Millennials, the often perplexing, always interesting demographic cohort born in the early 80s through the mid-90s, is an increasingly important group for companies and marketers to understand. As time has marched on, the Millennial generation has come of age and their purchasing power has grown significantly—in 2019, millennials surpassed Baby Boomers as the largest adult group in the U.S. Businesses that focus on  marketing to millennials gain a competitive edge by understanding their values and habits.

One of the unique things about the Millennial generation is their relationship to digital media. At times swimming, even drowning in an ocean of digital information, Millennials can seem addicted to screens and as if they are repelled by anything print. But as Mark Twain might say, reports of the death of print media have been greatly exaggerated. 

Indeed, there is still much room for print media in the marketer’s tool bag, marketers just need to understand several key components of how to best use print media. Here are three of those keys for how to persuade Millennials with print media. If your strategy for marketing to millennials doesn’t integrate both digital and print, you could be missing valuable opportunities.

Focus on Your Print on Your Brand

Brand identity is as important among millennials as it is among any demographic and print media that communicates a brand’s message and voice effectively is a potent form of marketing. Whether it be direct mailers, brochures, or some other piece of advertising copy, bold imagery and a vibrant logo can do wonders for your company. 

What’s more, is that printed media such as newsletters and postcards with your brand’s logo tastefully displayed represent a lived experience compared to their digital counterparts which can easily be discarded without a thought.

Point Your Print to Digital

Print media can also reach millennials more effectively when it is connected to an online campaign. Millennials are digital natives and won’t find a company or ad credible if it isn’t attached to an online counterpart. Use your direct mailers, postcards, newsletters, and more to point your customers and clients to your website, Facebook page, or a landing page created specifically for the ad campaign. Print and digital media are both more powerful when they work in tandem, and a combined campaign has the added benefit of being trackable so you can know your marketing dollars are being put to good use. This cross-channel approach is a core part of successful marketing to millennials.

Make Your Print Clean and Simple

One final key to creating print media that will persuade millennials is to keep the design of your printed materials clean and simple. Minimize text length and make sure your brochures, one-pagers, and other media are well designed with brilliant colors and images. Keep your marketing materials concise and make sure they match your brand’s voice. Finally, stick to one main point to ensure your content is easily digestible. 

Persuade Millennials with Print Media

Print media is hardly dead. On the contrary, it can be an effective tool for reaching every demographic, even and especially millennials. If you can use your print marketing materials to highlight your brand, point to your website or social media pages, and keep make sure it is all presented in a clean and simple way, you will be well on your way to persuading millennials with the power of print.

When choosing which print shop to trust with your printing needs, there are several factors that rise to the top. You’ve worked hard on your brochure, or presentation materials, or direct mailers, and you want to make sure the finished product is going to be polished and perfect. Unfortunately, not all print shops are going to be able to print what you need when you need it and others are going to hand you copies of your work that are drab and underwhelming. To avoid those scenarios and other disappointments, here are several things to look for when choosing a print shop that offers reliable printing services.

Availability

Most printing needs come with some kind of deadline. You need your work printed and copied when you need it printed and copied. There are really no short cuts when it comes to availability, either a print shop is open and can get your work for you when you need it or they can’t.

Because we’re located in the city that never sleeps, at ABGPrint, neither do we. We are open 24 hours a day Sunday-Friday and will get your files and documents printed and copied when you need them. That’s why businesses rely on our printing services to deliver on time, every time.

Experience

Whether or not a print shop has experience speaks not only to what they know but to their ability to meet the needs of their customers over the long haul. A Printshop that just opened yesterday might have all the latest gadgets, and they might even have technicians that know what they’re doing, but without experience, you can’t build the same level of trust clients crave.

At ABGPrint we have more than 25 years of experience in digital printing and have handled it all, from basic copy and print jobs to complex images printed on an endless array of material. 

Excellent Customer Service

Print shops are a part of the service industry and need to adhere to customer service best practices. When you begin searching for a print shop, pay attention to how technicians answer your questions and give you a quote. Chances are, however you are treated at the beginning of your interactions with a print shop is how you are always going to be treated.

At ABGPrint, we are a customer and client-first business. We love serving you and going the extra mile. Stop in today to discuss your printing needs with one of our friendly and knowledgable staff and see if we pass the customer service test.

Quality

Quality is where the rubber meets the road—or where the ink meets the paper. A print shop can be available, have the experience, and even be the most friendly and kind people imaginable, but if what they print turns out to be average or even poor, it is time to find a new print shop.

At ABGPrint, we pride ourselves on the quality we provide to our customers and clients. We use and maintain the latest and best digital printing machines and methods to ensure that every item that leaves our shop is of the absolute highest quality. With our top-notch printing services, you can be confident that your projects will always look their best.

Competition can be fierce for businesses of any size, and how to even get noticed is a question owners and managers wrestle with on a daily basis. Of course, there are some obvious recent trends that businesses have turned to like a social media presence, on-point branding, and Google ads. And these are definitely an important part of any plan to increase brand awareness and attract attention. But there are other, often overlooked, ways to get noticed that are worth keeping in mind. Read on to take a look at three ways you can get your business noticed today.

