\nEveryone\n has a limited marketing budget. Doesn\u2019t matter if you are just a one \nperson operation or a multinational corporation, everyone has only so \nmuch to spend on their marketing and so wants to get the most of it. The\n problem is that the first response to maximising your marketing spend \nis by doing the cheapest solutions for it. Sure it allows you to do more\n but the important question is, does it give you best value? For that \nmatter is it sending the right message when you use the cheapest \nsolutions? We are going to look at this thorny question and explain why \ngoing cheap isn’t always the best solution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This\n article has been prompted by some of jobs we have done at Copy Express \nover the last year. Some of them were the result of Vodafone no longer \noffering emails so quite a few business\u2019 had to fix up their business \ncards. (We have talked about how to avoid this happening to you here<\/a>.)\n Another set of situation is where a customer was working on event \nmaterial and had spend all their time getting things approved before \nthey brought us in to do the printing. The supplied file ended having to\n be heavily edited to be printable which we had to be billed for, if \nthey had contacted us early on we could have provided them with \ntemplates to help have a print ready file quickly and painlessly. So \nwith these situation in mind, what are a few causes where going cheap \ncan cost you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Printing\n is expensive, and not wanting to throw it away is understandable. \nThat\u2019s why we always recommend only print as much as you need for about 3\n months, or willing to write off at any one time. You can never \ncompletely predict your future situation so it makes sense to allow for \nunexpected changes. I\u2019ve had a few examples where someone has had a \nbusiness card where some of the details have changed. Instead of \nreplacing the cards, they decided that they needed printed stickers to \nbe put over incorrect information. Now I can understand why they did it,\n it\u2019s a waste of otherwise good business cards. And few sheets of \nstickers seems like a cheap fix. But what sort of image does it project \nwhen you hand a business card over with a label stuck on it. It could \nsay that you as a business are too cheap to pay the cents it costs to \nget new cards printed, does that mean you\u2019ll be using only the cheapest \nsolutions and not the best ones when you work for me? Also by the time \nyou factor in the cost of labor someone attaching the stickers by hand, \nit could very well work out more expensive than to print replacements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now\n don\u2019t get me wrong, using freelancer sites like Fiverr is a brilliant \nway of getting professional work done at a low cost. If you don\u2019t have \nthe time or need something put together fast, it\u2019s hard to beat. But you\n get what you are paying for. If you are only paying $50 NZD to get a \nflyer put together, they are not going to spend a lot of time doing it. \nWhat you will get is something built from a standard template, using \nstock graphics, and quality checked with the absolute minimum time they \ncan spend. And there\u2019s no guarantees they give you files that you can \nuse with a commercial printer like us. Over the years we have had many \nflyers and business cards come in saved as bitmap graphics making them \nuneditable, sized to the wrong format, lacking bleeds, or using fonts \nand graphics that if the customer wants to use they have to spend 10\u2019s \neven 100\u2019s of dollars to buy. So when they need to update something or \nmake a new variation we often end up having to rebuild the design from \nscratch to make the changes and it ends up costing them just as much if \nnot more then if we had designed it in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019ve\n said before that one of the advantages of print over things like the \ninternet advertising, is that print is a very sense based experience. \nYou might not think it but we have found that people have different \nresponses to a print based on the paper it\u2019s printed on, not only how it\n looks but how it feels in the hand. This is one of the reasons why we \noffer different paper\/card weights and finishes to help enhance that \nlook and feel. Another reason is that different weights of paper\/card \nare better suited for different roles, using paper for a flyer sitting \nin counter displays but using a card when its being put into a mailbox. \n80gsm copy paper is cheap and cheerful while 170gsm is a premium \nproduct. I could give more examples but in the end you decide first in \nwhat the goal is of the work is and let that guide your choices, not how\n expensive it is. If you are unsure, then talk to us at Copy Express, we\n can help you with suggestions and can even do your printing on \ndifferent finishes to help you understand how they affect the \npresentation of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n\n\n\n Now\n we always say order just enough to cover three months of operation or \nwhat you are willing to write off at any one time. This is a good common\n sense rule to follow for this situation. However what we often find is \npeople order exactly what they think they need and then come back a few \ndays later needing another small run to cover a shortfall. This adds \nextra delay to the work and makes the overall cost more expensive per \nunit. The simple fact is that every production run has a flat setup and \nfinishing cost that has to be covered no matter how many units are \nprinted. As such the more you order of a product the more the flat costs\n are spread out. So to increase a run of flyers from 4000 to 5000 is a \nfraction of the cost of having to do a stand alone run for just 1000. \nPrinters also generally charge less per sheet the greater the volume of \nitems printed as an incentive to print more and help cover the costs of \nhaving the printers operating. Unless you are ordering a item that has a\n very short use life or targeted to a very narrow range of people, in \nthe end the cost of ordering a bit more than you need is a small price \nincrease. If you don\u2019t use it, its less of an \u2018expense\u2019 to write off \nthan having to do a second run to make up the numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of\n course there are many other ways that by going cheap can cost you \nmoney. If you are thinking about how to get the most from your marketing\n dollar, then contact us here at Copy Express. We can help you decide \nwhat will give you the best return for you time and money<\/em><\/p>\n ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everyone has a limited marketing budget. Doesn\u2019t matter if you are just a one person operation or a multinational corporation, everyone has only so much to spend on their marketing and so wants to get the most of it. The problem is that the first response to maximising your marketing spend is by doing the … Continue reading “Going cheap can cost you more”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,33],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=504"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":924,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504\/revisions\/924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.copyexpress.co.nz\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Recycling \/ reusing items for no good reason
<\/h3>\n\n\n\nContracting design work on freelance sites like Fiverr without planning for future changes
<\/h3>\n\n\n\nFocusing on price instead of purpose
<\/h3>\n\n\n\nNot building in safety margins in your print orders
<\/h3>\n\n\n\n