4 Reasons Why You Should Choose Local Printing

It’s time to set up that big printing job you need for your small business. Where do you turn for the best quality and service?  Of course, you could set up a print job with a leading online printing company, but you have a much better chance of getting the job done right the first time with a local printer. That’s why you should turn to an Orange County printing service.

Southern California printing businesses have all the state-of-the-art tools you need to get the best results for whatever printing job you need. Brochures? Piece of cake. Business cards? Easy. Catalogues? No problem. And though you can also find these services online, here is why you should use a local Orange County printing service:

Hardcopy Proof

With an online service, you can get a screenshot proof, but you still don’t know how the product will actually look or feel. With a Southern California printing service, you can get a proof in hand to make corrections and improvements before the final job is completed.

Costs the Same

Online printing services like to say they will do things cheaper, but do they really? Free business cards aren’t free – not when they come with an unwanted advertisement. And full cost printing and shipping for average orders like business cards or brochures is actually the same cost if you choose a local Orange County printing service.

Better Quality

Your online choices are usually limited, but this is not the case with a local printer. You get the widest choices available for paper quality, ink quality, and the latest printing technology available.

Best Customer Service

Your local Southern California printing company can discuss your printing job with you whenever you want. It’s difficult to get a substitution or a particular addition to your print order when all you have is menu options on a computer screen.

Come in and talk to your local printer. We can help you realize your printing concept, offer advice and suggestions for making your print job the best possible, and provide you with the best customer service not found through a computer.

Your business deserves the most professional looking printed materials. Why put your printing fate in a faceless and unfeeling online printing service? Trust your local Southern California printing company to get the job done right, on your terms, and done with the most professionalism you can find in any printer.

3 Ways to Use Sticker Printing to Promote Your Business

As children, we all were fascinated with stickers. They are mobile and colorful, used to decorate and individualize almost anything.  But aside from a child-like curiosity, stickers have proven to be a very helpful business and promotional tool.

If you have the notion to use promotional stickers, here are some sticker printing ideas and tips to get the best quality and options.

Custom Stickers for your Products

The products you make and/or sell through your business are unique. Why not emphasize that uniqueness with a sticker? Custom sticker printing can be done to help give your products pizzazz or simply to put your business name and logo on the product.

Die-cutting is a process that creates custom shapes out of your sticker design so they can easily be placed on a safety helmet, a tool, your product packaging, or almost any shape.

Design a sticker with chic graphics to help make your product stand apart from the competition. Add bold colors with a sticker. A sticker printing job can provide your business with a keen marketing tool that goes right along with your products.

Bumper Stickers

Why not design and produce a bumper sticker printing? Bumper stickers are a great marketing tool that gets noticed. Give them away to your customers and encourage them to place them on their vehicles or anywhere that they might get seen by a potential new customer.

Of course, people are picky about the bumper stickers the place on their cars. That is why you should take careful consideration when designing one that promotes your business. Rather than producing a bumper sticker printing job with just your business name, why not use a clever catchphrase? Be careful of copyrights when using pre-written phrases.

In addition, avoid creating a bumper sticker with too many colors. A busy sticker is difficult to read. Stick to a single, bold color, or use no more than two. Be sure that your bumper sticker printing text is high contrast for easy reading.

Viral Sticker

You could also produce a sticker printing that is viral in nature. Much like a bumper sticker, a viral sticker is something catchy and clever that people like to see and read, as well as want to display on their property. Be sure to use your business name prominently, and design a sticker that is simple yet interesting.

Stickers have long been used for marketing purposes. Consider a sticker printing for your business to help promote and advertise your products and services.

Professional Offset Printing vs. Inkjet Home Printing

Home printing technology has improved considerably since the days of dot matrix. Today you can buy a consumer brand inkjet printer for a reasonable price and perform your own home-based desktop printing. For a considerably greater investment, a laser printer can improve your home printing even more. However, whether it’s an inkjet or laser printer, they still have limitations that you simply cannot get without professional offset printing.

The Offset Difference

Offset printing is a printing technique that uses printing plates, rollers, and a three-color dye process to get the most colorful, vibrant, and professional-looking printing job possible. In fact, offset printing is the most-used printing process today, with over 40% of all printing jobs performed by offset printing. Anytime you pick up a magazine, newspaper, or see a poster for your favorite band, you are seeing offset printing done at its best.

What can offset printing offer that you cannot get with a regular consumer inkjet printer? Here is a short list:

Higher Quality Images

Graphics and image printed with offset printing are more vibrant and higher quality. An offset printing job produces sharper images, and the color process offers more richer colors than you can get in an inkjet cartridge.

