|
|
|
Author: |
Printer Pundit |
Created: |
10/5/2009 11:00 AM |
 |
|
A blog about simple marketing, sales and training strategies to help boost the effectiveness of your printed material. Learn how to transform printed marketing media, sales material, and training manuals into highly effective communication tools. |
By Color Prints Online on
10/30/2009 10:46 AM
 The Five Types of Training Manuals and When to Use Them
There are five distinct forms of training manuals. Each has a specific purpose. (No, not as a booster seat for a visiting toddler) Choosing the right document to accomplish your goal is helpful in ensuring you are successful in assisting your learners the most effective way.
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/29/2009 4:29 PM
 Keynote versus Powerpoint Which Has More Presentation Power
Not sure whether to use Keynote or Powerpoint to create your next presentation? Do you feel like you’re stuck in the “Mac vs. PC” ad? I completely understand. As an Apple user, I have the benefit of utilizing both presentation tools, and find I am often moving between them interchangeably. The benefits of having both, is that they do indeed have separate strengths and in turn weaknesses. When making my choice regarding which program to use, I look at three key factors (and they aren’t which one is going to make me look coolest!) I have outlined them here, so you can use them to decide which tool makes sense for you.
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/28/2009 9:15 AM
 Storyboarding Tools (When to Ditch Powerpoint and Pick up The Storyboard)
Storyboards are a fast easy way to get across linear concepts. You might find them more useful then Powerpoint or one of the other presentation type tools, because it allows you to take concepts and animate them to create a story format, which is easy for your viewers to understand. Everyone likes a good bedtime story, oh wait, you’re not trying to put them to sleep… I take it all back.
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/27/2009 3:24 PM
 Posting Your Presentation (Tips & Tricks To Get It Viewed)
If you have a great idea or just want to share you latest thoughts, or disseminate your plans for world domination to your minions everywhere, presentation sharing is a great web 2.0 tool. It is easier then ever to do, and has become a familiar tool for many social network advocates.
1. Where to Post
To get started sharing your presentations, you need to upload them to a file share service. These are almost always free and every megalomaniac needs a lackey to do the hard work for free! There are tons of them out there, but two shine as the easiest and most interchangeable services. Both allow you to easily post your presentations instantly to multiple social networking sites, as well as create URL and embedding options. Allowing your minions to have instant access to your latest evil genius, they can even print their own color copies if they like.
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/26/2009 10:02 AM
 Online Presentation Software - The New Frontier
Online presentation tools have sure come a long way. You no longer have to be strapped down to the same computer every day, to be able to develop cool, sharp looking presentations. And even better, the people you share them with and who you collaborate in building them with, no longer have to have just the right software or application. Can I hear a Braveheart cry of, “FREEDOM!!!!” Today presentations can be created, edited and shared completely virtually using online presentation applications. We’ve come a long way from the color copies and overheads of the 1980’s. Here are a few of my favorites.
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/23/2009 9:14 AM
 Mission Impossible - Create a Presentation Everyone in Your Company Can Deliver the Same Way
If you have ever been tasked with writing a presentation that multiple people can use to present with, you know how complicated that can be. Every person you are developing the presentation for has a different knowledge set, they have different experiences presenting and they ultimately all have different styles. So what do you do? Your mission, should you choose to accept, is to take presentation development to the next level.
1. Make the Text on the Presentation Slide Simple, Short and Easy to Read.
No matter how tempting it is to just put every bit of important information that has to be presented directly on the presentation slide, do not do it. It seems like this approach would make it fool proof for every presenter to say the same thing the same way every time. That is a fallacy. When there is too much text on the presentation slide, presenters forget the main point they are supposed to get across and focus on the slides. They end up sounding stale and boring.
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/22/2009 12:08 PM
 Too Much Text Not Enough Substance (Getting to The Point In Your Writing)
People hear the word print and immediately think words. Words can be the last thing your printed document needs. Please! Spare your readers more words, they’re drowning in a sea of words already! Getting rid of the words and getting to the point will make your documents more powerful and more useful to your readers.
1. Use Your Headlines
Limit the amount of words you need to use to make your point by writing crisp, benefit focused headlines. Your reader will remember what is in the short headline much more readily then they will the paragraph that follows. Case in point, you have no idea what I just said, but you’ll remember to “Use Your Headlines.”
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/21/2009 7:58 AM
 3 Ways Great Presentations Are Like Power Ballads (Plus Five Simple Tips to make Your Next Presentation Pop!)
Great presentations are like power ballads, they tap into three key things that create impact and leave an impression on just about every audience. Check out some power ballads by Aerosmith or Chicago to get a feel for how they utilize emotions, timing and memorable choruses to create impact. Get on Guitar Hero and practice your power ballad moves!
