeded in delivering your message. If the reader is even vaguely interested in what you are trying to sell, you may well get a visit or a call.

Cost-effective!

Even though it is imperative to promote more than ever when the economy is sticky or business is slow, that doesn’t mean you can’t cut costs in the process.

Many brokers are convinced that a full-color postcard with the right message on it, mailed out to previous clients (for re-financing for example) or to prospective borrowers gets the most bang for the advertising buck of any form of promotion, even when they also advertise in print, on the radio and TV, sky-writing, you name it.

You can mail out a postcard up to 4 1/4 inches by 6 inches for between 17.5¢ and 19.5¢ first class pre-sorted. This is cheaper than the lowest letter rate which is 19¢ – 24¢ and that’s for standard, bulk rate, not first class. If you find the right company you can get 5,000 high quality, full-color, laminated postcards printed for under $400.

Warren Financial Corporation of Dunedin, Florida, is an example of a company who rely entirely on postcards (and referrals) for new business. “The strange thing about postcards is that I’ll have people who will call me 6 or 8 months after I mailed them out and say, ‘I got one of your postcards and kept it.’,” says Jim Warren, the company’s owner. He buys 6,000 postcards at a time and sends out 400 every month to highly targeted mailing lists. He leaves the back of the cards blank so that he can get a different message printed on them when he’s ready to send them. This allows for rate changes and other time-sensitive messages to be printed on at the time the postcards are going to be mailed.

He used to use very basic, black and white postcards run off by his local printer but has now gone to full-color, 4 1/4″ x 6″ cards (the largest size you can send at the lowest mail rate) which has improved his response rate. “I have a rifle rather than a shotgun approach to marketing,” he says. “For what I do the four-color postcards are perfect.”

A case in point?

Sun Pacific Mortgage of Santa Rosa, California have been in business for 14 years, specializing in giving loans to people who have been turned down elsewhere. Owner Forest Tardibuono came across some management technology in 1997 and since then their income has increased by 900% and is still on the rise. One of the principles that Forest learned and really put into practice was the fact that if you want more business or new business, you have to promote. “We’re one big marketing machine,” he says. “We promote heavily and it’s then an easy job for the loan reps to pick up the loans. The sale is easy.” The company spends 14% of its gross on promotion. With an annual income of close to $2 million, that’s a sizable budget for promotion. But it is also a major factor in their continued growth.

Sun Pacific order 50-60,000 postcards at a time with a selection of several different images on the cards. They have an arrangement with local title companies whereby these provide Sun Pacific with mailing lists already printed in mailing label form at no cost as an incentive for the mortgage company to use them for title work. They provide these labels as often as needed and targeted as narrowly and specifically as required. For example, Forest will ask for homeowners of a specific zip code (one that has proven profitable in the past) and will limit the search to specific categories to make sure that the mailing hits home. Getting the mailing labels free of a charge represents a considerable saving.

Then Sun Pacific will send out mailings of a couple of thousand postcards once or twice a month to current or past clients, and another 3-4,000 to prospective borrowers every week, handling all the mailing in house. They use large (4 1/4″ by 6″) full-color, laminated postcards which look very attractive.

“We went to postcards a few years ago because I got sick of doing the bulk mailings using envelopes,” Forest admits. Folding letters and sealing envelopes is pretty labor intensive. Postcards cost less and the mail costs are lower.

Forest attributes a full 20% of his business to the postcard mailings which account for the majority of their spending on print advertising/promotion for the year. “Because of the magic formula that business comes in in proportion to the postcards and other forms of promotion that go out, we get results from all quarters,” he says.

Outsourcing:

The above example includes networking with title companies and handling large mailings in house but this is something to work up to if you want to go that route. Few mortgage brokers have an in-house marketing department and it can be time-consuming and overwhelming to take on all of these aspects of getting postcards mailed out using existing personnel who are already busy dealing with loans and paperwork.

A good postcard company can handle the entire mailing and save you money in the process. They make their money from printing postcards, not from consulting, selling mailing lists, mailing and so on. So they can give you better deals on these other services where needed.

Having the postcard company do the mailing from you has an additional benefit of saving on shipping. Printed matter is quite heavy and shipping 10,000 postcards across country is not that cheap. If it is mailed from the postcard company direct these shipping charges are avoided.

