The festive season feels like a distant memory, at the start of a new, fresh year, it’s time to turn our attention to planning for the year ahead. This time of year is ideal to review the successes of 2023 and start to plan your marketing for the year ahead. However, the print element of a marketing plan can often get overlooked and implemented on a more ad hoc basis. This can lead to rushed designs, being unable to order items due to low stock levels and perhaps costing more than it should for last minute deliveries.
Investing time and effort into your print planning now can make all the difference when the events and marketing campaigns come around later in the year. With this in mind, here are our print planning ideas and tips to help your business flourish this year.
1. Review what you can use again
Before making a start on your plan, taking stock of what collateral you have, is a good place to start. This includes taking a count of everything from business cards to roller banners, so you know exactly what your print levels are as you head into the new year and the traditional event season in March/ April. Print materials which are free from time dependent offers and specific dates or years can often be reused easily, saving you time and reducing your environmental impact.
2. Plotting out your events for the year
Whilst there may be some ad hoc events which pop up across the year, taking time to plot out the events or conferences you wish to attend can provide a good picture of the kind of print materials you might need. Perhaps you already attend a networking event each month and have exhibitions or trade shows lined up, all of which will need print materials. Your annual print plan and strategy will provide helpful oversight of that.
3. Plan in some wiggle room into your projects
When plotting out your print for the year, make sure to add some ‘wiggle room’ both on timing and quantities into your projects. If your project is already running behind by the time you get to ordering your printing, some planned in ‘wiggle room’ will really help to minimise tight deadlines.
4. Complement your marketing plan
A marketing strategy and plan outlines the objectives, defines your target audience and sets out the media to be used for your campaigns across the year. It is important to overlay your main marketing strategy with your print plans so you can see what you will need and when. By ordering early it will ensure you have enough collateral, you can obtain all of the items you would like and enable your budget to go further.
5. Buy in bulk
Bulk ordering your print products is a great way to save money. It cuts delivery costs without any impact on consistency. At Q Print we’re used to handling big orders with a quick turnaround whilst maintaining a high quality across the board.
6. Outsource your printing
Our clients are busy people. One way to ensure your print remains on track throughout the year is by outsourcing it to a print consultant. At Q Print we offer a print management service, taking the headache out of print buying. We can ensure that you have strategic visibility of your printing needs, make your budget go further and with one point of contact we will ensure that everything runs smoothly on time from brief to delivery.
In summary
We help our clients to organise print and branded merchandise with a wide variety of items, we also have a very mindful eye on changes within the print industry and sustainable solutions. We hope that our article has helped you to start to think about your print strategy for 2024, of course if you would like some help creating your print strategy or implementing your next print project, please get in touch and one of our team would be delighted to help.