1. They Play On Your Emotions
Every great power ballad pulls on your heartstrings. It uses emotion to create empathy for the main characters and to beseech you to connect with its message. (“You bring meaning to my life, you’re the inspiration…” Chicago) A great presentation does the same thing. Remember, the human brain’s memory sensors are triggered by emotion. It works two ways. When you feel something or connect with something on an emotional level you are more apt to put that information into long-term memory.
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/20/2009 9:16 AM
 Effective Use of Mind Maps as Communication Tools in Print
Mind maps are fantastic ways to communicate. In most cases, people remember far more of what they see graphically represented then what they read. Why read the book when you can watch the movie? Mind maps are a wonderful way to remove the text from documents you are using today to get your complex ideas across and instead use graphically rich pieces that have real visual power. Mind maps work great as printed documents because the do the following four distinct things...
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/19/2009 1:00 PM
 20 Websites That Made Me a Better Marketing Director
As a marketing director you need to have a lot of information readily accessible and I don’t mean a file folder bulging with color copies! The internet has been a boom for the field, by providing key knowledge, when needed, on topics as diverse as brand management to consumer trends. The following is a list of the sites I found most important in my daily life as a marketing director.
Big Idea Trends - Macro Trend Sites
To be a good marketing director you need to know what the major trends are in the marketplace. Check out these sites for some great insights.
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/16/2009 8:53 AM
 9 Simple Steps on Writing a Winning Press Release
A press release is your gateway to the media world. It is any company’s prime tool for gaining exposure in print, radio, TV, or even from bloggers. A well written release can generate magnificent results, while a poorly worded one can land you on The Smoking Gun or TMZ. In addition, journalists see hundreds of press releases a day, literally thousands every month. How can you position your press release to stand out, while avoiding the common pitfalls that swallow up 95% of pitches?
Follow these simple and proven rules to grab the attention of any reporter, in any industry:
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/15/2009 10:07 AM
 Google Presentations (Is There Anything Google Doesn’t Do These Days)
Google Presentations launched to much fanfare, balloons, clowns, parades and confetti accompanied the strong boast by Google that it would be a direct competitor to Microsoft Powerpoint. In my opinion it is far from the dynamic, multimedia tool Powerpoint can be, but it does have its advantages.
What it's Good For
Google Presentations is a great tool if you often find yourself without a laptop or desktop that is permanently yours or assigned to you. If you are a student, temporary worker, traveler, a carnie, itinerant fruit picker, Bedouin herdsman, professional paraglider etc.. you can use Google Presentations best features and create and store your presentations online. All you need is an internet connection to create, store and later retrieve your work.
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/14/2009 9:29 AM
 3 Simple Tips on How to use the Power of Story Telling to Teach a New Idea
Stories have been used since the beginning of time to teach new ideas and concepts. From early tribal legends, to fables and mythology stories have taught people how to accomplish tasks; from how to build an ark to how to escape your evil stepmother. Stories allow learners to enter a unique imaginary world and play with new ideas without the fear of making a mistake or appearing wrong. Stories provide context to complex ideas by framing them in situations and experiences that seem familiar to learners. Stories can provide an emotional connection to ideas and concepts, which is vital to turning on the memory receptors in the brain. And, finally stories entertain and challenge the mind to engage with information in ways simple explanations cannot. Take a lesson from your earliest ancestors and tell stories around the boardroom table like cave men around the fire to help everyone evolve to the next level of their training.
Stories can be easily incorporated into most training documents. How you choose to include stories as a training technique is completely up to you and how you want to present your information. Be sure the stories you are using further your goals and are not stories that will simply distract. Here are some of the most common ways to incorporate the power of stories in training documents.
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/13/2009 8:13 AM
 4 Extremely Successful Marketing Initiatives That Wowed The Media (And So Can You)
Launching a book, business, or new service in today’s information economy often seems like throwing a needle on top of a haystack. How can you help your business stand out from the rest?
Here are five out-of-the-box ideas that people have used to garner massive attention from both consumers and the media, which will hopefully lead you to some unique ideas of your own:
“The Rule of Five”
When Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hanson wrote Chicken Soup For The Soul, it was not an overnight success, even though the series is a household name by now. In fact, with a very small budget and almost no marketing plan, they were starting from scratch – but were determined to make their book a best-seller.
So instead of simply advertising on Craigslist, Canfield and Hanson asked over a dozen successful authors for guidance, and even picked up a copy of John Kremer’s 1001 Ways To Market Your Book. After all that they became overwhelmed with advice, and they still didn’t know where to start.
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/12/2009 8:40 AM
 Top Five Ways to Get Your Ideas Across In Print
Have something great to say or better yet something great to sell? Keep writing ads and brochures and flyers and no one calls to take you up on your great idea or fantastic product? So does my brother-in-law. Here are five quick tips that will take your plain old piece of collateral and make it work for you. You might even make your piece of beef attractive to vegetarians.
