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Spot the Opportunity with StarMarque

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It’s not just magpies that love shiny things – we’re all attracted to them. Diamond necklaces, new cars, crystal glasses. They never fail to get our attention. Increase your chances of getting noticed by adding glossy StarMarque highlights to your marketing material.

So what is StarMarque?

We all know that adding gloss lamination to an image increases the intensity of colours. StarMarque is a special process which only adds a gloss coating to selected parts of the image or document.

We start with a matt laminated item such as a business card, folder or thick flyer. The matt base provides a great contrast for the next layer – a special hi-gloss varnish. This varnish is only applied to the areas you want, hence the commonly used name “spot varnish”.

The end result is a beautiful flyer or card with both gloss and matt areas. This has the effect of accentuating and drawing attention to the glossy part of the design. Ask your Client Service Team for colour charts to compare the difference.

Who’s using StarMarque?

Damson Restaurant

Lots of businesses are finding that adding StarMarque to their marketing material is giving it a lot more weight and presence. The gloss highlights provide an additional visual stimulus because of the varied textures on the single printed surface. This adds depth and impact and sets the perception of high quality in the eyes of the recipient.

If you’re selling a premium product or are trying to position your business at the upper end of your market, create a striking first impression with StarMarque Business Cards, Presentation Folders, Thick Booklet Covers and Flyers.

Steve Pilling – Restauranteur, Damson @ BBC Media City says ‘Our award-winning restaurants offer modern British food and an extensive wine list, so it’s important our marketing reflects our brand… only StarMarque will do!â?

What works best?

StarMarque looks great added over the top of dark colours – black, dark blue, purple, that kind of thing – that’s where the contrast is greatest. On a light background, the highlights will be less visible and they’ll be practically invisible on white – although that’s sometimes useful if you want to use it as a difficult-to-copy security feature.

Avoid using it over small text or small objects as there is little chance of it exactly lining up and that will be pretty noticable. Best to think of it entirely as its own design element and use it to enhance a piece, rather than simply putting it over existing elements.

What does it cost?

StarMarque is a high-end finishing option which is usually out of reach for most small businesses. It’s usually reserved for expensive marketing material and adding it would normally cost a small fortune. Not any more. With printing.com’s revolutionary techniques, you’ll share these high set-up costs with lots of other businesses and pay only a fraction of the normal cost. Get it for half price on selected products during April.

Ask your Client Service Team for free samples of StarMarque items, or for ideas on how they could help make your marketing even more effective.
 

5 Minute Workshop: Creating a Customer Feedback Scheme

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Customer Feedback CardWhen would you rather you found out you’ve lost a customer? In a years time when they’ve built a relationship with your competitor or as soon as you’ve upset them? There’s no use delaying bad news. If you’ve annoyed them, best to find out sooner so you can put it right.

One of the best ways to get quick feedback is to run a feedback scheme. If it’s something you know you should be doing but haven’t got round to it yet, follow these 5 steps and have your scheme set up in no time.

1. What do you want to know? Sounds simple, but what do you want customers to rate you on? I’d suggest picking between 5 and 10 aspects of your product or service that you think are important.

2. How should they answer? It’s usual to give people a few tick box options to choose from like “great” or “poor”. Always have at least one question where they can write comments which they may not be able to fit into one of your questions.

3. Should I offer an incentive? Possibly. You may encourage people to fill your cards in if you offer a prize or discount. Think about whether once a month you give someone a free haircut or a free meal, picked out of the cards you’ve had returned.

4. How should it look? Keep it clean and simple an A6 postcard size is usually big enough. Your Client Service Team can help design a comment card to match your branding. Try our SmoothWove Showcards these are easy to write on, thick and bright white. Get them for Half Price when you order in February!

5. Where to put the cards? If you run a cafe or restaurant, put cards on your tables. Run a hotel or guest house? Leave cards in your rooms. Manufacturer or distributor? Put cards in your boxes. Service provider? Send cards with your invoices.