The prints that you rely on to sell your business really start out in the design process.  Many times, in an effort to save money, we have business owners bring in self-designed promotional materials.  As a note on marketing and design, a graphic designer will be trained in layout, typography, and many other aspects of pleasing design.  These skills are developed over years of practice and critique.  

Having started a small-business with very little start-up capital, I understand the temptation to shortcut this cost in favor of "something that will work for now."  However, this can be very detrimental to your purpose, which is to gain new business.  Presentation is everything to a potential client.  If a brochure or printed product looks "cheap," you open the door to all kinds of assumptions about your business, including your potential customer assuming that you will deliver a substandard product or service.

When I started my first business, I tried to shortcut many of the typical processes, including designing my logo myself, my first brochures, and my first web site.  The result?  The result was a year and a half of shortcutting in almost every area and a subsequent struggle to make ends meet.  I tried to price my service "affordably," which was almost a third of the typical market-price for my service.  Instead of a shortcut, I found myself shortchanging myself.  Why?  Because I thought that by limiting expenses, I would do better in the long run.  I thought of this as being "conservative," when in fact, I was simply being cheap.

I priced myself out of the market the other way... I valued myself too little and so did my customers.  I seemed to get the cheapest customers, who struggled to pay me, who would want discounts on all kinds of services, and who would didn't value my services or what I did for them. 

Real conservatism is running a business that is "sane" versus "overly exuberant".  There is a big difference in conservatism and cheapness as well.  The difference lies in how you think of yourself, your business, and your service.  Are you valuable?  Is your business valuable?  Then you need to teach yourself and your customers about the value of the product or service you offer.  Cheap marketing materials do not show value; they show a desire to shortchange yourself, your business, and your customers.  Don't spend exorbitant amounts on things, but do value yourself and your business enough to make it look good.

It was funny that when I stopped shortcutting in my own business, my income increased 400%.  I was then able to afford to pay the amounts that were fair and reasonable for business services I contracted.  It was interesting that I began to truly value what I did and the service I provided, and all of a sudden, so did my customers. 

At Ogden Blue, we understand that you are cognizant of your budget and run your business conservatively, and we have designers who have four-year degrees from good universities.  We also price their services at $45/hour to ensure that you can afford these services.  We also adjust the pricing of our print materials regularly to ensure that you are getting a good value.  Our prints and design do not look cheap.  In fact, we'll put our quality on the line to be compared with any design and print company out there.  Come in and compare the great value we have for you.

This is the testing phase of the marketing process and redefining your process itself so that your process is continually improving in effectiveness.  So now that you have identified your product and come up with a few ways to market that product, “What worked and what didn’t?” is the next question.  If you properly found a way to track your results, you should have a pretty good idea about what worked and what didn’t.  Those items that you got back as coupons, email clicks, web site traffic, or whatever, are the items that you need to focus on. 

What worked about the advertising?  What look did the advertising have or what feel?  Did it have a short message that seemed to sell well?  Are people commenting on the tagline, or are they telling you what a great deal that was?  Focus on that aspect of the marketing message.  Eliminate other aspects of your marketing plan that didn’t work so well.  You want to focus on what works to the exclusion of what doesn’t work.  Remove what doesn’t work from your marketing plan.

An Example would be that you ran two individual ads, one in a newspaper and the other in a local coupon magazine.  The coupon magazine returned 2 coupons to you, while the newspaper returned 20.  That is ten times the return out of newspaper.  That sounds like it is working better than the magazine, correct?  As weird as it sounds, sometimes companies will continue to market using ineffective tools.  Now, there is brand recognition to think about; however, a small business cannot usually afford to throw away money on brand recognition, unless, and it is a big “unless”, that is part of the key to people buying your product.

For most small retail businesses, brand recognition is simply not necessary.  Your business will typically center on the product and price of what you carry.  Differentiation happens in this case over service and feel of the store (emotional factors).  A restaurant lives and breathes by brand recognition, service, and food quality (which should definitely be part of your marketing efforts – put money into improving your product continually). 