1. Professional Signage that Pops

Well-designed, professional vinyl signage that features your brand and communicates your message is a great way to attract some much-desired attention. Not only do crisp, brilliant graphics pop, but creative fonts and texts can set any business apart from the competition. 

And vinyl is hardly the only material high-quality signs can be made of. Whether it be for atop the entrance to your store or for the side of the road near your building, a polished sign showcases your company’s professionalism and that your business means business. Bottom line, don’t skimp on signage—it’s one of the simplest ways to increase brand awareness in both local and high-traffic areas.

2. Personal/Custom Touches that Wow

The best way to wow potential clients and customers is by paying attention to detail and putting personal touches or custom touches on anything from direct mailers to personal correspondence. Personalization, or whatever you want to call it, is a great way to get remembered and to work your way into the minds and hearts of your audience.

There are nearly endless ways to personalize and customize a host of media that are useful for attracting attention to your business. Embossing/debossing, foil stamping, and more help your business stand out from the rest.

3. Polished Finishes that Impress

Related to the personal touches you can add to your printed media are the polished finishes you can use to create stunning media that will definitely impress potential clients and customers. When it comes to signs you can use non-traditional colors and materials to surprise passers-by and for letterhead, invoices, correspondence, and envelopes for any hard copy that needs to be sent, you can dress them all up with industry-leading finishes that create an unparalleled look and feel.

Finally, if you need to create presentation materials, take advantage of the brilliant, polished finishes print shops can add to make your media a cut above the rest.

While none of these ways to get noticed are free of charge, they can be worth the investment if they are done well. High-quality signs and other media that showcase your brand, products, and services will definitely help increase brand awareness and keep your business top of mind.

Bleeds are used to show any objects in the document that are intended to go all the way to the edge of the printed page. A standard bleed (0.125”) gives you some breathing room to make sure the printed piece is correctly cut down to size. If you’re new to print setup, understanding how to add bleed marks to a pdf will help you avoid  cutting off important design elements. Here is how to work with bleeds in different Adobe programs:

InDesign requires you to click the “More Options” button in the new file dialog box to display your bleed settings. Simply enter “0p9 or .125”. Once the document opens, the bleed will be a red box that surrounds the page area. The object you want to bleed needs to extend all the way to the red box as opposed to the edge of the page. This is one of the easiest ways to ensure you know how to add bleed marks to a pdf correctly before exporting.

Illustrator uses the same setup steps like the ones listed above for InDesign.

Photoshop does not have bleed settings in the program when you are creating a new document. It is possible to create a bleed by adding the bleed size to the document size. To do this, add .25” to the width and height to make sure you have an extra .125” on each side. This workaround is essential knowledge for designers who want to master how to add bleed marks to a pdf using different tools.

Whether you are using Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign or some other program to create your design to be used on something that will be printed you’ll need to make sure that file is saved in a way that is considered Print Ready. If you’re unsure, learning how to prepare files for printing properly will save you time and costs in the long run.

WHAT IS A PRINT READY FILE?

A print ready file is a design file that has been prepared in a way that makes it ready to be accepted into a printers software with minimal or no need for alteration of the file. Understanding how to prepare files for printing ensures your designs meet professional standards before submission.

This is important for a few reasons:

• • It reduces cost due to there being no design fees from the printer
  • It reduces the time to start production which can get your project done quicker
  • And eliminates potential inconsistencies between what you provided to the printer and what is delivered as the final printed product. You’ll know what you’re going to get!

CREATING PRINT-READY FILES USING THE ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE

The most common tools used in Graphic Design and for creating print-ready project files is the Adobe Creative Suite of products or what is now known as the Adobe Creative Cloud. For designers, mastering how to prepare files for printing using these tools makes the workflow much smoother.

We’ll explain what needs to be done to create a print-ready file for Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign by saving the final art file as a Print Ready PDF.

The first thing we want to mention is that all files regardless of the platform they are created on MUST have a “crop” and “bleed” built into the document.

These areas are used to ensure there is enough room for the printer to cut off excess paper and not cut/crop the actual design you have prepared.

To ensure you have enough space for the printer include .125″ bleeds and set your margins or guides at a minimum of .25″ on all sides to keep important content.

When saving your print-ready PDF file with bleeds, make sure you have the “trim marks” and “use document bleed settings” features turned on in Illustrator & InDesign or for Photoshop you can use Print with Preview’s crop marks and bleed options, or you can create the crop marks manually.

HOW TO CREATE A PRINT READY FILE IN PHOTOSHOP

1. Ensure your file is in CMYK mode.

2. Flatten your design so there are No Layers.

3. Save the file as a Photoshop PDF.

4. Use the High-Quality Print Adobe PDF Preset.

• • Preserve Editing Capabilities
  • Optimize for Fast Web Preview

5. Click Save PDF

HOW TO CREATE A PRINT READY FILE IN ILLUSTRATOR

1. First, convert all text to outlines.

2. Then Save the File as an Adobe PDF.

3. Start with the High-Quality Print Adobe PDF preset.

• • Make sure it’s CMYK and 300 ppi.
  • Preserve Illustrator Editing Capabilities
  • Embed Page Thumbnails
  • Create Acrobat Layers from Top-Level Layers

4. Click Save PDF

HOW TO CREATE A PRINT READY FILE IN INDESIGN

1. Save the file as an Adobe PDF.

2. Start with the High-Quality Print Adobe PDF preset.

• • Optimize for Fast Web View
  • At least 300 pixels per inch

3. Click Export

It really can be that easy!

