It’s that time of year again when businesses are thinking about their corporate calendar and Christmas cards.
But did you know we can also print on your envelopes and source promotional gifts – giving you additional opportunities to reach your customers with your marketing message?
Add to this our ability to design, print, pack together and deliver directly to your customer database… And you have suddenly created an innovative way to get your marketing direct to your customers as a friendly and inviting Christmas direct mail campaign, without having to lift a finger!
It’s Only October, Why Act Now?
Getting ahead of the competition means being ahead of the competition.
So, let’s work backwards on this to see when you need to be starting to look at your Christmas campaign. This will be different for all businesses as it depends on variables such as what you are going to have printed and if you use an in-house designer etc. However this guide should give you a general time frame to work to so you don’t miss out on such a big opportunity:
- 1st of December is the ideal date for your Christmas direct mail to arrive on your customer’s desk.
- This gives you a whole month for your Christmas card to be up, reminding customers to work with you.
- You don’t have to worry about Christmas shut down dates by arriving this early, you know it will get to the right person in time.
- If you’re supplying items such as 2016 Calendars, yours will be first in and first up on the wall / desk.
- Arriving any earlier than this can work against you.
- To ensure that your deliveries arrive on time, they will need to be posted by Friday 27th November
- Your order may need to be placed as early as 13th November.
- Depending on the size of your order and what items you are having printed
- You may need to allow as much as 2 weeks to have everything printed, finished, put together and collated ready for posting (we can advice you on this when discussing your initial ideas).
- Artwork may need to be briefed as early as 30th October.
- Everything that you require printing will need to have print ready artwork supplied.
- Our in-house Graphic Designers can do this for you, or you may have your own designer you already use.
- You need to consider how many items you need artworking (for example: envelopes x 2 sides, Christmas card x 4 sides, Calendar x 2 – 12 pages depending on style, plus anything else you may wish to include), and how much time your designer needs to complete this.
- Don’t forget to include additional time for your feedback and amends.
- Allowing 2 weeks for the design process will mean that your designer has time to be really creative and you have time to feedback and make amends. This will all help to increase the impact of your campaign.
- Include an allowance of extra time to decide what you want to send your customers this year (we are happy to discuss ideas with you) and collate a list of customers you will be sending it to.
Let’s Get Started, Together
As you can see from the quick check list above, the earlier you can start planing the more time you will have to make your campaign brilliant, impactful, effective and delivered on time.
But don’t panic if you’re reading this and 1st of December has already passed. We have a few tricks up our sleeves and can always manage to do something to help!
Contact our #PrintGeeks Today
0800 093 2960
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