Creating PDF Files in QuarkXPress 7

The newest version of QuarkXPress makes it easier than ever to create PDF files.  This is a very useful ability to have, because many commercial printers want you to send your designs to them in PDF format.  Quark allows you to create all kinds of products – brochures, postcards, etc. – into PDF with just a few steps.

Here is a rundown of how to create a PDF file in QuarkXPress 7:

1. The first thing you have to do is to QuarkXPress’s Resource Center (on quark.com) and download the ICC files.  You have to have these to download the PDF style that you want.

2. Then, download the PDF styles archive from http://www.quark.com/products/xpress/resourcecenter/pdf.html.

3. Now you have all of the files that you need downloaded.  From here, you can do all of the needed steps from within the Quark program.  From inside the program, choose the File menu, and select Output Styles.

4. From this point, there will be more options from which to choose.  Select Import.

5. Here, you have to choose the PDF style that you want to use.  Here are your choices:

Press_HighPDF.xml
Print_MediumPDF.xml
Screen_MediumPDF.xml
Screen_LowPDF.xml
PDFX1a.xml
PDFX3.xml

6. Once you select the style you want, click Open.

7. If you want to input more PDF styles, simply repeat steps 4-6 for each desired style.

8. When you are down importing all of the styles that you want, click Save.

This process is actually much easier than it looks.  Once you have done it, it will be a piece of cake.  However, if you import all of the styles you want on your first session, you will not have to do it again.
Do these 8 simple steps and start creating PDF files right from QuarkXPress 7!

Using Podcasts in Your Marketing Strategy

With technology ever-evolving, some of your old marketing strategies may not be working quite as well. Direct mail postcards, brochures, television ads and radio ads don’t have the same punch if people aren’t looking or listening to these avenues for information.

You’re competing with streaming video on a personal computer, television shows sans commercials on a cell phone and online news sites that have their own advertising avenues. How can you keep up with hippest technology to make sure you’re getting to your target market?

One word: podcast. Podcasts are video or audio files that are distributed over the Internet using syndication feeds for playback on portable media players, like the iPod, or computers. The term is a mash up of the words “iPod” and “broadcast” since the Apple iPod is the brand of portable media player for which the first podcasts were developed. These scripts are downloaded and then transferred to a mobile device to listen to or watch.

Podcast topics are as varied as the Internet – news, industries, trends and anything else you can think of have been podcasted. There’s even a For Dummies book on podcasting! Podcasts can last from a few minutes to a few hours (although the longer ones are less popular).

Podcasts appeal to people because
• they allow people to multitask. Many customers and clients are busy people. They don’t have time to read your latest book or your magazine article. But they can listen to your podcast while driving to work or while they’re exercising.
• people can get advice and info that feeds their self-improvement needs. Clients enjoy listening to CEOs and other experts that they can learn from. Podcasts are like their own personalized lecture.

Podcasts are great for establishing yourself or your CEO as an expert. Podcasts that share industry info, advice and insights create an impression that your business is filled with people the public can turn to for advice. Podcasting only takes a few hundred dollars to start for the equipment and distribution costs, so it’s a marketing strategy that can bring in a high ROI.

To create successful podcasts, your broadcasts must be concise, casual, clear and consistent.

Concise: Focus on one topic for each podcast. Remember they can be a few minutes long to a few hours long. Shorter ones have better success because, well, if people had a few hours to read a book then they would! Don’t get too longwinded in your discussion, but keep it chatty and …

Casual: Use real-life examples and simple language to get your point across. Don’t use jargon that people will need to look up in a dictionary or online. Don’t use too many statistics and “academic” talk. Talk like you’re talking to your best friend.

Clear: Make sure the volume of your recording device is up high enough to capture your voice and nothing else. Be sure to record in an area where you are free from distractions (a bar or a kid-filled living room is not a good idea).