1. Focus on the Benefit to the Customer
Forget about putting in lots of details about you and your company. The great story of how you were founded on a mountaintop in Nepal while hiking over a ravine, although interesting is not going to get people to call you. In fact, no one but your Mama cares. Potential customers become customers when they clearly see a benefit in it for them. Yes, they’re selfish! Use your precious print space to tell them why what you are offering or telling them about makes any difference to them. Beef puts cholesterol in a person’s arteries like no carrot ever can!
Leave out the company overview information and write crisp, simple benefit statements like, “People who buy XYZ product make 40% more profit then those who do not.”
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/9/2009 7:19 AM
 4 Tips to Using Humor to Make Your Point
Everyone loves a good laugh. But, humor is even more important when you want readers to remember what you are telling them. Emotion is tied to the brains capacity to remember things. Usually you want people to remember your ideas or concepts positively, thus humor tackles two birds with one stone. A good bit of humor will make the brain receptors sense emotion and increase memory and the fact that it was a positive emotion, will increase the likelihood the reader will have transfer the positive emotion to you or your idea / product. To make sure humor works for you in your next printed piece keep the following three rules of thumb in mind.
1. Make sure your joke or story is one all readers should understand
Take cultural, age and experience variations in your target audience into account. Jokes in particular often rely on references to pop culture to make sense. Your joke about the rabbi, the priest and the imam who walked into a bar will probably bomb with the Religious Tolerance League.
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/8/2009 8:10 AM
 4 Killer Tips to reduce Too Much Content into Highly Effective Training Manuals
Do you have too much content and too little space or time to deliver it all? Welcome to the club! It is a more common problem then you might think. To begin with, let me point out that more often than not you have more content to deliver then your learner or reader will be able to digest, even if you don’t realize it. The average learner can grasp three new concepts every 90 minutes. The average training tries to teach three new concepts to the learner in two paragraphs or one presentation slide. It’s like trying to drink from a fire hose! So from the get go, the balance between what your learner can absorb and what you want to teach is almost always off kilter. Even if you have to feed them an elephant, remember to do it one bite at a time!
Once you realize you have too much content how do you figure out what to include in your training document and what to leave out? Use these few simple rules of thumb to organize and prioritize your training content.
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/7/2009 7:59 AM
 5 Simple Ways to Boost Marketing and Sales Materials with Charts
Charts and graphs put the wow in your printed materials. They help eliminate unneeded text by demonstrating key points and supporting information. They are more memorable than words. They’re like the postcard you sent your grandma, the basic information with a pretty picture on the front. Creating them so that they make your point and don’t confuse or over stimulate your reader is easy. Follow these five simple steps.
1. Use Simple Colors. With the use of publishing and basic word processing software it is easy to create charts and even easier to go overboard and put them in a multitude of far out colors and shades. You’re not painting your hippie van here, you’re teaching a concept. Keep your colors simple in your charts. You want the colors to blend with the overall color choices of your document, but be a slight variation to make sure the chart stands out. Have someone review your color copies and get a second opinion.
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/6/2009 7:35 AM
 17 Reasons Your Company Needs a Professional Newsletter
Your average consumer is exposed to over 4,000 marketing messages a day, 3,900 of which are for Dunkin Donuts, Taco Bell, or KFC, and I bet just reading that sentence made you instantly need a cup of joe or a hot greasy snack.
Amongst all that noise, how can a newsletter help your messages stick better than your competitors, and what purpose do newsletters really serve?
A newsletter is an effective tool that can accomplish many goals, and even with the advent of blogging, Twitter, E-zines, and Megan Fox, hardcopy newsletters still prove to be successful in marketing and business growth. And here’s why:
Read More »
|
By Color Prints Online on
10/5/2009 11:01 AM
 Top 5 Essential Training Book Design and Layout Tips You Should Know
Why does graphic design matter in training documents? Because, while looks aren’t everything, they’re often what gets you the first date! Without a simple to follow layout and easy to navigate document, the reader will get either distracted or lost and the whole point of the training falls apart. Well-designed training documents have a few simple characteristics in common.
Use Arial, Calibri or Helvetica fonts. They are the easiest for the learner to read.
Overall, avoiding fonts that are too curvy or have extra flourishes is a good idea. Pick your font like you pick the person you bring home to your Mom, save the flashy for friends on the weekend, bring home the nice, conservative, solid one when you want to make a good impression! Contrary to popular belief Time Roman is not a good font to use in training materials. Its angles can be difficult for some readers to process and it is one of the fonts which studies show readers most often skip or ignore words when reading.
1. Use simple, non-complex fonts. They minimize the use of dramatic typography, so that where they do include bolding or underlining it has impact.
Read More »
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
        
|
|
|
|