Online Printing Blog

Advertising Restaurants Through Postcards

The food industry has become more competitive than it ever was. There are new restaurants opening everyday. But you can create a large customer base with the proper use of the promotional materials. There are various types of promotional materials available with the printing agencies today but there are some special promotional materials that will suit your niche business. In case of the restaurant industry postcards is the happening medium of advertising in today’s date. Before going into the deeper aspects of postcard marketing let us first take a look at why you should opt for such a promotional campaign?

Why do Restaurateurs Send Marketing Postcards?

When you are opening a new restaurant you can send invitations to your guests and make them aware of your opening date with the help of the marketing postcards. You can tell people that there is grand new dinning place where they can enjoy delicious dishes with their families and that too at a very reasonable price. The postcards can also be used as coupons for free entry, discounts or eat all you can.

You can also announce special events that you have planned at your restaurant with the help of the postcards. You are offering some special seasonal bonanza then you can tell it to people. For example you have hired singers to your restaurant and this can be informed to the masses with the help of this promotional material.

Some people simply can’t resist when they see delicious food. For them you can send postcards having the pictures of delicious dishes prepared in your kitchen. The pictures will also give an idea to the customers about the servings available at your restaurant.

There are various questions that rise in the minds of the customers such as do you offer home delivery of the ordered food? Do you have catering facility for special events? Do you take orders over the phone? You can make a list of these questions and answer them in your postcard. Include your phone number, website address and menu in the postcard for ready reference of the customers.

Some Tips for Owners

It is important to know your strengths first. Everyone will want to know what they can get in your restaurant which they will not get elsewhere. So if there is a special dish in the menu highlight it. Always create a list of the best things that your restaurant can provide.

Use high quality photos of your restaurant. There should be no dull element in the photos. They are meant to basically lure the people to the restaurant so select only the best pictures and dishes for your marketing material.

The budget for a postcard marketing campaign is a lot less when compared to the other forms of promotional materials such as banners, calendars, bookmarks, etc. But with good designing and thought this can boost your restaurant business significantly. But if you are looking to get good quality prints then it is necessary to take services from a renowned printing service provider such as Print Papa. This company not only prints postcards they also offer printing services for rack cards, books, notepads,  brochures, flyers, envelopes, etc.

Tips for Good Newsletter Printing

With the passing of time there has been an evolution in the types of promotional materials but hardly can any match the popularity of newsletters in terms of being the best form of catering fresh information. If you search by print promotions there will be so many mediums available to you such as brochures, letterheads, rack cards, booklets, etc. but hardly can any of these mediums be compared to the overwhelming nature of a newsletter. But the sad part is that most of the company owners in today’s date are using the newsletters in a wrong way. People have become bored with the same old comments “we are the best” and several other such pieces of promotional quotes. Some other marketers make their newsletters so overburdened with facts, figures and information about their company that the recipients feel disinterested in going through them. Thus the location of a large percentage of newsletters in today’s date is the trash box.

The main purpose of a newsletter can be defined as that of building loyal customer base that stays with your company for a long time. If you can build a long term relationship with the readers then you are sure to catch their attention. Below are some tips for ensuring that:

While creating a newsletter be very sure about the target audience. To know your target audience abide by these steps –

• Gather a group of potential readers. Be clear whether you want to target the customers, affiliates or all the people listed in the mailing list.
• Create a rough estimate of the payment you expect from them in return for your newsletter service.
• Know what your prospective audience wants.
• Get information about your competitors.
• Study the details what your competitors are doing and design your newsletter based on that.
• Focus on things that your readers want but somehow or the other your competitors have missed out on those.
• Be free to use colors and graphics as these will gather a lot of attention.
• Graphics should also be used as these give a visual relief to the readers from the texts present in the newsletters. It makes the page much easier to read.
• When using colors always choose colors that are opposite to each other on the color wheel, these are the best combinations.
• Use visuals to reinforce the important ideas that are present in the text of the newsletter.
• After all these there is one important act left that is to proofread the matter. This may seem very trivial but it is very important. If there are spelling mistakes, typo errors in a newsletter than it convey a very bad message to the readers.