Consistent: Pick a podcast schedule you can stick to. If you can only get to it once a week, fine. Just make sure you do it once a week, preferably on the same day each week. If you can only get to it monthly, that’s fine too. Just make sure you’re on a consistent schedule so that your listeners know when to expect you.

Once you create a podcast, you need to make sure to promote it. Include a link on your Web site and add a link to your email signature. You can also include your podcasts in your print advertising in magazines or newspapers. Just get the word out because people can’t listen if they don’t know it exists!

A Collection of Unique Business Cards

I have been looking around the internet lately for unique business card designs, and I can tell you that there are plenty of them out there.  I have been amazed by what some people have done to their cards.  But I’m not complaining; not at all.  I think it’s great to have unconventional cards to get attention and to make them stand out from the millions of others out there.

I want to share some of the best ones I’ve seen on a few different sites.

From Dotcommogul.net:
This site has a nice collection of crazy business cards.  One such card was designed in the form of a cardboard cut out.  The customer could cut out a piece of cardboard in the shape of a car.

Another interesting card I found on this site was in the shape of a box of over the counter medicine.  Get what kind of company designed that one?  You guessed it: a prescription medicine company.

I saw another card that had a big bite taken out of it, quite literally.  It was designed (by a restaurant, no less) to look like a piece of paper that someone had taken a bite out of.

And perhaps the most unique of all the business card featured on this site was one designed in the form of a blood bag.  It looked just like a bag that would be attached to an IV in a hospital.  And it was used by a designer, no less.

From http://static.iftk.com.br/mt/2007/11/coolest_business_cards_ive_eve.html:
This blog post listed a lot of very unique business cards as well.  One of them looked like an x-ray showing a broken thumb.  It was designed and used by a debt recovery agent!  What a poignant message to get across, is it not?

Another business card was designed in the form of a very small piano.  This innovative card was used by a piano repair company.

And a locksmith had a business card designed in the shape of lock picking tools.  How fitting is that?  I love it when people find ways to make their business cards fit right in with their business.

And yet another business card featured on this site was in the form of a fully functional balloon.  I’m not sure what kind of company was using that one, but that sounds like a great idea to me.  If a customer blows up the balloon, they could end up looking at that business card for a week or more.

How Well Does Your Direct Mail Campaign Work? How to Measure Success

A direct mail campaign is one of most cost-effective ways to market your business. According to a study conducted by the Direct Marketing Association last year, direct mail brings in approximately $10 in sales for every $1 invested. That’s a pretty good return on your investment, eh?

With everyone talking about high gas prices and how to save money, direct mailing is one of those ways your company can save money. The U.S. Postal Service is giving us a bargain, really, when you think of how much money you could spend trying to reach thousands of people in a week’s time. Compare that with the approximate $1 cost it takes to create and mail postcards and you’ve got yourself a deal.

The best way to measure success of a direct mail campaign is to measure the cost versus gain
ROI stands for return on investment. ROI is basically a measurement of how much money you made or lost on an investment. To calculate ROI, you use the following equation:

ROI = (gain from investment – cost of investment) / cost of investment

I won’t go into the particulars here, except to tell you that if you Google ROI you’ll get a lot more info than you probably wanted to know about ROI! It’s a popular buzz word when it comes to finances of any sort. Basically, ROI tells you how much money you made in a percentage format. Whatever your ROI number is in the equation above, multiply it times 100 and you’ll get a percentage. That percentage will tell you how much of your investment cost you got back.

Another way to measure your cost and gain ratio is to measure your cost-per-piece or cost-per-lead and compare that with your sales numbers that resulted from the direct mail.

Measure how well you’re doing with test mailings
Direct mail enables you to control your marketing efforts better than other forms of marketing. You get to decide who exactly sees your direct mail pieces, when they see it and what the direct mail piece looks like.

When you first develop a direct mail piece, you should send it to a small group of people on your mailing list to get a feel for your response rate. You can use subsequent mailings to try out a new design, new headline copy or try a new mailing list to see what works and what doesn’t.