Full Bleeds

“Bleeding” is the process of printing images or text to the very edge of the paper. Only offset printing can get your business card, post card, catalogue, or poster with full color on every square inch of the paper.

More Paper Options

Consumer inkjet printers can handle regular sized papers of typical thickness, but only offset printing can get your printing job done on extra glossy paper and larger sizes. When was the last time you could print a full 24×36 inch poster in an inkjet? Offset printing can get the job done on virtually any size paper you need, even custom sizes.

Longer-Lasting

Inkjet printing can look good – for a while. Unfortunately, inkjet inks will fade over time, especially when exposed to direct sunlight. Offset printing will last much longer.

Cheaper Over the Long Run

Ultimately, the inks used in inkjet printing are much more expensive over the long run. Consider a full-color printing using an inkjet cartridge that costs $70. You may only get 70 to 100 prints from the cartridge, costing you up to $1.00 per printed page. With offset printing, your costs are reduced considerably to only cents per page.

For your professional printing needs, choose a printer wisely. Offset printing is the hands-down best choice for getting your printing job done efficiently and cheaply.

Offset Printing vs. Digital Printing: Which One is Right for Your Project?

With the advancement in digital printing technology, you can get high-quality printing.  However, digital printing does not fully replace professional offset printing, which has been used for hundreds of years and is still the leading method of most printing jobs.

How do you know which printing method is right for your project? Below are advantages of both digital printing and offset printing to give you an idea which direction you should take.

Offset Printing

As mentioned, offset printing is widely used for professional printing jobs. Offset printing is best used for the following uses:

• Bleed printing – Any document, poster, business card, or other printing surface that has color all the way to the edge of the paper should be performed with offset printing. Offset printing is the only way to ensure your printing gets full bleed with sharp, vivid colors.

• Long-lasting – Does your printing job need to be long-lasting? Will it be exposed to sunshine? Will it be outside in the elements? Offset printing will provide you with a printed product that is long-lasting and resistant to fading.

• Cost effective – Offset printing is cheaper over the long term. If you need hundreds or even thousands of the same printed document, offset printing will provide the most cost-effective way to create your printing job.

Digital Printing

You can design many of your own projects and have them printed straight from the file with digital printing, but when is digital printing better than offset?

• No plates required – Digital printing does not require unique printing plates used for offset printing. You can simply send a digital file to a printer, and it re-creates your project from memory.

• Less waste – With offset printing, there is the potential for much waste of paper and materials in the beginning of a printing job. If the color is off, images are not lined up, or plates are out of position, you get a lot of wasted prints until all the corrections are made. Digital printing, on the other hand, is usually aligned and color-corrected the first time.

• Less initial setup – A short-run print job can easily be done via digital printing. If you need rapid reproduction or just a few copies, digital printing is the way to go.

• Personal printing – Do you produce individualized products like a children’s book with custom names and other information? Digital printing allows you to easily update information with each printed page.

You can see there are a host of benefits for either offset printing or digital printing. Consider your printing job carefully and choose the best method of printing that will give you the best results for the lowest cost.

5 Eye-Catching Banner Printing Tips

With the ease and low-cost of banner printing, you can utilize these eye-catching marketing tools to convey your messages.  With easy banner printing, you can create a custom sign for your business window, use it as a promotional sign on your vehicle, introduce a new product at an event, advertise your business at a trade show, or even wish your spouse a happy birthday at a party.

Although banner printing is easy and has many uses, there are a few things to consider when you make your banner printing order. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

Hem and Grommets

Is your banner going to be securely tied? You may want to order your banner printing with hem and grommets. A hem adds reinforcement to your banner edges, and brass grommets are reinforced holes where you can use rope to tie off your banner to a building, pole, or other secure structure. A banner flapping in the wind and exposed to the elements can quickly become shredded. Consider hem and grommets if you plan to display your banner outside.

Pole Pockets

Another option for your banner printing is to include pole pockets on the left and right sides, or at the top and bottom. Pole pockets can easily allow you to slip your banner onto an existing set of poles to secure and display your banner.

Vinyl Banners

Your banner printing job can easily be produced on high-quality, long-lasting vinyl. Vinyl banners are rugged and help extend the life of a typical banner sign, especially if it is used outside. Vinyl banners can be high-grade with a smooth, matte finish, or top-quality mesh vinyl with a rugged finish.