Now, look at the two ads that you ran in the magazine and the newspaper.  Did they differ from one another in placement, size, or any other factor?  If the answer is no then toss out the magazine and focus your dollars on the newspaper the next time.  You have now refined a bit of the process down to “Newspapers work for my business,” and “Coupon magazines don’t work for me as well as newspapers.”  If those ads did differ, run the ad that did work in the media that didn’t work.  In this example, you would take the newspaper ad and placement, and run it in the coupon magazine to see how it would work.  This does take some money to test, but it can yield great results.

Again, the process for marketing the business is best described as:

1.       Identify your product, how it’s sold, and your market.

2.       Build your business identity around that market and around your customers.

3.       Test, Test, Test.

When small businesses first start marketing, I have noticed that they will sometimes just throw a bunch of different items out there from business cards to brochures to direct mail to web sites... and they may get quite a bit of business off these efforts to tell their customers who they are.  However, soon afterwards, they begin wondering, whether for cost or effectiveness, what exactly is working and what isn't.  The biggest problem is tracking and testing.

When you throw an array of different marketing messages out there, some will "hit" more than others.  Whether it is the message or whether or not the person designing the marketing had a "good" or a "bad" hair day, some messages will simply be more effective than others.  How do you know what works if it hasn't been tested or tracked?  So, here are some simple keys to ensuring that you are actually doing something that works and not spending needless money.

1. Everything must have a way to tell what works.  If you are doing direct mail, attach a coupon that customers have to bring with them.  Have a quick note at the front desk and ask the customers how they found out about you.  Make appropriate check marks or scratches in the box.
2. Put Google Analytics on your web site (your web designer will know how to do this) so that you can track online traffic.  Make sure you have a definite goal for the web traffic.  Web traffic that comes to you and does not buy is not really web traffic that does you much good.
3. Brochures,flyers, informational marketing pieces, and any print media should have a "call-to-action" part to the piece.  This allows the customer to immediately purchase something by calling a number, visiting a web site, or coming in to your place of business. 
4. If advertising sales people are involved, ask them to show you direct evidence of the claims they are making.  The yellow pages are an example of something that used to be necessary before smart phones, etc.  How effective is this method of advertising if you do 90% of your business online.
5. Always have a system for tracking marketing.  Here at Ogden Blue, we design our marketing timeline by quarter.  This is posted at a permanent location so the employees know what's going on with each piece of the puzzle with dates, explanations of the method, and what each employee or manager is responsible for.  Each piece is then tracked by coupon, analytics, or just by asking questions.

Billboards and other mass media are a little harder to track than newspaper ads, web sites, or direct mail, but it is still useful to test the message before putting it up or sending out on-the-air.  Try a small test market first... like in an email newsletter or direct mail.  See how effective the message is first.  If you receive a lot of calls or traffic on the piece (greater than 2-3%) then you know you have a good message.  That is the message to then put up on the billboard or share over radio or some other broadcast message.

We can help you design a message that will be effective and work with your branding.  We have four graphic designers here that can help you put together a message and make it work with your current branding. 

Step 2 - Build Your Business Identity around Your Customers and Your Market 

Now that you have identified your reasons for being in business in the first place, let's discuss what business identity means and how to bridge the gap between your perceptions of the market and the actual market.  Then we can discuss branding and being clear with your customers by establishing a very clear idea in their mind about what you do, how you do it, and why you do it. 

Customers buy the "whys" of your business.  Check out this video by Simon Sinek in which he explains the reason great companies are great companies.  The why is the most powerful of your business ideas.  It inspires your employees to "buy in" to the business, it gives a reason for your suppliers to believe in you, and it gives your customers a reason to buy.   The why flows into your business identity and branding.  This should be worked from the "ground up" in a way where the principles of the business are integrated into everything you do.  From customer service to sales, your company should be wrapped around the core principles of your business through processes and procedures that speak to who you are.

The why automatically begins a certain set of parameters that directly flows to branding.  Look at Apple's brand... the simplicity of the design, the feel of "high-tech", and the innovation that can be "felt" just by looking at their logo.  How messy is your current look of your logo?  Is it a clean design that really tells what your company is all about?  How do you communicate where you are going through your logo?  When we were thinking about all of this at Ogden Blue, before we rebranded, we wrote down a set of keywords that were used to identify our core strengths of being a multifaceted company, an expression company, and a more streamlined, focused, and innovative company than the one prior.  We then began a discussion of what really spoke about our company.  We ended up with six different logos that spoke to what we do, but more importantly, had the "feel" of a younger, vibrant, and future-looking company.  This step really needs some thought put into it.