By testing your direct mail pieces before you send them out to your entire mailing list, you can gauge the probability of success so you know how much money, time and effort to sink into the direct mailing.

Entrepreneurial Lessons from Indiana Jones

With the fourth installment of Indiana Jones out in May, it’s an appropriate time to see what we can learn from Indy about being an entrepreneur.

The great movie heroes are great because they don’t follow the rules, according to Mark Stevens, self-proclaimed movie lover and author of Your Marketing Sucks and God Is a Salesman. “Nobody wants to see a movie about someone who simply abides by the rules.”

Let’s take that rule-chucking theory and apply it to entrepreneurship. What can we learn?

Indy does his homework
Indy’s whip and gun get lots of play in the movie, but it’s his smarts that save the day. Without a Dr. Jones, Indiana Jones would have ended up dead a long time ago!

In the same way, entrepreneurs need to do their research – before they start their business, before they launch a product – generally before any kind of large undertaking. Going into a situation feet first instead of brain first will generally backfire. Make sure to do homework on your target market before you begin marketing to them and do homework on the market itself. Adding another similar product to a crowded market is not the road to a successful business venture.

Adventurous – take business risks, but not stupid risks
I believe these are referred to as calculated risks. You need to calculate the risk potential of business ventures, whether that’s to take a risk introducing a new product or trying to target a new market. Indy is adventurous, but he is also sensible. He takes risks where the outcome is more likely to be in his favor. Not a bad characteristic to try to copy.

Show your human side
“Snakes. Why did it have to be snakes?” moans Indy. This one line shows that Indy isn’t a robot – there’s something that shakes him up! In the same way, you need to show your customers that you are human. Don’t talk like a corporation in your marketing materials, talk like a person. Use “you” a lot and “we” or “us” when you talk about your company. Starting headlines with “you” on postcards will grab people’s attention because you’re talking right to them.

Entrepreneurs find creative solutions
Indy would tell you as well as anyone else that no matter how much planning you do, you need to be ready for the unexpected. This includes setting up a plan B, but also being able to think on your feet. If you can’t come up with a solution to a problem, try brainstorming with colleagues to come up with something off the beaten path. Don’t strike down any ideas because oftentimes one idea that is way out there will spark the right idea later.

Don’t forget your hat
Indy always has his hat with him. When it gets punched off, blown off, however it gets off his head, he always manages to get it back to him. In much the same way, you can’t forget your hat, which is your brand. People know the Indiana Jones movies by a silhouette of Harrison Ford in the fedora – it’s the trademark of Indy. Whether you’re working on marketing materials, your annual report, producing a new product – don’t forget to include your brand on everything.

Lastly, don’t give up. Indy never gives up – once he’s found one artifact that’s not enough – he needs to find the next one. And the next one. If you have a roadblock in your way, find a way to get around it. Indy keeps forging ahead despite setbacks, and you can too.

I know what you’re thinking … where can I get a fedora?

Which Marketing Mix of Strategies is For You?

There are so many different ways to communicate to customers through marketing – you’ve got everything from postcards to billboards to television commercials. Generally, companies divide themselves into who they sell to – businesses or consumers. Business-to-business (B2B) companies reach their customers differently than business-to-consumer (B2C) companies. Here’s an outline of which kind of marketing mix is best used for each type of business.

In B2B selling, customers are reached through the following channels:
• Mass media: print, fax, email, Internet, broadcast
• One-on-one: presentations, email
• Trade shows
• Customer referrals

In C2B selling, customers are reached through these channels:
• Mass media: commercials, Internet, print
• Display: building, signage, billboards, location, counter or shelf displays
• One-on-one: door to door, letter, telephone, email
• Follow up: in person, email, letter, telephone

You’ll notice that there are some overlaps. That’s okay – when it all boils down, you’re still selling to people. Businesses are made of people and the people are who make the buying decisions.

