Skip to main content

Posts

Boundaries

I f you believe…”The Customer is always right”, to be the best way to keep clients, then you have realized that demanding customers can cut into profits. Graphic Investments will always provide more services than what is actually paid for by the client. We try to educate the client as to when the extended service has begun compared to standard product development. We cannot assume that clients have will understand, realize or even care that you have gone beyond the normal “scope of work” to make them happy. The time to apply the brakes is well before a project gets started. Defining exactly what is to be provided is obviously the best solution to keep all parties on the same page. This works, but, there is always a company willing to provide more for less. We find ourselves willing to provide the customer with what they need at someone elses price. This is exactly when you need to make sure the client understands that you are providing Using the web site package as an
Recent posts

Garbage In, Garbage Out!

Graphic Investments is primarily a designer and production coordinator for print projects. This includes a wide variety of complex printing projects from 1 color to 5 color. This brings me to the heart of this article. “Garbage in, garbage out”! This is a very common term used by the graphics trade to refer to artwork. With almost any printing web site there is a section dedicated to the type of files required and the specific dpi required to get work accomplished for a print project. These requirements are pretty standard based upon each companies ability to work with certain file programs. and can be found under, " Acceptable File Formats " or " Pre -flight Information ". PDF format is now the choice of file for most printers. One catch, your average business owner who needs a brochure, business card, pocket folder, book or sales material has no idea what is required to produce a project for printing. Secretaries are not working in the correct prog

Preying on the Innocent

The state of the economy today has many people searching for opportunity. Yahoo Hot Jobs, Monster and many other employment search environments make it easy for “Work at Home “ scam companies to prey on people seeking work to support families. My wife recently finds herself unemployed due to company cut backs. She is a very qualified individual specializing in corporate management, creative marketing and communications. Not easily fooled, she signed up for an opportunity that seemed like a data processing work at home program. The original opportunity was written to “look” like a posting by, Florida Job Markets. With Google as the main focus of a work from home program, and knowing how much internet marketing is in demand, she thought that Google would be offering an opportunity to load ads for companies on web sites. Wrong! What a scam. The advertisement had included language that took this program out of the “get rich quick” type marketing and promised benefits like customer s

Web Site Optimization...To Be or Not to Be?

Imagine that you are at a Florida Gators football game (www). The event at halftime will be that a spectator (web site) will have the opportunity to win Superbowl tickets (land on the first page of Google search) The only requirements are that the spectator have on tennis shoes, an orange or blue t-shirt and confess to being a football fan (keywords). WOW, you meet all the requirements to win the tickets (you have a web site and its been optimized). What would be your chances of winning the tickets in this crowd of 35,000 Gator fans? Multiply those odds by 25.000. Those would be the real odds that web site optimization will get you the exposure you need. SEO is an acronym for "search engine optimization" or "search engine optimizer." The truth is that it takes a lot of time, money and strategy to be visible on the internet. For a reliable company to perform SEO, you can count on $1400.00 to start and a regular maintenance fee of at least $400.00 to update yo

Rant against the agency machine.

I've been meaning to get this off my chest for a long time. Ad Agencies have all but destroyed the profitability of the commercial printer! There has always been the need for professional agencies to brand and develop marketing strategies. We wouldn't be aware of many opportunities available to the consumer without agency involvement. However, the profitability of the agency to coordinate all aspects of a customers campaign requirements is directly related to how much they can save on vendor pricing, no matter how much the contract with the client is to handle these outside services. Speaking only from the view of a commercial printer, agencies have taken advantage of the printers need to have steady work to offset the immense overhead involved with running a print facility. With printers beating each other up to get the work, and agencies negotiating the cheapest price to the vendor with the best capabilities, printing markups are rarely over 10%. Agencies mark these great pri

PURLs

The use of variable data printing, variable data email   messaging   and   variable   data   internet communication makes personalization of the Internet possible.  Your company can connect with new prospects or existing customers by sending personalized messages that will drive contacts to a specific goal online. Personalization may be the deciding factor on receiving a new client or satisfying an existing clients need to be personally contacted and reminded of your services and offerings. What is a PURL and how can these benefit my business? PURL is the acronym for  Personal Uniform Recource Locator .  This is what it may look like: www.FirstnameLastname.yourcompanyname.com Inserting a persons name in front or behind your company name.com will drive people to a micro site that will personally greet them by name.  There are many events that need to "line up" to make the PURL a live web page that works.   The most deciding factor on a campaign being a success is not the mes

One to One

One to One or 1:1 marketing is employed by companies that want to reach out to prospects and existing clients by using their name in advertisements.  This effective strategy is becoming the "Go to" type strategy for advertising agencies to satisfy client demands for more effective campaigns.  By personalizing a message with a persons name, advertisers take advantage of the prospects inclination to respond to their name when written.  Naturally people feel more comfortable and relaxed when doing business with someone they know.   An advertiser can position themselves as a company that is aware of the prospects needs and can target specific market information regarding the prospects location, age, marital status and other demographics that are available through mailing list suppliers.   Compared to advertising that is sent to the masses with a common message and exactly the same information, personalizing a direct mail campaign has been proven to increase a typical 2-3% respons