Providing exceptional design is not the full picture of what our company does. For a professional firm, quality of design should be a given. What keeps people coming back is the combination of high quality work product, and excellent customer service. And the same is true with any business.

Last week, my husband scheduled an appointment for me at my favourite spa. I’d been working such long hours that I hadn’t had time for a haircut since last Canada Day. I had forgotten how unbelievably nice it is to walk into a quiet, warm, lovely smelling room, have the receptionist stand up, take my coat, welcome me by name (AND pronounce it correctly) and get me a nice hot tea. And my hairdresser is not only genuinely friendly but also exceptionally talented, so it provides the full experience for me: quality plus service. As a result, I didn’t mind too much when they last raised their prices.

So what does this have to do with your business?

Simple. All other things being equal, great service standards give you a key point of differentiation from your competitors. You just need to commit to it, and make it an integral part of your organizational SOP.

A Few Things You Can Do…

Share the Love
A great service experience starts with consistent affirmation that your client made the right choice. It does little good to make a big fuss over prospects, only to forget about them once they become customers.

Create a Comfort Zone
People are resistant to change, and working with a new company makes people nervous. You can get rid of any ambiguity or uncertainty by explaining what your clients should expect. This simple act of letting your clients know how things work is called “Future Pacing”. Through knowing what to expect in working with you, your clients will have a higher level of comfort and security in their decision.

Be Predictable
This follows from future pacing. If you know what you’re doing (and you should if you want to stay in business) you’ll have a set of proven processes in place, to ensure consistent and predictable results for your clients every time. Your processes reflect your professionalism. Promoting your processes fosters trust in your abilities, and respect for what you do.

Take Nothing for Granted
I wrote another article about this not too long ago. The little things all add up, so don’t neglect them. The more consideration you give the small details in your service experience, the more valuable you will be to your clients.

Up Sell
Clients come to you because they have a specific need. As they work with you, they’ll likely realize that they have other, related needs you could also fulfill. You need to make it easy for your client to purchase other services from you. You don’t need to give them the hard-sell… doing your job well and providing excellent service does that for you. It can be as simple as a sell-sheet that lists all of the services you provide. Something for them to keep in mind, just in case.

Better to have it and not need it…
than need it and not have it. My mother’s favourite saying when we argued about bringing umbrellas to school on a sunny day. The reality is, problems happen. A smart business person will anticipate them, and have a plan in place should things go wrong. Let your clients know what to do when they have issues or concerns.

Be There
Service providers are busy, even when they’re not. In the minds of clients, this could be construed as being flaky, inaccessible, or apathetic. Make sure your schedule allows for peak service periods, and that you are both accessible and engaged when your client needs you. Be organized, and come to meetings fully prepared. Connecting with your clients means just that.

Embrace Client Reviews
Don’t fear the social media machine. Feedback, reviews and testimonials hold far more weight than any advertising campaign. Ask for feedback after each project, both positive and negative. The positive will help you establish credibility, and the negative will help you improve.

Eliminate Surprises
You need to be fully transparent in your work. This includes billing (which is very important for clients). Your invoices should be timely, itemized, and free from hidden or unexpected upcharges. There’s nothing that irks me more than having a waitress ask if I want a particular side dish with my dinner, then being billed extra for it at the end. It’s not the extra dollar or so that bothers me, it’s the sneaky factor. And the result is the dissolution of trust. If something is not included, tell your clients beforehand.

Mind Your Manners
The phrase “thank you” is simple, it’s free, and it has the potential to have a profound effect on your business. Be genuine, and thank your clients often. You are fortunate that they are choosing to work with you. You are not simply entitled to anyone’s patronage. Voice your appreciation whenever you can.

Creating an exceptional service experience makes your business more profitable, and infinitely more referable. There is no advertising quite so effective as a base of loyal, satisfied customers.

Thanks to Michael Huggins for the blog-fodder.

Led by Dieter Rams, the Braun of the seventies embraced a design sensibility that was both minimalist and modernist-inspired, leaving us with a collection of timeless pieces that are fast disappearing into the homes of collectors worldwide.

Though product design is slightly removed from what we do at Sage, their approach to what Rams called ‘Good Design’ translates quite well.