Let’s talk about a few of these options in greater detail:

Mass media: Many marketers think mass media is the end all and be all of marketing. And don’t get me wrong – mass media is one of the main marketing channels for B2B and B2C companies. But, mass media is generally reserved for sales (meaning discounts) and to introduce new products or services.

Display marketing: This works best for B2C marketing because most consumers will travel to your store to buy your product. Many businesses will not. Businesses are too busy to travel from store to store to pick up goods, which is why they generally have everything shipped to them. Displays also encourage impulse buying, which businesses are somewhat immune from because everything they purchase is preordered.

One-on-one marketing: One-on-one marketing works for both types of companies because it’s the most personal way to build a relationship with customers. You talk with them and there’s rapport there. You can also personalize your presentation or lineup of products for each consumer or business. This tactic is most time-consuming, but it can pay off in ways that impersonal marketing can’t.

Speaking of impersonal and personal marketing, these broader categories can also determine your marketing mix:

Personal marketing
• One-on-one: presentations, email, letters, telephone, direct mail
• Your selling environment (your store atmosphere)
• Networking
• Trade shows

Impersonal marketing
• Mass media: print, broadcast
• Display: billboards, location, signage
• General email

Generally, personal marketing is aimed at current customers and impersonal marketing is aimed at prospects. You don’t want to get all up in a prospect’s personal space (real and virtual) because they don’t know you yet and aren’t comfortable with you. If you send an email that has the prospect’s name on it, like “Dear Molly,” Molly’s going to think “You don’t know me so don’t call me by my first name.” However, Joe who is your customer already, will welcome your email opening of “Dear Joe.” He’ll think nothing of your personal greeting.

Now that you know the categories of marketing, you can make your own marketing mix based on whether you want to go personal or impersonal, or based on your type of company. If you’ve already used mass media to reach your customers, you can try some one-on-one marketing to mix it up. There is no right way to market to a group of customers because each group is different. But you can find your own effective marketing mix from these lists and tweak it as you go along.

Drip Marketing

Drip marketing is a direct mail strategy that means you send out many direct mail pieces for weeks or months to a portion of your sales leads list.

The phrase “drip marketing” comes from a farming and gardening term called “drip irrigation.” When gardeners do drip irrigation, it means the gardener waters plants using small amounts of water over a period of time. Drip marketing is a deliberate and planned sequence of marketing messages set out over a set period of time.

What’s the need for drip marketing?
Well, it was created in response to the “Law of 29” which states that an average prospect won’t turn into a client until he or she has viewed a marketing message a minimum of 29 times. Not all marketers believe in this magic number, but all marketers agree that you need to stay in touch with prospects over a period of time to gain their business. Statistics show that between three and 30 repetitions are required for a message to be remembered.

What are the advantages?
You get a steady cash flow from a steady rush of business. By consistently sending out brochures, flyers, letters and other direct mail pieces, you end up getting new customers throughout the drip cycle, instead of all at once, like at Christmas.

You are always promoting a right time to buy. For realtors and other businesses, like car dealers, whose services or products are only purchased when it’s the right time for the consumer, drip marketing works well because it’s always the right time to buy. You build recognition and awareness over time, and when your product is needed, you’re there. Most people take a few months to buy a car, and they start to slowly pay more attention to car sales ads. Since car dealerships are always promoting their product, they’re ready for whoever is in the frame of mind to buy a car. They do this year round. Consider Toyota – the Prius is selling like crazy right now – there are actually wait lists to even buy one and to test drive one – but Toyota hasn’t pulled all their Prius ads. Not everyone has jumped on the Prius bandwagon, so they keep putting out Prius ads to catch the next wave of people who want it. When you use drip marketing, you’re riding the waves and you take the new customers as they come.

You’ll have a plan in place to follow that can be easily adjusted. By creating a plan, you’ll be consistent with your marketing. But, with drip marketing, it’s easy to change your plan depending on the results of your last mailing. You’ve already got the marketing materials printed, so just change which type of direct mail piece you’re going to send next.