 Once you have a "feel" or list of keywords that define your company, visit with a graphic designer.  This is not a time to be frugal.  You really want the business identity to speak about who you are as a company.  This is the time to really focus, because once you have this down, the rest of your marketing materials will be much more effective, cheaper to design, and focused to your identity.  We have four graphic designers on site at Ogden Blue, and they have a great range of experience to help you define and develop a brand.

Now that you have thought about and talked to your customers about what it is they want from your business and identified a brand around that, developing a message gets much easier.  Speak to concerns or excite your customers about possibility.  Personally, I don't really focus any marketing around a "fear-based" type of advertising.  Sometimes, this is not avoidable, as in the insurance industry, where the motivation to buy stems from people's desires to take care of things should disaster strike.  Even here, more positive messages that speak of where people desire to be are more effective than showing them what they do not desire.  People desire to be safe, happy, fullfilled (as in expressed), and comfortable.  Speak to one of these desires when coming up with your message.

A message should be short and to the point, and the rest of the marketing piece should be focused around the short, simple message.  If you have branded well, the message will be a simple elaboration of the brand, and the rest of the marketing piece will elaborate on the message in a "top-down" kind of approach.  The identification of your market also drives the message.  You will market differently to different demographics.  Just think about who you are trying to reach with this message, and talk with someone in that demographic about your message before finalizing design.  Ask questions about whether or not this reaches them in how they think about the world.  Don't rely on your own perception of that demographic... ask your demographic who they are.  

Case in point, I just received a call from a client who used to do a lot of business with us.  We haven't seen anything in a while from this particular customer, and the feedback I received was about flexibility and speed.  Now, we have really designed a lot of internal processes to deliver just this; however, the feedback points to areas where we could do a better job about quickly turning our product out the door with a greater amount of flexibilty.  If I hadn't talked to this client, I wouldn't have been able to see where we were still be inflexible in our processes.  Talk to your customer.  They will tell you the way to go.

Although it may seem that talking to your customer doesn't really dovetail into your business identity, it absolutely should be the basis for what you are doing.  Without customer input, you may be missing the mark completely in what it is you are trying to do.

So, in closing, follow a few simple steps.  Identify "why" you are doing what you are doing.  Design your business identity around where your customers are pushing you.  Design your logos, message, and delivery to clearly communicate that you are in touch with your customers' expectations and goals.  When developing your brand, don't be inexpensive... this is your core of your business, and professional designers make a world of difference in how your company is perceived.

Marketing Banners

Whenever I am asked about business, usually, the topic of marketing always comes up.  It seems to be the one area where small business owners feel the least capable.  What works?  What doesn't?  What am I actually doing?  These are the questions that typically spring to mind.  Then a plethora of options appear in the form of newspaper, web, social media, direct mail, direct marketing, etc. to confuse the issue even more.

Hopefully, I can shed some light on the topic and provide you with some options to really begin to dig into what needs to be done.

The initial steps: 

1. Identify your product, how it's sold, and your market.
2. Build your business identity around that market and around your customers.
3. Test, Test, Test.
4. From your results fine-tune your process and begin again.

Marketing is a funny word.  Many people think of marketing as advertising or sales, but I think that marketing goes deeper than that.  As I was thinking about our marketing and where we've come from, I can see progression in the entire way that we interact with customers, handle our workload, and give feedback to each other within the company.

Print companies are notorious for being unresponsive and defensive.  Ask anyone you know about a bad experience that they have had with a print company, and they will probably give you a dozen.  I don't know exactly why this happens in the world of print so much, but there is a tendency for print companies to become internally dysfunctional.  It is just something that I have seen in the industry.

When we began to redesign the company from the ground up in 2009, one of the things that the company as a whole focused on was what it was that we were actually doing for customers.  We came up with the idea that we were an "expression company."  It struck us during the employee meeting where a lot of this took place that our customers were trying to say something to the world, and every time that we were unresponsive, late, or wrong (with a job) that we essentially were telling the customer to "shut up."  