Ten Principles of Good Design

1. Good Design is innovative
2. Good Design makes a product useful
3. Good Design is aesthetic
4. Good Design helps us to understand a product
5. Good Design is unobtrusive
6. Good Design is honest
7. Good Design is durable
8. Good Design is consequent to the last detail
9. Good Design is concerned with the environment
10. Good Design is pure and simple

For nearly 30 years, Dieter Rams served as head of design at Braun until his retirement in 1998. Many of his designs have found permanent homes in museums and galleries around the world, including MoMA in New York. And much like his designs themselves, the principles he helped to define for the industry have a lasting, timeless quality.

Famous for defining ‘good design’ as ‘as little design as possible’, Rams had a full appreciation for the importance of clarity over cacophony – and that’s a tenet that travels incredibly well. I have a feeling the man’s influence will endure for years to come.

Solid yet fragile, simple yet versatile, and clean yet primitively natural – the feel of glass gives an instant impression of quality.

We designed the labels for the line of spices in the photo above. There were some limitations placed on us, but in the end the design turned out quite nice, and as you can see, the concept favored a lovely clear glass bottle. Regrettably, these glass bottles were never to be. Instead, the client’s print house produced an oversized, soft plastic bottle that sucked in on itself under the pressure of the seal, and whose material caused the spices to adhere thickly to the inside, making the bottles look permanently dirty.

When the final samples arrived, I was more than a little disappointed – not with the spices (which were actually great) but with the poor quality of the package production. I wanted to strangle whomever was in charge at their production house overseas. I’ll be honest, if I saw those misshapen, dirty looking plastic bottles in a store, I would pass them by without a second thought. Good design is only the beginning… production has to finish the job.

Which brings me back to glass. This article was inspired by some research findings published by the University of Oklahoma, which essentially confirmed that people in my demographic prefer to buy products packaged in glass. The survey was conducted in conjunction with Newton Marketing Research on April 14, 2009 (with a Margin of error of +/- 3.7%).

It was a brief survey, but it’s a brief topic. They simply asked respondents which material they preferred (glass, paper, plastic, or metal) based on six criteria: maintaining quality, environmental friendliness, purity, healthiness, preserving shelf life, and maintaining a food’s true flavour.

Here are the numbers:

While this is simply a consumer opinions survey (so the numbers represent a sampling of the population’s impressions on each topic and not any actual performance related data), it is still worthy of our attention. The people surveyed in this study are among the most influential buyers in one of the fastest growing markets in North America today. And what they think determines whether they pick up your product, or that of your competitor.

However, before bidding a polite but firm “goodbye and good luck”, I do try to impart a little knowledge and foresight. Because in the end, these people actually end up paying more for a vastly inferior product – and that’s not good for anyone.

A True Story

I’m not going to bore you with the vague old “you get what you pay for” adage (oh wait, I just did). Rather, I am going to ask you to read through a short, true story. Trust me, you don’t want to learn this lesson the hard way.

Jon* is a 15 year old high school student, hoping to build his portfolio so he can get into a design program. He lives with his parents, has no staff or overhead, and is teaching himself how to use a copy of Adobe Creative Suite that he ‘found’ online. He’s had no actual clients, and his only business experience was a summer job at the snack bar at the local ball diamond. He built a small website for his freelancing business using a free (but very nice) WordPress template. His portfolio has three very nice but unverifiable sample pieces featured.

Jan* is a 30 year old university graduate, with specializations in consumer psychology, research and graphic design. She has over ten years experience creating a myriad of different design solutions for businesses around the world, an expansive portfolio of work, and dozens of testimonials from satisfied clients. She runs a full time design business, supporting a small team of painstakingly selected, experienced designers.

Obviously, the names have been changed… but it should be pretty easy to guess who Jan really is. As for Jon, he had submitted the winning bid for a project we competed for early last year (and I always check out who beat me when the opportunity presents itself). After I contacted him to ask about his background, he sent me his resume and the information above.

An excerpt from the client’s email to me last year:

Fourteen months later, the same client approached me out of the blue, asking if the previous quote was still valid.

It turns out they had spent nearly double the quoted amount with Jon (bringing them well above my quote), who not only turned in more than thirty “terrible” logo concepts, but who was impossible to get hold of between school and his social calendar. They never even got to the brochure, corporate collateral and website that were part of the original RFP.

But that’s not the worst of it.