So now you know how to make sure your file is Print Ready before it goes out the door to your  print partner.

ABG Print prides itself on being New York City’s top 24 hour printing service. The stellar staff at our Midtown West facilities is here to help you around the clock, on the dot ℠. Working with ABG Print is simple, just upload your print-ready PDF file to our cloud-based printing service and we will print, bind, finish and deliver your documents in less than 24 hours to within just 4 hours. But what if there are issues with your document’s formatting? We have that covered too! Our highly trained Graphic’s Department will help you with proofing, formatting and document sizing. Quick changes are totally doable, but we can make the process even faster with the help of our clients. That’s why knowing how to prepare artwork for printing can save both time and money.

Our excellent Client Services Team has made a list of a few simple steps to make sure that your files are perfect for our presses!

1. Create prepress files with the right program.

Always use prepress software such as Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and InDesign to create prepress files. Using Microsoft PowerPoint or Microsoft Word to create a prepress file for printing professional marketing materials such as brochures, catalogs or direct mail can, and often will, lead to disastrous results. If you’re unsure, reviewing guides on how to prepare artwork for printing can help you avoid common mistakes.

2. Send the proper file type to the printer.

Different printing companies will have different requirements for the type of file they want to use. Some printers will want a high-resolution PDF file, others want the original Illustrator or InDesign file, and others may prefer something else entirely. It is always a good idea to talk to the printing company you will be using before starting the project to prevent having to redo any work.

3. Be aware of printing limitations.

While many printing companies are similar in many respects, their actual equipment can vary dramatically. Some printers with smaller presses may not be able to print a given project as well as a printer with a larger press. Some printers may be better equipped than others to handle complex folds or running a fifth or sixth color. Be sure to check your printer’s capabilities before you send over the prepress files for printing.

4. Outline all text.

Outline all text within the prepress file so there are no font issues. Font files may work fine for you while working on the project, but there can be problems with the fonts printing correctly when pre-press files are sent to the printer. By outlining all text in the prepress file, you eliminate any need to send font files with your job and all text will print correctly.

5. Convert all RGB files to CMYK.

A common problem printers have is that they receive a file that is set up for four-color process printing (CMYK), but the support files they receive (such as photographs) are in RGB format. This discrepancy will create delays in printing, additional costs to convert the file to the proper format, may lead to problems printing the project, and can affect the final document’s outcome. For the best results, always learn how to prepare artwork for printing before submitting files.

ABG is aggressively pursuing tighter controls for the threat of cybersecurity challenges with data protection in print. The number of domestic data breaches jumped to a record 791 in the first six months of 2017. This is a 29% jump from last year. Recent breaches at Sony and Equifax has exposed the intensity of the danger. At ABG we are taking steps immediately to offer proactive protection of confidential information through our confidential printing services.

Together with our IT support companies, Microsoft and Adobe, we are using sophisticated monitoring methods and security tools. We know that identity fraud claims a new victim every two minutes. There is no time to wait. Our motto, around the clock, on the dot is expressed on a daily basis in our methods of securing data on all your business print projects. This commitment is why clients trust us when they need confidential printing services that prioritize security and reliability.

In the final analysis, we care and we go to extraordinary lengths to protect our clients with all our printing products. By combining advanced technology, strict data controls, and an unwavering focus on client protection, ABG delivers confidential printing services that give businesses peace of mind.

Personalized Data Printing (PDP) is the process of bringing a “one to one” approach to a “one to many” platform. With PDP, we are delivering completely customized marketing that’s unique to target prospects. We are inserting unique codes, names, demographics – right into the text of a printed piece. This makes personalized printing an essential tool for businesses that want to maximize engagement.

Personalized Marketing Targets Different Audiences

Personalized marketing is the technology we use that allows you to manage unique codes, background images, colors, artwork and text based on different triggers. It also allows individual personalized codes to be inserted on coupons and gift kits. ABG has successfully managed complex campaigns with runs of 300,000 custom pieces, proving how powerful personalized printing can be in reaching different audience segments.

ABGPrint creates value for clients by using high standards of quality. We see quality not as an act but a habit of excellence. In addition to our strict data management controls, the company still produces beautifully printed images. Our leading technological adaptation is transforming our capabilities. What could have only been imagined in the past is now a standard service offering. Our specialty printing services will make any piece stand out. Simply said, we care about our work and want to be proud of it. Our investments in people, process and technology has proven once again that only the fit will survive and thrive. For businesses seeking reliability and creativity, ABG sets the standard in personalized printing solutions.

We see our job as protecting our clients by elevating the bar on quality all of the time. At ABG, excellence is expected.