With these steps you can create a great newsletter. It is important to get your newsletter printed from a professional printing agency of much repute. Print Papa is one of the most reputed printing service providers around and they provide services for a variety of printing materials such as books, bookmarks, posters, banners, notepads, etc.

How To Design Indoor and Outdoor Banners?

Banners are key promotional tools for all types of businesses. Most of the banners announce either “grand openings” and “closeout sales.”  They also inform the people about new ownerships and some new services. Not only these there are various other types of messages that the banners may carry. There are many business organizations that print banners on a regular basis and they require professional printing services for this purpose.

There are indoor as well as outdoor banners that are used by the marketeers. Then there are some banners that can be used in either of the environments. But how do you go ahead and create these types of banners? Let us take a look:

• The first step in designing a promotional banner is find out the best printing service provider. This is important in case of banner printing as the quality of paper is a major ingredient for banners. Such printing uses oversized formats and thus specialized printing agencies should only be selected. PrintPapa is one such company that has specialized in this field of work.
• Second step is to understand the designing basics of banners. The text of the banner should be easily readable from a distance. The distance could be from your room to the next parking lot. The words chosen should convey a lot of things in short time. Banners are ideally not a thing that the people will stop and start reading, they will rather be read by the passers by. This is one of the most important aspects of creating a promotional brochure.
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• Third step comprises of choosing the material and size for creating a indoor or outdoor banner. For example there are many such companies that regularly attend trade shows and fairs, such companies will require a different sort of banner then the ones that announce their “grand opening”. There are different banner materials for companies using banner at a regular basis and the ones that are used and then discarded.
• While customizing the banners it should be kept in mind that banners are meant to be the visual version of the words “hey, you!”. This means that you should use bold colors, clear content and a crisp but effective message.
• Attaching photographs or special arts to the banners is not a tough task. So if it matches your company profile feel free to use these. But all these things should match with your corporate identity.

• After the designs have been finalized send the finished work in .pdf format to the printing agency. This is the format which suits all the printing service providers.

There are printing agencies such as Print Papa that offer printing of banners for all sizes. They also offer printing of other promotional materials such as rack cards, books, notepads, presentation folders, etc.

How To Create a Good Travel Brochure?

It is a tough call for the small travel agencies to compete with the larger companies prevailing in the travel and tourism industry. To pound on the problems, the sudden dip in economy has meant that people are cutting down on their expenses while traveling. This is the reason why it has become very important for all the small travel agencies to promote their companies effectively with the use of the various promotional materials. Brochures are widely used by the small businesses as they are the most effective promotional tool that too within a small budget. But in order to make the most of your marketing campaign through brochures you have to make them eye catching and draw crowds of  target audience. There are certain things that need to be kept in mind while designing a travel brochure, let’s have a look at them:

The colors and the themes used while designing a brochure should be in line with your business motif. Base your designs on the company’s logo, name or upon the interior designs of your travel agency office. This will help the recipients distinguish your brochure from a host lot of others. Your designs will bring back recollections of your office. Colors should be used judiciously because too much color can effect the focus of the travel brochure.

Draw the attention of the recipients with an irresistible package and highlight it with bold fonts in the brochure. In the present times people are always looking to save some money and packaged vacation offer is something that the readers will not be able to resist. Just as an example you can offer a vacation deal to Puerto Rico with reduced airfares, hotel rates, etc.

Include some locations that you might not come across in the brochures of other companies. There are some beautiful locations in the world that are not high on tourism yet they have a huge potential. As a travel agent it is your duty to find some of these places then enlist them in your travel brochure. When the people see such unheard of places and enjoy their tour they will only sing praises about your company.

Images are of utmost importance for any travel brochure. Use high resolution pictures in your travel brochure to advertise all the destinations. Hire professional photographers to take clear pictures and then include them before printing the travel brochure.