When the client finally got fed up and decided to “settle” on one of his logo concepts, the graphic used turned out to be a copyrighted trademark belonging to an established multinational company. They are incredibly lucky their secretary stumbled onto the plagiarism before the copyright owners did.

I have to admit a small sense of satisfaction in hearing their story. Not because I revel in the misfortune of others (quite the opposite), but because I was vindicated. On the flip side, I hear too many stories like this one. These experiences sour people on the whole profession.

Yes, our hourly rates are quite a bit higher than Jon’s. But what you should be thinking about is what you actually get within that hour.

It’s also important to note that I only know about Jon’s status as a student with no actual clients or experience, because I bothered to ask him. These are not things that people advertise on their sales collateral. So do your homework when choosing a designer. And always, always read their terms of service in full. If they don’t have any, then my advice would be to run as quickly as possible in the opposite direction.

As for the prodigal client, I agreed to take on the project at last year’s price. They’re now very happy, and a little wiser for the experience.

Luckily, in amongst the world of digital photo frames and web based magazines, the paper industry is taking notice and finally stepping up to the plate. Recycled paper has been around for a while, but as with any buzzword, use of the word ‘recycled’ doesn’t necessarily mean a whole lot. It could be as little as 10% recycled material, added to the fact that the raw materials are such a small part of the whole picture.

The more clever and responsible paper companies are re-examining their manufacturing processes, from the collection of raw materials right through to the mill floor and who provides their electricity. They’re not focusing blindly on steps allowing them to use the word ‘recycled’ alone, but are taking larger scale steps to manage their overall carbon footprint and corporate contributions to (and subsequent limitation of) greenhouse gas emissions. The quantity and type of energy and chemicals used to manufacture the paper are also determining factors, and the end result is a much wider range of ecologically responsible choices for those of us in the business of designing materials for print.

But how do you know which option to choose? The Environmental Defense Fund is a good starting point. Their online paper calculator takes all of these issues into consideration, and compares the overall environmental impacts of a wide range of different papers across their full lifecycle. While they can’t possibly include all of the paper manufacturers at any one person’s disposal, they do paint a clear enough picture of the sort of questions you should be asking when in the position to choose your stock.

Carbon footprint at EDF is calculated by kg equivalent of C02/MT and broken down into four major impact factors:
• Extraction of Wood
• Transportation / Waste / Disposal
• Manufacturing Energy
• Fibre Procurement

They also provide specific paper comparisons to North American averages for both 100% recycled papers, and standard virgin papers.

You can check out the EDF Paper Calculator at www.edf.org/papercalculator

At minimum, you should be looking for paper that is 100% post-consumer fibre, processed chlorine free, and manufactured regionally using responsible energy. In Canada, look for the Environmental Choice and FSC certification badges.

In my personal life, I would be classified as what’s been somewhat unflatteringly coined SCUMY. That is, Socially Conscious Upward Mobile Youth. Though nearing 30, I’m not so sure about that Y at the end any more. I’m not an extremist, but I do what I feel I can. I’m a vegetarian, buy local produce, reduce and reuse where possible, compost or recycle the rest, work paperless and get around by bicycle, when it’s feasible. I also love hot showers and drive a pickup truck so… well, nobody’s perfect.

The little things we all do on a daily basis are significant, but at the same time, somewhat futile in the shadow of the astonishing impact made by the corporate world. More specifically, the companies who provide the things we use every day… our houses, vehicles, utilities, entertainment, clothing, and everything else down to that small package of screws you bought the other day at the hardware store. These are huge polluters, both directly through their own operations, and indirectly through the production and packaging choices they make.

As a small example of this trickle down effect, take a look at something just about all of us probably have in our refrigerators right now: the ubiquitous Heinz ketchup bottle. I’m not talking the classic glass one, but rather that big plastic tank with the ill-conceived and somewhat ironically named ‘easy squeeze’ cap. Yes, it won the Dupont Packaging Award, but I hate it. From an aesthetic standpoint, it’s just plain ugly on the table. Functionally, it gets a failing grade as well… I squeeze and squeeze and nothing comes out, until BAM. My plate is covered in an explosion of angry tomato. All this to avoid having to give your bottle a quick shake before serving.