What kinds of direct mail should you send?
Postcards
Newsletters
Sales Brochures
Flyers
Letters
Anything else that can be sent through the mail! (like free samples, for instance)

Your plan of action
Decide on what niche of your target market you want to send direct mail to
Develop your timing plan (how often you’ll send out your materials) in conjunction with what kinds of materials you’ll send out at which interval (postcards every two weeks? Brochures every other month?)

Execute the plan
Evaluate your results after each mailing, or after a few mailings (if postcards aren’t working and brochures are, alter your plan to send out more brochures)

Your drip marketing plan should be a way for you to foster relationships your current and potential customers. You can keep them updated on your products and services, and you’ll gain great memorability.

Technical Considerations for Brochure Printing

Small business owners are finding that brochures can be easily created nowadays in their office on their own computers. With desktop publishing software on the market like Adobe Photoshop, Adobe InDesign, QuarkXPress and Microsoft Publisher, it’s easy to design your own brochures and only use a printing company to do the actual printing.

Here are a few technical considerations that business owners who aren’t savvy graphics developers need to know.

Design for your print size
One of the most frequent errors do-it-yourselfers make when designing brochures is to design for the wrong print size. If you are planning on printing on 8-x-10-inch paper, don’t build your layout on an 8.5-x-11-inch palette. Many printing companies will return your file to you if it’s not sized correctly.

This is one of the hardest errors to correct at the printer – if they stretch or shrink the design to fit the paper size, your graphics and images will look funny and your text will be hard to read.

Allow your brochure to bleed
No, I’m not saying to torture yourself or your brochures for that design epiphany to break through! I’m talking about your print bleed. Print bleed is expanding your brochure design to go slightly past the page borders in your design program. When brochures are printed, they are printed in sheets, and are then sliced into individual brochures. The blade that cuts the sheets is usually right on, but sometimes veers just a bit outside of the established border. When that happens, you can end up with a white border on some parts of your brochure. Not cool if you have a great picture on one corner of your brochure, or if a picture takes up the whole front panel. Design your brochure with an extra 1/8 inch beyond the established borders to avoid any printing mishaps.

Your images and photos should be at least 300 dpi
To create a professional-looking brochure, you need professional quality photos. If you print a photo or image that isn’t high-resolution, your image will come out blurry or even pixilated.

The images that look good on the Web are 72 dpi (dots per inch). This is not enough for printing on paper – these low quality images would hardly be recognizable in a brochure. Your photo files should be at least 300 dpi to print sharply and clearly.

Choose a high quality paper to print your brochures on
Many printing companies offer 80lb or 100lb stock paper. Papers also come with a variety of glossy and matte finishes. 100lb paper is much more substantial than 80lb paper and doesn’t cost that much more. Paper weight is calculated by stacking 500 sheets on a pile. A heavier paper will make your brochure seem more professional and your images and text will look better because you can’t see through to the other side of the paper!

You can add varnish to the paper if you want it to look glossy and shiny, and varnish also helps prevent fingerprint smudges on color-heavy brochures. If you have a lot of ink on your brochure, it will look glossy anyway, so you may not want to spend money on making the small, inkless parts glossy.

Tips for an Amazing Sales Presentation

Whenever you’re presenting your product or service to a client, it’s important for your presentation to stand out from the crowd. Most presentations are dull and unconvincing and not nearly good enough to keep the client’s attention, much less motivate the potential client to make a purchase.

That being said, it can be easy for you to stick out from your competitors by giving an amazing presentation. Here’s how:

Focus the presentation on the client, not your company. This means tailoring your presentation for each client. The most common mistakes people make is to create one generic presentation and use it for all of their potential clients. This may save on poster and brochure printing costs, but you won’t gain the clients’ business. Don’t give a “canned” speech – make your product relevant to your specific prospect.

Do a little research and find out your prospect’s main problems before the presentation and show them how you can solve each one.