There are various printing agencies who offer good travel brochure printing services. One such company is Print Papa who have huge expertise in creating promotional materials for the travel industry. You can also order for other printing items such as booklets, notepads, flyers, banners, posters, etc.

Benefits Of Coil Binding

Coil binding can be held as a pseudonym for Spiral binding. In this book binding method the pages and the cover of the book are joined together using a durable plastic or a metal coil which is of the shape of a long spring. This coil is inserted after twisting in small holes or punched slots along the spinal edge of the book’s cover and pages. Pitch in terms of coil binding is the number of holes that are punched per inch. This count varies from 3 to 5 with 4 holes per inch being the standard norm. After the spiral coil is inserted through the pitch, the cover and the pages are crimped together to make sure that both the ends stay in place.

As coil binding is gaining in popularity there are more and more customizable options available in the market. Today the coils are found in a variety of colors to complement with the book’s cover. The spiral coils are also found in varying diameters to suit any diameter of book. It is a known fact that the more pages a book has larger should be the coil diameter. The material for the coils can also be chosen among metal and plastic. Metals should be used if a book would be sent to some other location while the plastic ones are more fancy looking.

There are many benefits of coil binding over the other dominant forms that has led to its wide usage. Let us take up a few instances:

• Though the spiral coil holds the pages and the cover together but it allows the book to open freely. This is not the case in other binding methods where some part of text within the book might be pressed if the pages are not precisely resized.
• The coil binded books can be opened at 360 degrees i.e. cover to cover. So no part of the text within book has chances of getting pressed whether or not the pages are resized precisely.
• It allows the open book to fold back itself and yet remain flat. This allows it to stay open in case of quick reference and also takes little room on a desk or table. Thus it is a popular option for sales presentations, reports, proposals, cookbooks, instruction manuals, etc.
• No information is buried due to the binding.

Though coil binding is a great way to get your book protected but you have to select a good company that has expertize in offering such binding services. Print Papa is a great option as they have years of experience in this field. They not only offer printing services but also print promotional materials such as books, posters, notepads, banners, etc.

The Advantages of Short Run Printing

Short run printing is the biggest buzz in the printing industry. But one thing should be clarified in this respect that short run digital printing is never going to replace offset printing. Though the short run is a more updated option but offset printing is always the favorite for people looking to place bulk printing orders to their printing agencies. Short run printing is a great option to compliment with offset printing since it can cover all the options that you might not find in offset printing. With the need of businesses to print more and more varieties of promotional materials such as business cards, bookmarks, banners, flyers, etc. Now let us take a detailed look at various advantages of short run printing:

• Cost Effective: This is a direct printing method so there is no need to go through the tedious processes such as creating plates, film stripping, color separation, etc. The files will just pass through the computer and transfers the data into the printing machine directly. Thus you never have to pay the cost of the materials associated with offset printing.
• Number of Copies can be Low: In terms of bulk orders short run printing allows you to place order for the exact number of copies you require. Before short run printing came into vogue people had no option but to order for larger orders as they had to bear the cost of producing and dyes too. In the short run printing process the printer can enter the exact number of copies required and thus there is no excess and extra charges that have to be paid.

• Time Saving: As short run printing does not involve lengthy process and you just have to insert the data in the computer and get prints from the machine it will save a lot of time. Another fact is that in Short Run Printing the colors are sprayed directly on top of the paper and then the paper is coated with aqueous finish. In this process the ink dries instantly. In case of offset printing to get the desired color effect the papers are run through 4 rollers for 5 or 6 times. This process requires more time for the colors to dry.
• Helps in Direct Mail: Short run printing is a great boon for direct mailing campaigns as this process allows you to be more specific about the target audience as you can specify the number of prints to be produced for a given marketing area.