I’m not going to pretend to know how efficiently Heinz runs their factories (or their suppliers, for that matter), but I do have one little statistic: production for just one of these lids uses 14.4g of oil, as opposed to 3.8g for a normal lid. Combine that with the fact that these bigger plastic containers are less recyclable and more damaging than the tried-and-true glass bottles, not to mention issues surrounding additives and offgassing. So even if we do choose to recycle, the choices regarding the degree of impact for that action have already largely been made for us.

As a designer who LOVES to work on product packaging, you would think I might be a bit more cavalier, favouring form over function, aesthetics over practicality. You’d be right, and wrong… because I don’t see these things as mutually exclusive.

Here’s how I see it:

• With the right design, environmentally responsible packaging can be significantly more visually appealing than its bulky nasty plastic alternatives.
• Production costs are often much lower than the popular overpackaging options.
• People who are buying Green products tend to have a higher income, and are willing to pay more for a smaller carbon footprint.
• More and more municipalities are considering shifting waste and recycling costs back to the companies that produce the materials in the first place.

These simple points taken into consideration, I would think that companies are looking at an incredibly easy decision when it comes to packaging their products.

The decisions for consumers are unfortunately not always so clear. With Green being the colour of the year, everybody’s looking to cash in on this seemingly new-found mass social conscience. Faux-friendly offerings abound, and marketing departments are spinning at full tilt. The average consumer doesn’t know the difference between degradable and biodegradable, so when major supermarkets start advertising 100% degradable packaging (hello, fossil fuels and toxic additives ), most of us are easily taken in.

But as with any free ride, this one’s coming to a close. That trusty old consumer skepticism is growing exponentially as more and more companies are making the Green claim without backing it up. The masses are getting wise. So my advice to you would be, don’t get caught in the backdraft.

Even if you forget about environmentalism and ecological responsibility for a second – the fact of the matter is, Green is more appealing, cheaper, easier, more sustainable, and more profitable. What’s not to love?

This landed in my inbox not too long ago. It’s hilariously lazy in a way, but in another it’s a bit of an oxymoron in practice. Expend a pile of energy to have the luxury of parking your butt anywhere you want – for about five seconds, which is how long it takes for the pavement to reach up and smack your behind through the rapidly deflating marshmallow-like bubble seat.

The designer, JooYoun Paek, puts it a bit more eloquently, claiming “the balance between exercise and rest would be maintained by wearing this suit”. Food for thought I suppose, but I’m happy to continue walking the old fashioned way.

Thankfully, this was never meant to go to market or midnight infomercials. Paek hopes the provocative piece will “transform the humdrum experiences produced by routine walking commutes into an amusing interactive performance”. Indeed.

As an added bonus, I just can’t help but mention Robert Nightingale’s Hitch Concept, which proves that design has as much a place in absurd (im)practical comedy as anything else.

There are no words.

A successful catalog must be impeccably well-designed, and most importantly, needs to be tailored to convey your company’s image in a way that is relevant to your audience. For example, a catalog intended to sell modern gadgets and electronics should present an appearance and image vastly different to one intended to sell baking supplies.

The Front Cover
Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? The front cover is your first impression, and as in so many other facets in life, first impressions are primarily visual. So, immediately, your front cover must be aesthetically appealing. Depending on your product and market, you may want to present a specific feeling… of refreshment, comfort, or excitement for example. Front cover design follows many of the same premises as ad design… keep the text content to a bare minimum (often just the company name, slogan, and perhaps a catch phrase), use a clean and uncluttered approach, and be sure the cover clearly features your company name.

Try to select an image that is relevant to your audience, and that will make them want to use your products. For instance, if you sell sports equipment, you might want to feature a dynamic image of a cyclist, pushing hard to the finish line or busting a difficult trick, wearing a jersey with your logo, and using equipment offered in your catalog. This type of imagery speaks directly to your audience, and uses a setting they understand and enjoy, allowing them to place themselves into that image (and by association into your products).

Back Cover
The back cover is often neglected space in catalogs and magazines, often reduced to ad space for other companies, or boring blank space with a barcode and address. A surprisingly high percentage of people actually read through catalogs backwards, starting at the last page and flipping to the front. I’m not sure why, but I often find myself doing it too. If you’re publishing a magazine, you would generally use this space for a second lead. Similarly, a catalog’s back cover can be used to feature new products or showcase an overview of major current products (with references to page numbers in the catalog itself).