Sharp Mortgages Inc. of Jacksonville started using postcards in 2001, having used every other form of advertising and promotion. They sent out two initial mailings of 10,000 postcards each and have ordered another 50,000 so it must be working. “We let the postcard company handle the mailing,” says Bill Sharp Snr. who handles their advertising. “With all the other things we have to do, we find that it’s easier to let them handle the mailing than to tie up our time in here.”

Don’t be put off by the thought of all the extra work involved for your already too busy personnel. In the long run it might save you a lot of money to pay a little extra for the postcard company to take the entire process off your hands from design and print through to mailing.

How to get going with postcards.

So, assuming postcards are the way to go, where do you start?

A. Find a postcard company to help you.

This company must:

1. SPECIALIZE IN POSTCARDS, not just do postcards among other printing jobs. You will get better service and a better product. It will cost much less because they are printing your postcard along with many other customers’ postcards and can “gang print” them which means they print many different postcards on one large sheet of card and it’s only one press run.

2. Have some MARKETING KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE. They should be able to advise you on mailing lists, design, quantities and so on. The better ones offer a full range of services from advice through design, assistance with photography, printing and mailing.

3. Postcards they produce should be UV COATED (laminated), FULL COLOR, 4 1/4″ x 6″ so you get the biggest size card you can for the lowest mail rate and they really look good. The UV coating is essential for a very high gloss finish that really makes the postcard stand out and attract attention.

4. Above all you need to know that you are going to get RESULTS. Percentage of response is not the real measure of success as this varies from industry to industry and area to area. What you want to determine is return on investment. If you spend $2,500 all inclusive to send out a 10,000 postcard mailing and get 200 calls as a result, and convert even 10 of those into mortgage purchases, then the mailing was a terrific investment. So you need to look at the big picture and check for results in terms of return on investment.

When choosing a postcard company to handle your mailing, it’s a good idea to get some names and phone numbers of their customers and call them up to get some first hand information on how good the company is: do they deliver good service and value for money?

Once you have found the right provider (it doesn’t have to be local ? the better ones work on a national basis and do business with companies all over the USA) get their advice on producing the postcard. They will help you with all the steps.

B. Decide whether you want them to handle the mailing for you (see section above on outsourcing).

C. Decide whether you are going to mail to your existing customers or to mailing lists of potential customers or both.

Procurement of mailing lists an important point. Sending out postcards to 10,000 random homeowners by zip code is not going to get the same response as sending 10,000 postcards to qualified homeowners of the type that you specialize in (conventional, subprime, refinances, etc.). You can buy mailing lists that are quite specific. Your biggest expense is going to be postage. It’s worth spending a little extra money to make sure your message gets to qualified potential mortgage purchasers in the category that you want to deal with.

The postcard company should be able to help you with the choice and purchase of mailing lists.

D. Decide on the content of the card. Again, a good postcard company will have experience with this and can offer valuable advice. They’ve probably worked with other mortgage brokers and know what works and what doesn’t.

E. Get the card produced. They will send you proofs. Get any needed corrections made so that you are happy with them.

F. Get them mailed out.

G. Sit back and make the most of the response.

H. Plan your next mailing and repeat the steps.

After you’ve done a few mailings you will get a better idea of what works and you can refine your campaign.

This is a proven, tried and tested, workable approach to increasing sales through direct mail using color postcards.

The phrase being the end in mind can be applied. The phase may mean consider the business goal. If it is to promote a product or a service, be it. If it is to maintain the market standing of the business, then, postcards must be used to attain the purpose.

The second phase is the production. In this phase, little by little, the concept will materialize. Tools like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe InDesign, Adobe PageMaker can be used to bolster your postcard design.

Finally, we have the printing process. There are two choices available in the printing process. The first one is the doing it yourself. Here, you can use your desktop printer and begin making your printouts. If you are already satisfied with the paper, color, brightness, contrast, and the content has already been proofread several times, then you are ready to print.

On the other hand, if you choose to go outsourcing, you can go for a skilled commercial printer which is offering quality postcard printing services. You know you get the right one when you worry no more about your postcard printing needs. The commercial printer knows exactly what to do with them. Not only that, the moment you receive them, they are exactly the way you want them to be.

Now, your postcards are ready for mailing. You can mail them in the conventional way via first class mail.

Aside from printed postcards we also have online postcards. These postcards are affordable and easy to distribute. To create, you just have to choose from the wide-array of available postcard templates. After that, put in your promotional content. Be sure that it reflects you company and call to action. Then, you are ready to send it to the recipients. Viola! In just a matter of seconds your e-postcards are sent. Fast, easy and worry-free!