It may be for these reasons that short run printing is widely used by marketeers. All types promotional materials envelopes, calenders, doorhangers, greeting cards, letterhead, newsletter, postcards, rack cards, etc. are nowadays printed using this process. Print Papa is a printing service provider that can give good short run printing services.

Designing a Corporate Greeting Card

Everyone likes to receive a greeting card on some festival or auspicious occasion in their life. It creates a sort of bonding between the sender and recipient. If you are a business house then you will never get a better chance to create a bonding with your present and prospective clients then by sending customized greeting card. Though you may pick up any of the attractive greeting cards available in the market but it does not have the desired effect. A personalized corporate greeting card gives more control on how you want to portray your business image.

Corporate greeting cards are often seen as a token of appreciation by the recipients and they also spread news and goodwill of your business. If you have a fancy for designing then you would be glad to know that corporate greeting cards can be created sitting in your cozy home.

• Publishing Tools: First thing that you will require to make a good business greeting card is a desktop publishing software such as Pagemaker, Adobe Illustrator, InDesign, etc. Most of these publishing tools have a easy to understand step by step guide. You can save a lot of time if you use a software that you are familiar with or that you have used in the past. It is recommended that you use a less complicated software to fetch desired results for your promotional campaign. You will also find a lot of readymade templates in the publishing tool but it is always desirable that you prick your brains and create something unique reflecting your business.
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• Dummy Card: Create a dummy card and then take a print out. View the card and you are sure to find many corrections to be made. Corporate greeting card created by you will be sent to professionals so they have to be professionally designed bereft of any errors.
• Colors and Fonts: Flashy colors and images might make the card unsuitable for professional use. It is better to stick to a simple theme and images that include the company logo. Choose a font that will best suit the mood of the card. Some of the curvy fonts make the content hard to read. So be simple.
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• Alignment: Alignment for the card is also very important so draw vertical and horizontal guidelines. This will make sure that the text and the images are consistent and nothing jets out.

After finishing off with the designing part you have to select a printing service provider. This choice is vital. Selection of the printing agency should be based on time of delivery, pricing as well as quality of work. Print Papa is one such company that has over the years gained reputation with their quality prints for different types of promotional materials such as booklets, brochures, notepads, etc.

Types of CD/DVD Packaging

Covers of a CD/DVD act as a protective cover and keep the CD/DVD in good condition, saving it from external wear and tear. But most of the CDs or DVDs are made for selling or distribution so it is vital to package a CD/DVD well. The package of these promotional materials should create a good impression in the minds of the onlookers. If you have got a good outer cover design and nice packaging then you are sure to draw attention. The packaging of a CD/DVD also provides a glimpse to the customers about the contents on the product. They get a firsthand understanding and a large percentage of people often make their purchase decision after solely going through the package. Another important aspect of good packaging is that it protects the product while shipping or dispatch to even in the remotest corner of the world.

There are various types of packaging options provided by the printing service providers out there in the market today! These options are not only hard to break but are also well designed. Some of the commonly used types of CD/DVD packaging options that you can take up include:

• Jewel Box: Such packages have black, white or even transparent trays. You can easily place your CD/DVD within this tray and the unique design will make sure that the internal content is not harmed in any way. The booklets or the covers can also be placed suiting the size of the package.
• Slimline Box: These come in various shades such as transparent or black. It has a much sleeker look than the Jewel Box and is smaller in size too. One can insert a printed booklet of 8 pages to the maximum.
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• Carton Sleeves: It is further smaller in size and contains only a flip cover on top of the CD/DVD. It can be made attractive with well designed cover printed from a reputed printing agency. The dimensions of this packages are 124X124X1.5.
• Ejector Cases: The design of these cases is such that the storage media can be removed safely with a little finger pressure. This saves the sensitive data bearing area from any type of contact or damage.
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• Slider Packs: This type of package has a unique board based construction. It is a very simple and cost effective format that can be used for bulk productions of CD/DVD.

Many companies nowadays use well designed CD/DVD to promote their products and services just like brochures, booklets, banners etc. But is always vital to get the CD/DVD packages from a good company such as PrintPapa.