And like the front cover, the back cover should be easy on the eyes with a simple message… attractive, clean, focused and uncluttered.

If you have other plans for the back cover, you could also position your second lead on the last inner page face within the catalog, since the reader’s eye lands there first when the catalog is opened from the back.

Inner Pages
Primary Focus
In laying out the catalog’s internal pages, as with any print materials, the primary focus zone is the upper right corner of each two-page spread. The reader’s attention will be directed there first as pages are turned forward. Similarly, the upper left corner of each two page spread is the sweet spot for backward flippers. Use these areas for products in your inventory that are the most visually compelling or interesting. Your best selling products can appear elsewhere on the page, unless you’re really trying to further push those products in excess of their current success. Diversify – your best sellers can become boring, in that featuring a product people are already familiar with doesn’t really garner any new interest.

Fonts
Use and treatment of type in any kind of publication is much more important than you may think. If you use a font that is too casual, or clutter your catalog with a dozen different fonts, you risk looking like an amateur outfit, which will sacrifice credibility, which will lower sales. And if your catalog isn’t easily and immediately legible, people won’t bother reading it, no matter how carefully your product images are laid out. Remember, most people tend to flip through catalogs rather than sitting down to read them like a novel… your message needs to be clear, concise and compelling. A few simple rules of thumb will ensure your catalog reads as good as it looks:
• If you want to use different fonts, use no more than 3: say one for section titles, one for product titles, and one for descriptions/prices.
• Vary type usage with bold weight, italics, different sizes and colours, but be sure to keep treatments consistent throughout the catalog.
• Font size should be no smaller than 8pt
• Using all capital letters should be kept to a minimum, and do not underline – use bold or italics for emphasis instead

Remember, consistency and clarity are key. You want the reader’s attention on the product, not a cacophony of conflicting typefaces and font treatments.

Brand Your Catalog
When your catalog arrives in the mail, your customer should immediately recognize it as belonging to your company. Customer loyalty depends on a certain level of predictability, which breeds familiarity and comfort. They know what to expect from your catalog, and they know how to find what they’re looking for within it. For example, everybody knows how to navigate the Sears Wish Book at Christmas time – and you know exactly what it is, even from a distance. It’s familiar, it’s easy to use, and people love it.

For your catalog, you will want to consider finding some kind of hook to differentiate your company from the competition. For example, Ikea catalogs often feature room packages, which show a full professionally designed room layout, with a total price for everything featured in that room, and a breakdown of products needed to achieve that look. It’s very effective for people who need a bit of design help or students on a budget, and is quite good at convincing people to buy add-on items from the same retailer in order to achieve a look they like.

All of your catalogs should follow a consistent navigational and design theme, so your customers will come to be familiar and comfortable with your catalogs. And by creating a “look” for your catalog that is comfortable and familiar for your readers, you will be able to keep their attention even when the products are switched over for new offerings.

Product Shots
Group photos are nice, but featuring individual items in a clean, polished way will sell better. Group shots do have their place, provided you use small groups of closely related products rather than a large pile of random “stuff” that can become confusing for your audience. And if you do use group shots, be sure that products within the shot are carefully and clearly keyed to the individual product descriptions (i.e., a small but clear “A” on the photo should correspond to the product description marked “A”).

When possible, isolate product shots on a stark and seamless white background, highlighting crisp detail and forcing focus on the product itself. If you’re selling jewellery, use professional photomanipulation to maximize the shine, gleam and sparkle in your products. Use subtle effects such as a barely visible drop shadow, or wet surface reflection, as appropriate for the specific product line. Again, if you use a certain effect, keep it consistent throughout the catalog.

Ordering
So you’ve sold them on a product, and now they want to buy it… but how? Be sure to make the order process exceedingly easy. So easy they could (almost) manage an order blindfolded. And though most people will process an order online or by phone, many people still prefer the old fashioned paper and pen order form – do not exclude these people, as they may prove some of your most loyal customers. Even people who order by phone or online may use the order form to work out the details of their order before making the call/visit. It’s also the perfect place to list terms of sale, return policies, and other relevant corporate information.

On your website, prominently list a phone number, email and order area/shopping cart. If you have an online store in addition to your catalog, create a custom order area where people can enter catalog product numbers directly so they do not need to go through the process of finding all their products over again on your site. If you have an order number, be sure it’s manned by a real, living breathing person – nothing turns customers off more than automated phone systems.