This led to a series of changes internally.  What it really did was reposition the company in a way with our customers and clients where we became a true service company.  Our product is truly top-notch, but our switch away from being a "product" company to a "service" company mindset caused tremendous changes in the way we do business.

We had a chance to sit down recently and reexamine our processes.  This to me is where marketing comes in.  Marketing to me is a bottom-up approach to our clients.  First, there must be a strong foundation and position that the company has... a strong committment to a vision of the company.  From there, the processes define themselves, and the advertising then naturally arise from the vision and process internal to the company.  When we examined our processes, we found that the influx of customers that we have experienced had shown some serious issues with our internal processes.  This is exciting work to do, because everyone here is dedicated to the vision; a chance to reevaluate how we are doing in comparison to what our goals are becomes a chance to envision growth and evalute our plan for moving into new markets, etc.

One of the major problems we came across was the way that we internally track jobs throughout the whole of our print and finishing processes. Coming up with a system was relatively easy, as we built on the background and experience that we have.  The changes, though, are proving to much be much bigger than we imagine them.  It meant a restructuring of the internal personnel positions in some cases, identification of critical resources (like computers and different structures built around our internal communication), and a redefinition of "success" when it comes to building our customer relationships.  Whew... in other words, we had to face the fact that we must continually evolve what our company looks like when our vision is compromised.  

Growth is good.  We really appreciate those who are making us successful, our clients.  What they also are doing is helping us evolve in our business as their demands shift and change.  This is an exciting time for us, here.  How do you think about marketing in your company?  How have your customers changed the way that you are structured?

As an architect, you are using newer technologies and staying in front of innovations in CAD.  But how are your plans and renderings translating in black and white? 

Picture this:  through one drawing mechanical, electrical, and architectural are all represented in one concise drawing.  Contractors can tell how the spatial arrangement is supposed to go while having the whole picture in mind, not just their one partial piece.  How much rework would this save?  

Save Money with Clear Communciation 

In a 3D drawing, all spatial relationships can be seen.  How often do contractors misread a drawing, causing multiple "rework" scenarios, delaying projects, and, eventually, casting a ray of doubt from the client on the whole group trying to complete a project?  Much of skillful construction and good project management is actually communication and clarity in that communication.  

It used to be that color drawings were much more expensive to print than black and white prints. However, printing costs have come down to where it becomes an attractive option.  Consider that you would be able to combine 3 or 4 drawings onto a single sheet and still communicate that effectively.  Now consider that the sheets can be printed for about 4 times the price of a typical black and white print.

Printing speed, which used to be an issue when printing in color (considering that most work was done by ink jet), has now come up to the level where it can be used even for large jobs.  Ogden Blue can print construction plans (blueprints), engineering drawings, and other CAD type drawings at a full 4 pages per minute (4 ppm).  Consider that an ink jet printer prints at 1/5 ppm, and you will quickly see how much different this technology is.   

Save Time

By keeping the file in a 3D CAD environment, it helps architects and engineers clearly see what the other is doing.  As each iteration comes through from each professional, each of his or her colleagues can clearly see what the intent and spatial arrangement of the previous creator was.  This saves tremendous time in translation from one to the next.  Continuing in this same arrangement, the contractor is pulled in as a partner in that communication loop.  Through clear communication and by every subcontractor seeing exactly the same drawing, the communication time is greatly decreased.  The subcontractor sees exactly the same drawing the architect shared with the engineer.  

This clear path of communication, without a need to "translate" from 3D to 2D with all the communication errors this can produce, leads directly to reduced job rework and slip in the job schedule.

Summary

As competition for work and dollars has been fierce, so has the need to reduce job cost and decrease the costly rework required in a job.  By increasing the effectiveness of communication, the architect, general contractor, and engineer work together to reduce the amount of error and increase the efficiency of the whole team.  Stay 3D in color... better customer service, better communication, happier teams, and reduced scheduling adjustments.  What could be better?  Contact us today to learn more by calling or clicking on the contact button.  We hope to show you how color helps transform and streamline today's already efficient construction. 

Differences in Digital Presses

If you hear the term "digital press," what does it mean?  There are companies who manufacture copiers and call them digital presses, and there are digital press companies who make claims about resolution and quality that just don't match the delivered product.

What is all the difference?

