Self-Promotion Campaigns -- Maintaining Mind Time

February 2009 By Erik Cagle
Senior Editor

multipage

WHEN IT comes to getting face time with print buyers, quite often the key to success is securing real estate—a small area on the buyer’s cubicle shelf, or a patch of wall in need of garnish. Achieving staying power in the minds of buyers is the reward of the creative, the motivated and ingenious.

Want to dazzle the print buyer? Do something different. Come up with an idea that hasn’t been done ad nauseam. Wedge your way onto the corner of the print buyer’s desk with something that is too cute, kooky, goofy or otherwise indispensable.

And, while you’re at it, be sure to deliver your printing company’s message of competitive prices, high quality, fast deliveries and outstanding customer service. Put it all together in a cohesive package, and you might be as successful as the following self-promotional campaigns.

Deliver... And Decide

Reflections Inc.
Minneapolis

After a few years of doing digital printing, Reflections Inc. President Chris Clemens decided he wanted to elevate his company’s offering to a higher plateau. The focus, he decided, was to provide 24-hour turnarounds of high-quality digital printing, with an emphasis on variable data work. Thus, Reflections’ R-24 digital division was born.

To usher in the new division, Clemens worked with a designer friend, Derek Sussner of Sussner Design, to come up with a promotional package. Clemens had recently purchased a Dodge Sprinter van specifically for R-24 product deliveries, so the design team devised a promotion that would help connect customers to the delivery van. And so, the “Custom Kit” concept of a fold-out “van” complete with decorative stickers was born.

The six-piece Custom Kit folder features a personalized fold-out card that extols Reflections’ digital color capability via its five-color Kodak NexPress press with coater, which produced a majority of the package. The fold-out van is fugitive glued to the card, which includes directions on turning the flat piece into a mini version of the Sprinter. Even the stickers are variable by name and gender.

Clemens wanted to underscore the company’s strengths in variable data digital printing, given its ability to not only turn jobs in 24 hours, but produce work that is of optimal quality. The promotion seems to have struck a chord with customers, as Reflections has needed to rerun samples four times.

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