The Printed Product
You’ve invested a lot of time, consideration and planning into the effective design and layout of your catalog. Please, PLEASE do not just go with the cheapest print company you can find. You’ll regret it. Trust me.

Be sure to choose paper stocks that are suitably thick, and that feel nice against your skin. A thin, harsh uncoated stock looks cheap, feels rough, dulls colour, bleeds ink onto your hands and generally will not represent your company or products well. Use a proper cover gloss stock for your cover, and a nice gloss stock for the inner pages. 100pt is ideal, but 80pt is also acceptable given the paper feels and prints nicely.

And remember, your catalog is going to be delivered through the mail. Unless you’re packaging the catalog in a sealed plastic coating, it is going to be subject to some potentially harsh weather conditions. Keep this in mind when choosing your paper options.

Catalogs come in all shapes and sizes. The standard sizes are cheaper to print, and for most applications are perfectly suitable:
• Standard full-size (8 3/8″ x 10 7/8″)
• Slim (6 1/8″ x 11 1/2″)
• Digest-size (5 3/8″ x 8 3/8″)

Unique sizes will attract attention, and can be highly effective in building a unique brand image and moving product. However, moving away from the “standard” sizes will add as much as 25 percent to the cost of production. So you would need to evaluate whether the extra investment is worth it for your particular company.

Printing in increments of 16 pages will be the least expensive option, as heat-set web presses print in 16 page signatures. This means that your catalog would be 16, 32, 48, 64 pages long, and so on. The next best option is to design in page increments of eight.

Colour Sells
If you can afford to print your catalog in color, it will invariably make a better impression, and will generate at least 25% more sales than a black and white catalog right off the bat. Colour sells – no question. That said, as with all other elements in your catalog, colour schemes not related to your actual products should remain consistent throughout. You can also use different colours to represent different sections in the catalog.

Bring it all Together
Successful collateral design uses a lot of consumer psychology in addition to professional design theories, and catalogs are no exception. Take advantage of what professionals have learned about how consumers think, react and attach to concepts and visual elements. Consider how the reader’s eye crosses the page, capitalize on primary focus zones, and present your products in the best way you possibly can through use of layout, colour, type, and texture.

When a catalog takes on a personality of its own and becomes something the customer enjoys, then it has achieved a positive brand image. No other kind of marketing collateral targets a niche audience quite as well as a thoughtfully designed and produced catalog, which can either serve as your primary sales vehicle, or as an excellent companion to an online or physical brick-and-mortar shop.

Unless you are in the community being targeted, it can be hard to tell upfront whether the design of your creative is going to be effective. But when you’re part of the targeted community, you get the message loud and clear. The trick comes in when you want to target a niche market to which you yourself do not belong. Bridging this gap between business and niche markets thus often requires a thoughtful cultural conversion campaign

The concept of cultural conversion in the creative field is very important when designing materials for niche markets. Once a base concept is defined, your need to evaluate the viability of your message within the context of your specific target markets. Advertising is about emotion. If something in your concept is offensive to a particular group, it needs to be addressed. Similarly, this type of evaluation can help to highlight latent strengths in your concept, which can be played up to maximize efficacy for that market. If the concept translates well, then you can begin to refine your message, creating highly targeted language and visuals. If it doesn’t, then you have the luxury of reworking the concept at an early phase until it does.

Cultural conversion evaluations have the ability to capture both intellectual and visceral nuances in a concept. One of the core properties of a successful ad campaign is the presence of a direct perceived connection with the audience. More campaigns today are veering away from the staid and safe language of standard sales copy, and are instead delving into the expression of more raw and emotive concepts… and niche audiences are loving them for it. It can be a heady trip, and a tight-wire act… any campaign that leans heavily on emotion is taking a chance. However, when you hit the right note, the rewards are undeniable.

Correctly targeted and expressed emotion in marketing can also lead to fierce brand loyalty – your market connects with you on a personal level… not just a practical one.

As business owners, we always want to make our brands bigger… more effective, more important, and more relevant. The style of marketing you use should excite the people who buy your product. And in order to do this, you need to know who these people are, where they live, what they love and the values by which they live their lives.