1. Process - true digital presses typically involve a different process than copiers.  While there are many high-quality copiers out there, typically, they cannot match the resolution, color quality, or color-matching throughout the process of printing.  True digital presses are usually bigger, because they endeavor to keep the paper flat and away from heat to avoid cracking a folded, printed piece.  Heat is a major factor in the digital printing process, and you can tell the difference in the curl or lack thereof of the printed piece.  True color-matching is a very important piece of a commercial print, and good digital presses will produce a very consistent color match throughout the print.
2. Resolution - Not all digital presses are made equal.  The resolution is a major factor in making a print that comes very close to offset quality.  When examining a print, do you see little square bumps around the images in the finished piece?  Does it look hazy?  This is the result of resolution that is sub-par to the commercial printing environment.  True 1200X1200 DPI (dots-per-inch) resolution or greater completely eliminates this fuzzy edge.  While many companies claim to have this resolution, most derive that resolution through a 600X600 DPI that has been digitally "enchanced" to a greater resolution.  What this means is that the computer makes an educated "guess" at what comes next.  Result = the edge gets fuzzy and pixelated.  True 1200X1200 resolution is very clear and sharp, looking much more like offset.
3. Alignment - the adjustment from the front of the print to the back.  Many companies do not pay attention to this "skew" in the images.  If the alignment is off, the finished, full-bleed prints will look slightly off or askew.  Think of holding the image straight up and down, but having the print on the paper look "a little off"... not straight with the edges of the paper.  This is the result of poor alignment in the machinery that produced the print.  A good digital press will keep the alignment to .5 mm or less front-to-back.  This produces a print that is even with the edge of the paper.
4. Production speed - the page-per-minute of a digital press is critical to getting your printed piece back in time.  A good digital press will have a fairly rapid rate of production that will not slow based on the amount of printed material running through the machine.  60 ppm 4/0 or 30 ppm 4/4 is a good starter speed for digital presses.  The machine should also cool the paper during the process as the rollers tend to heat up during production.  This curls the paper and makes the finished piece brittle.
5. Stability - a digital press should have a great deal of stability in production.  Copiers tend to break very frequently, especially with higher runs.  A true digital press is made for the commercial printing environment, and they are typically very stable in comparison to copy machines.

What if you could have tear-resistant, waterproof construction plans in the job trailer?  Think about all the conditions that you encounter everyday on the construction job site.  How cool would it be to have the same redline drawings from job beginning to job end?

Ogden Blue offers printing on Tyvek, the same 3M material used to wrap buildings.  This highly durable material is perfect for those drawings that get dragged around from plumbing to HVAC to electrical.  Don't worry about it anymore, and get Tyvek plans.

We have technology that puts a waterproof, durable "surface" print on Tyvek.  This new technology is perfect for CAD in both color and black & white.  Our large construction customers who have used these unique plans are coming back for more.  Why?  Because in all the rugged environments of a construction site, the old style plans on 20# bond will deteriorate over time as the general or sub-contractors make changes to the documents, note discrepancies, and perform field engineering.  Change documents are sometimes slow in coming, and torn, ripped paper is not going to communicate these changes well.   

While it would be cost-prohibitive to print all the sets of drawings on Tyvek, what we are finding is that two sets in the job trailer provide a great control set for the entire site.  While the material is waterproof, it can still be written on and maintains permanent inks in the face of water... or coffee spills, whichever one comes first.  The plans can also be wash gently with soap and water to clear up areas that may have gotten muddy or dragged through a not-quite-completed plumbing area.  Watch our video on this site under Commercial Services | Tyvek.  This will show the amazing durabililty of Tyvek in comparison to typical 20# bond prints.

We can do Tyvek prints up to 36" wide and any length.  Since you can also have it printed in color, the use of 3D CAD on Tyvek can make your plans clear, concise, and minimize job mistakes, rework, and increase customer satisfaction.  By making your blueprints as clear as possible, we hope to save you time, money, and hassle now and into the future.  Of course, we always have the 20# bond prints at great prices as well.  Let us know what we can do to help! 

Digital vs. Offset Press

 In today’s market, there is a lot of confusion about the changes in printing technology.  Digital presses have begun replacing offset presses in many print shops; however, many times the customer does not know what to choose or what exactly the difference is between the two.  Since making the wrong decision can result in hundreds of dollars difference in the price that customers pay, we at Ogden Blue thought we would help clarify the difference between the two and highlight the advantages of each.