How to Format Pages for Saddle Stitch Booklets?

Binding plays a key role in the process of making any book as it holds the book together. There are many forms of binding and one of the most commonly used one is saddle stitching. The process involves stapling through the centerfold. It joins a set of nested folios into a single magazine issue. This kind of binding is mostly found in magazines and comic books around the world. It is a very cost effective way of binding but is usually used when the number of pages are less.

Traditionally 11 inches by 8.5 inches was the standard size for making saddle stitch booklets. This size is preferred for corporate reports, calendars, software manuals, employee manuals, conference schedules and advertising handouts. However in today’s world saddle stitch booklets are made in varied sizes and often used for small manuals and other pocket documents.
Formatting Pages: The total number of pages in a saddle stitched booklet will always be in the multiple of four. The rough cut for the book is made by gathering the folded pages one after the other. The process of arranging the folded pages can be tricky as the highest and the lowest numbered pages are printed in the same pater and are adjacent to each other before being folded.

Stitching Pages: The saddle stitch booklet is produced in signatures containing four or more pages. Each of these pages are then gathered and inserted together and stitched through the spine or fold. The rough booklets are then trimmed on three sides to obtain a smooth, professional look for the finished booklets. Today colored stitches, child-proof stitches and loop stitches have made saddle stitch booklets more attractive.

Adding a Cover: A separate cover can be added on the outside of the booklet after the stitching has been done. The cover can also be a part of the initial stitching. Usually a harder page is used for the cover in saddle stitch booklet to make it stronger from outside.

PrintPapa is a company that has added value to the print promotions of their clients over the years. They have over the years developed expertise in designing and printing of books and all kinds of binding including saddle stitch booklets as well as other promotional materials. They provide one stop solution to the all the printing needs of the customers.

How To Create Unique Letterhead Designs For Clients?

“First impression is the last impression” they say and your letterhead is the first impression for your clients. Traditionally letterheads have been monotonous with a combination of logo, contact and tagline. There is however nothing that can stop you from being creative with your letterhead designing to create a long lasting impression on the minds of your clients.

• Be consistent: A letterhead is a part of a larger package that will include newsletters, business cards, brochure, envelopes and other promotional materials. The designing for all these needs to be consistent. If a client sees your letterhead he should recall your business card.
• Positioning is key: Positioning of your tagline, logo and contact details plays a vital role in making your letterhead look impressive. Make sure the letterhead looks balanced and avoid making it look top or bottom happy. The contact information can be moved to the bottom of the letterhead which allows you to be a little more creative at the top.
• Play vertically: A vertical column with your tagline, logo or the URL of your website can make your letterhead unique and stand up among the crowd. This also ensures that the top and bottom of your letterhead looks more balanced.

• Fold It: No rule says that the letterhead needs to be a single page monotonous document. You can print  certain things on the back page and fold it over. Some interesting information about organization can be behind the leaf. Such kind of  letterheads can engage the clients.
• Add a watermark: Although a relatively old concept a watermark behind your letterhead adds prestige to it. Normally the logo of a company is used in the watermark but a tagline or the image of the founder can also be used the watermark of your letterhead.
• Use a foil-stamp: Although it might be a bit expensive a foil-stamped logo on your letterhead is an excellent way to stamp your authority over others. Since the foil outshines everything else on the paper, it immediately   creates an impression of your organization.
• Use a die-cut: If you want to walk that extra mile with your letterhead and are bold enough than a die-cut might just be the right thing for you. It allows you to create unique letterhead which supports your brand identity.

• Print high quality: Never compromise on quality printing. Your letterhead must be printed on high-quality paper. Inferior paper and printing quality will create a bad impression in the minds of the clients. All kinds of  corporate printing be it letterhead, business cards or newsletters much be printed high quality.

PrintPapa is a company that has added value to the print promotions and has the expertise in the field of high quality printing of letterheads and other corporate documents.