Targeting is more than just using photos of your niche market in your advertising materials. A properly composed marketing campaign needs to target for a culture… which is more than just fashion. To target properly, you need to understand your market’s entire mind-set, while avoiding stereotypes.

The approach you choose to take in marketing vis-a-vis its returns can be likened to your investment strategies. You can develop safe, palatable solutions that have a predictable but somewhat lackluster return, or you can aim for high returns by taking a risk, stripping down your brand and pointing that arrow directly at your market’s heart.

Sage Media is an international corporate design firm based in Ottawa, Ontario.

What is Postcard Marketing?

Postcards are a simple, inexpensive, and flexible direct mail marketing tool. They can be used to close sales, generate leads, cultivate return business, or introduce new products. In fact, the use of marketing postcards is really limited by nothing but your imagination. Some creative ideas include:

• Place a screen capture of your website on a card with the URL prominently displayed to generate more traffic.
• Remind customers its time to buy again. Some products become less effective with time and should be replaced regularly.
• Announce an impending price increase to encourage more sales at the current, lower rate.
• Invite your top customers to a private sale or offer them a discount over their usual purchase limit.
• Offer holiday promotions. These can be “two-fers,” buy two items for the regular price of one, or discounts applicable to a given day.
• Introduce new members of your staff and invite customers to come in and meet them.
• Advertise clearance sales and other special events throughout the year.

Benefits of Postcards

The major benefit that attracts users to postcard mailings is the low cost. Although money is generally the “bottom line,” the attractive price point is not the only benefit of postcard use.

• Cards can be used in test-marketing because they can be produced and sent in small quantities before committing to a full-blown marketing campaign.
• Postcards are an excellent way to hit your target market only, achieving maximum “bang” for your marketing “buck.”
• Production and processing of postcards is fast. It only takes a matter of a few days to get important information to your clients.
• The cards are less offensive in your clients’ mailboxes. Most people throw out mass mail offerings with only a passing glance, but postcards due to their size and ease of access generally get more attention.
• Postcards don’t require extra equipment or special services. While you can order cards in mass quantity online, you can also easily churn out 50 or 100 with almost any computer / printer set up.
• Since a postcard’s message should be simple and direct, professional design services are not a necessity.

Tips on Postcard Layout

Although arguably the most simple of all marketing materials to generate, there are still some things to consider in order to create a highly effective postcard.

• Don’t waste space, but by the same token don’t cram information together. Your card should be easy to read and easy on the eyes with a well-balanced and attractive appearance.
• Headlines should immediately catch the eye and make the reader stop and examine the card more closely.
• Use graphics that have a purpose and contribute to the card’s message.
• If you plan on generating a series of cards throughout the year use a consistent element. By the second or third card, people will instantly recognize the fact that it’s from your business.

Writing Postcard Copy

As with any kind of advertising copy, it isn’t so much a matter of what you are saying as how you are siting it. The key words to remember are:

• brief
• specific
• direct
• clear

It just takes a flick of the wrist for your card to wind up in the trash. Consider the following:

• Attract attention with a funny image or statement, the use of bright colors or bold print, or a prominently displayed piece of useful or money-saving information.
• Talk directly to the reader. This is one place where using the word “you” is a definite plus.
• Offer some incentive to take action. This can be a limited-time offer, a request for information, a means to order a product or request a service instantly, or some other call for the reader to do something that is to their benefit.

Standard Postcard Sizes

An important aspect of postcard marketing is to ensure that your production falls within the specifications set by your Postal Service. If the cards are inappropriately sized they will either not be processed for mailing or will incur a higher postal rate.

Good Things Come in Small Packages

For small businesses on a tight budget or companies with a need to communicate multiple times a year with a select target audience, postcards are the flexible marketing tool of choice. Additionally, the open form factor allows your message to be read by anyone who happens to glance at the card as it travels through the postal system or is left lying on your client’s desk or counter top. The power of the casual glance play a significant role in branding. Someone may remember your business name or service and contact you while having no idea where they acquired the information. Postcards are an important aspect of marketing campaigns because they carry the primary benefits of:

• low cost
• flexibility of use
• fast turn around
• tight audience targeting

Postcards no longer cost a penny, but they’re worth every marketing penny you invest in their production and mailing.

Sage Media is an international corporate design firm based in Ottawa, Ontario.