What is Offset Printing?

Offset is the traditional “lithography” type printing that has been around for literally hundreds of years.  While the technology has changed over that period of time, the basic process remains the same.  In offset printing, the image is inked onto a plate and burnt in.  The image is then transferred to a rubber blanket then further to the actual printing surface.  The printing surface repels water, and the ink from rollers is transferred to the paper, while the non-inked areas attract water.  In this way the image is repeated over and over again as the surface of each “print” is inked again and again.  This is the traditional “copy” process.  Offset presses can either be “roll-fed” or “sheet-fed”.  Rolls of paper are typically cheaper per print than sheets.  Very skilled craftspeople are also required to ensure correct color matching in this process.

What is Digital Printing?

The digital process is much different, as the image is transferred directly from a computer to the print server or controller of the digital press.  Many different types of imaging engines are available, and the EFI Fiery Engine is probably one of the most common in commercial environments.  The images are usually saved as PDF files for most business printing then sent to the print controller.  The computer within the digital press translates the images to areas to be “imprinted” on the surface of the paper.  Most digital presses are sheet-fed.  This process saves a tremendous amount of time because the digital presses do not rely on the making of plates.  It is cheaper in low-quantity, because the process is simpler and the equipment does most of the work using computers.  Typically, graphic designers or print operators are used to set up the proper print parameters.

From Pinscreative.com, here are the advantages of each:

Advantages of Digital

• Shorter turnaround.
• Every print is the same. More accurate counts, less waste and fewer variations, due to not having to balance ink and water during press run.
• Cheaper low volume printing. While the unit cost of each piece may be higher than with offset printing, when setup costs are included digital printing provides lower per unit costs for smaller print runs.
• Variable Data Printing is a form of customizable digital printing. Using information from a database or external file, text and graphics can be changed on each piece without stopping or slowing down the press. For example, personalized letters can be printed with a different name and address on each letter. Variable data printing is used primarily for direct marketing, customer relationship development and advertising.

Advantages of Offset

• High image quality.
• Works on a wide range of printing surfaces including paper, wood, cloth, metal, leather, rough paper and plastic.
• The unit cost goes down as the quantity goes up.
• Quality and cost-effectiveness in high volume jobs. While today’s digital presses are close to the cost/benefit ratio of offset for high quality work, they are not yet able to compete with the volume an offset press can produce.
• Many modern offset presses use computer-to-plate systems as opposed to the older computer-to-film work flows, further increasing quality.

Use this checklist to decide which is right for you.

Quantity:  How many am I printing?  (Typically, offset printing, because the cost of setup is so much higher, will be more expensive until you hit 5,000 pieces 8.5X11.)

Printing Medium:  How heavy is the paper that I will be using?  Most digital presses are not equipped to handle the thicker papers (18pt. on up). 

Color:  How much color is needed?  1,2, and 4 color processes are available in digital or offset; however, digital offers better color matching and great flexibility in color choices.  We have printers at Ogden Blue that use up to 12 different colors.  This gives a high-grade of color matching. 

Resolution:  Offset actually gives the best resolution for production.  However, digital presses are hard to beat anymore.  It is difficult, without a loop, to tell the differences between them.  Ogden Blue uses a “true-color” and a true “1200X1200” resolution.  Poor resolution will actually make the product look grainy.  This is a topic for another blog post.

Turnaround:  How fast do I need it?  Digital is a much faster process, and is great for companies that need a fast turnaround on high-quality prints.  While keeping costs in line, digital also offers an unparalleled rapidity in production. 

Proofing:  Do I want to look at the “finished” product before it goes to print?  Digital presses also allow a “proof” which is an actual picture of the finished product produced in exactly the same manner as the printing process will be.  This means that a product can be fully proofed for color accuracy, resolution, and grammatical accuracy before the printed products are delivered.  Offset requires as much as $400 for a printed proof before going to press!

Customization and Flexibility:  Do I want to change a product per print?  Do I need addressing or customized marketing materials?  This is only possible to do on a digital press in one run.   Ogden Blue offers solutions in direct mail marketing, customizable marketing pieces, and many other customized pieces.