Printing plus Services

Managing and using data effectively is a very specialized area of business operations. Except for the very large corporates that have divisions dedicated to this work, others need a partner to work with them to optimize their use of data services for campaign management. Efficient and accurate data processing is critical to ensuring that any campaign gets the right message across to the right people in the right way. This is difficult enough when done online. When it comes to the physical distribution of printed material, the complexity increases manifold. Your printing partner must be able to offer you not just printing services but, also design and media support. When working with a printing and communications partner you need one that will offer you complete mailing list management services.

Services to look for in your printing partner:

• Inventory management and distribution: Your partner must have the ability to warehouse, package and ship your material to the people it is meant for, irrespective of location.
• A secure web interface: You must be provided with a customized and branded web interface that is specifically optimized to your commercial requirements.
• Focused targeting: Customized variable data and mail merge will allow for a number of data fields to be used to send customized messages to specific clients or groups. The more personalized a communication is, the greater the attention the recipient will give to it and the higher the recall value.
• Controlled data entry: Manual data entry is often required to merge, suppress or eliminate duplicates and unwanted records. This ensures that the data is clean and accurate.
• Cost effective transmission: Databases need to be sorted to ensure that the maximum number of postal discounts are made available.
• CASS certification: This ensures that address records are verified and standardized to meet U.S. Postal Service requirements.
• National Change of Address: NCOA minimizes the volume of mail that is not delivered, delayed or returned. The savings on both printing costs and postal charges can be significant.
• Inquiry Processing: Feedback and inquiry processing are crucial to campaign success. They can also take up a lot of operational time and manpower. Your partner must be able to process the inputs received and send them to you in a structured and organized manner to allow you to follow up effectively.
• List creation: A partner that will be able to provide you with market defined lists will enable you to refine your message to suit specific market groups.
• Distribution: Quick order processing and response along with the ability to offer printing on demand, same day shipment, live tracking and reporting will enable you to send only what is needed to the place it should be, at the time it needs to be there. Real time inventory management and order processing systems are needed to ensure that these services are optimized.
• Web based administration: This will ensure that distribution management and maintenance operates as efficiently as possible.

Hillview DPM has what you need to provide you with the support you require – years of experience, state of the art hardware and software and personnel who can maximize the effectiveness of the tools at their disposal. Our long list of clients, most of who mare leaders in their fields, is proof of this.

Ring in the Season with Greeting Cards

Fall has bedecked nature in her glorious earthy colors and the opening lines of California Dreaming come to mind – “All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey.” The weather all over the country has dropped several degrees and the chill in the air has everybody huddling in warm clothes, drinking hot chocolate and sitting besides dancing fires.

Year 2015 and we are past Halloween and the pumpkins. Tis now time to look forward to Thanksgiving and the Holiday season. The merchandisers are all busy getting ready for their grand black Friday sale and are bracing up for the intensive Christmas shopping that will begin, thereafter. The holiday season is the “Season of Giving” and also the time to reach out to all your loved ones and everybody you know, on a personal or business level, to spread the holiday cheer. The most special way you could spread that cheer is to send a greeting card with warm wishes for a joyous season. It is fun and beautiful to see Greeting Cards strung on a line and bedecking the halls and hall ways, adding that extra touch of warm color to cold winter days.

Greeting cards have been used since time immemorial. The ancient Egyptians gifted warmly crafted messages to each other on papyrus scrolls, ancient Indians did the same on palm leaf scrolls, and the Chinese - on silk scrolls. But it was not until the 1400s that handmade paper cards started appearing in Germany. Gothenburg’s mechanical printing press invented in 1450, made it easy to create greeting cards. From the mid-16th century onwards, Valentine Cards were being exchanged in England, and ever since then greeting cards have only grown in usage through the centuries.

Printed greeting cards are still the most popular way of sharing the spirit of the holiday season, this despite the onslaught of e-greeting cards, Facebook, Whatsapp and innumerable social or business networks. The printed greeting card industry in the USA is a multi-billion dollar industry with a sales of 8 billion. (source: http://www.greetingcard.org)

What makes Greeting Cards so Popular?