Horizontal or Vertical Layout

Your banner printing layout can make or break the pizzazz of your banner. A horizontal banner is most commonly used, but why not try a vertical banner printing that is attention-getting and unique?

Banner Size

The size of your banner is also important for a first impression and lasting impact. Traditional size banner printing is easy and cost-effective, but if you have a special product you’d like to promote or an event you are sponsoring, why not opt for an oversize banner to make the biggest impact? An oversize banner can draw a lot of attention and give your product or event an exciting element.

Banner printing is a cost-effective way to promote your business, product, event, or for any special use. Use these helpful tips, and design a catchy banner that will improve your business.

3 Budget-Friendly Direct Mailing Marketing Ideas

Direct mail has continually been a trusted and effective method of conveying your message to customers.  However, for a direct mail marketing campaign to work, it requires a considerable direct mail printing job, costing both money and time to monitor the results.

Are there ways to conduct a direct mail marketing campaign that is budget-friendly and effective? Here are three ideas to get you started.

1. Acquire a Targeted Mailing List

Your direct mail recipient list should be targeted specifically to your researched demographic. Remember all the target customer research you did before you ever got your business off the ground? This information can be helpful in getting a solid mailing list of leads.

A direct mail campaign geared to acquire new customers can get very expensive when you start mailing to untargeted recipients. Your responses end up being much less than the standard, and money is wasted. However, when you aim your direct mail printing materials to targeted individuals, you have a much better chance that they will at least read your material and get a response.

2. Cost-Effective Printing with Postcards

To help save money on your direct mail printing materials, choose your media wisely. Of course, a typical direct mail marketing campaign utilizes a 1 to 2-page letter, a return envelope, and other promotional papers. But why spend so much on unneeded paper?

Using a simple postcard can save you considerable money on your direct mail printing and provide you a better chance of getting read. With a post card, there is no envelope to open, which means your recipients are more likely to get your headline message.

In addition, with postcard printing, not only can you save money on printing, but also on the copy. Professional copywriters charge much less for a postcard size direct mail.

3. Use Smaller Size Catalogs and Newsletters

Do you want to send your product catalog as part of your direct mail campaign? Avoid using traditional size printed catalogs. Instead, opt to have your catalog printed on postcard size paper.

The same strategy can be used on a newsletter. A newsletter printed on a booklet size paper saves you money. Print your material on all side of your booklet, and save the last page for making your offer to the recipient or sending the reader to your website for more information.

Direct mail still works. And while it may cost a bit to perform direct mail printing, it is still affordable, and if done creatively, you can enjoy lucrative returns on your investment.

Should You Use Recycled Paper for Eco-Friendly Printing Projects?

How do your printing projects fit with your carbon footprint reduction? If you are like millions of other Americans, you are taking steps to reduce energy use, reduce the amount of carbon emissions you produce, and reduce the amount of natural resources you use. That is why eco-friendly printing is a good strategy to complement your action-plan to help the environment.

Eco-friendly printing, or “green” printing, encompasses many facets, and one of the main strategies of green printing is using recycled paper. But there are many debates about using recycled paper. Here are some thoughts about why you should use recycled paper.

Using Recycled Paper Does Make a Difference

Many people debate whether using recycled paper is actually helpful for the environment. The fact is that using recycled paper can make a significant impact toward protecting the environment.

Green printing on recycled paper reduces that amount of trees needed to produce new paper stock. This saves our forests, a precious natural resource we need for producing the oxygen we breathe.

Additionally, using recycled paper on your eco-friendly printing projects reduces the amount of energy and waste produced in processing. New paper requires 60 percent more water in the manufacturing process. Using post-consumer materials helps reduce the amount of waste water during the processing, and it reduces the amount of air pollutants by 73 percent. Additionally, recycled paper saves up to 70 percent of the energy needed to manufacture paper from raw materials.

Green printing not only helps the environment during the processing, but it also saves landfill space. Every ton of paper that is recycled saves 3.3 cubic yards of landfill space.

Americans are on a strong road to using recycled paper. By 2007, we recovered 56 percent of all the paper consumed in America, and the paper industry has set a goal of 60 percent by 2012.

Your Customers and Clients Will Notice

People are noticing when recycled paper is used – and decision-makers are also taking note of who uses recycled paper and performing eco-friendly printing. The best way to show your commitment to the environment is to use 100% recycled paper and print a small line on your paper that says so.

Your efforts to perform eco-friendly printing are a big contribution toward improving the environment. Do your part and use recycled paper for all your printing needs.