Tout benefits, not features. Use your presentation time wisely – grab the potential client’s interest with benefits that your product will bring to her company. The best way to do this is to bring a prototype of the product and let the client touch it and examine it himself. Then he can ask questions and you can tell him about the features, if he asks. My bet: he won’t ask about features until you’re way past this first presentation.

Be brief. You’ll most likely be presenting to the top management tier of the company you are courting, and that means you need to value these people’s time. Make your points and move on. A good rule of thumb is to make your presentation take 60% of the time allotted for the meeting. This means if you have an hour allotted, your presentation should take no longer than 40 minutes. If you have a half-hour meeting scheduled, you shouldn’t take any longer than 18 minutes. Generally, a 20-minute presentation is a good length of time. If you go much longer than that, you might start rambling and talk your way out of a sale by talking too much. 

Get excited! The majority of sales presentations are boring. The presenters are boring, the information is boring and the PowerPoint is boring. Try not to speak in a monotone voice, and get excited about your product. When you’re excited, other people will get excited. Your client will mirror your behavior. If you act lackluster and serious, so will your client. If you get excited about your product, so will your client. Excitement is contagious!

Do something physical. You can either do a demonstration with your product, or you can even just write down facts and numbers, and draw pictures on a whiteboard. This will keep your client engaged to see what you’re writing or drawing next.

Believe in your product. This is the most important aspect of any sales presentation. If you don’t believe in your product, then there’s no way you can do a good job selling it. It will show in your body language, your word choice and the sound of your voice. And if you can’t get excited about it, what makes you think your client will?

Six Tips to Creating Fruitful Brochures

Whenever you’re ready to send out a brochure to new customers or existing customers, there are some key tactics to use to make sure you get a good response.  After paying for a copy writer, a designer, the printer, mailing costs and everything else that goes into creating a brochure, you end up spending about $1.00 per brochure.

Make sure you don’t waste your money by following these tips:

1. Get to know your customer
You need to understand your customers’ wants and needs.  You need to know what motivates them. What problems they have. And most importantly, what can your product do to help them? Do some research by simply asking customers or sending out surveys.  Knowing what your customers’ wants and needs are will shape everything about your brochure – the text and the
design.

2. Use the AIDA marketing technique to writing brochures
AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. For your brochure to be successful, it needs to get people’s attention, get your prospect interested enough to read further, elevate their desire for your product or service, and get them to take action, such as calling you, making an appointment or visiting your Web site.

3. Don’t waste space talking about yourself
Your customers don’t give a lick about your company’s history and your variety of products. All they care about is how you can help them. What benefits can you offer them for doing business with you?

4. Use eye-catching headlines and graphics on the front panel
Studies show that readers take between 5 and 7 seconds to decide whether they want to keep on reading your brochure. If your headline or graphics on the front panel of your brochure are boring or bland, no one will bother opening it.  You need something that will interest them and catch their attention. Use bright colors as accents for your headline text and use photos and graphics that will get people wondering what else is inside the brochure.

Use interesting, benefits-laden headlines all through your brochure – every panel should have a headline. Most people skim before they read smaller print, so using headlines will keep their attention and intrigue them to read on.

5. Include a call to action
Once you’ve gotten the reader interested in your product, tell them to contact you. You can’t assume that the reader will take the next step on his own – you need to tell him what the next step is.  Whether that is to call you or visit your Web site, tell them what to do, and give them the info they need to do it. (Not a step-by-step tutorial on how to use the phone or the computer of course! Just make sure you give them your phone number and Web site address.)

6. Make it urgent!
Give readers a reason to take action sooner rather than later. Generally, putting some kind of time limit on an offer is enough to get people off of their couches. Offer a free gift, or a special coupon that must be redeemed by the end of the month – just put some kind of date on your offer. If you don’t, your brochure is likely to get lost under a pile of mail or items to look at “later” (meaning probably never).