1. More personal: Paper greeting cards have become more classy and sophisticated with time, both in terms of imagery and the messages that go with it. One could choose a card with just the right look, feel and message, which can be a challenge in e-Cards.
2. More caring: There is a mind-boggling variety of printed, readymade cards available today. Driving up to a store, selecting a card, buying it and then mailing it, requires some amount of a person’s personal effort, which demonstrates how much you care. This effort lends that special touch to the greeting card that you send.  
3. Cost factor: Greeting cards are more expensive than any form of online greeting messages. So, this shows a certain commitment and respect to the relationship, something which everybody seeks.
4. Enduring nature:  Greeting cards are a popular collector’s item among girls and women of all age groups. It’s nice to reminisce about the good old days by looking at hundreds of cards collected over the years. Contrast this with e-cards which get deleted in a day or two.

HillView Printing DPM understands the emotive appeal of greeting cards. As one of the leading market digital printers, we routinely help customers print their own personalized greeting cards. You can walk in to our centers with your choice of content (or we can even create that for you), choose the right kind of paper, and have the card printed out using the most suitable printing technology.

Being creative and delighting you is what we cherish most at HillView. And isn’t that what greeting cards are all about?

Green Printing on Eco-friendly Watches

Going green and being eco-friendly have become the watchwords this past decade. Saving our planet earth, for the use of our progeny and the future generations, decreasing the filling up of landfills with waste products, such as un-degradable products like plastic, and promoting healthy trends in every walk of life, would go a long way in preserving this planet for posterity.

The world of fashion has contributed towards the “Green Trend” and “Eco-friendly watches” are now in vogue. Both men and women, today, sport these trendy “eco-friendly watches”, and they are cost-effective, with the ‘eco’ in the name expanding to girdle “economic fashion”.

So how exactly are eco-friendly watches different from the regular ones?

An average watch has more than a hundred different parts that are manufactured using different materials. The materials are determined depending on several factors, such as functionality of the part, its cosmetic effect, durability, weightlessness, and compactness without compromising on efficiency.

Eco-friendly watches comprise of parts made from materials that are manufactured using:

1. The minimum of energy-intensive processes
2. Recyclable metals and materials
3. Alternative energy as power source
4. Non-abusive methods of human rights

Point 4 refers to mining or manufacturing of materials that does not displace indigenous communities, does not make use of child labor, and is not funded by criminal or terrorist groups. Eco-friendly watches are economically sized and designed to reduce the quantity of materials used. Warranties are provided for longer durations, so that the product lasts long, thereby preventing the use and throw tendency.

Moreover, eco-friendly watches go beyond just the environment and addresses sustainable manufacturing, which resonates the CSR (corporate social responsibility) agenda of corporate companies. Understandably why, eco-friendly watches are so popular with corporate employees, bought for personal use, or for gifting.

Gifting watches have always been a great gifting idea and many people who love wearing trendy, fashionable accessories, tend to have quite a collection of watches in different shapes, sizes, colors, metals, materials and brands. Corporate gifting of watches for occasions such as celebrating an employee’s service to the company or as promotional products or even as a give-away to mark the company’s years of service and success, always make these gifts the most treasured possessions. Printing the company’s logo, details of the event, or even just the name of the corporate, lends even more value, to the possessor of this eco-friendly gift. It is a great way to leave an indelible footprint to branding your company’s image, logo and market presence.

Further, eco-friendly watches can also be made more attractive with digital print designs on the dial, glass and strap, making them as aesthetically pleasing as they are ecologically sensitive.

In keeping with the “Green Trend”, imprinting on eco-friendly watches has taken a new turn. Advanced technology together with specialty inks and additives, lend a whole new dimension to brand imaging, and marketing of your products and services, through promotional products, like eco-friendly watches.

The printing industry has kept abreast with the green movement and one of the changes is the development of eco-friendly inks that enable high printing quality without the harmful effects of the additives that are there in traditional inks.

Eco-friendly inks manufactured and used by the printing industry today include:

• Inks such as the Hybrid System Inks, which require no heat processes to cure it
• Inks manufactured from Soy. Soy based inks, unlike inks manufactured from a petroleum base, are brighter, provide more vivid colors and do not release inordinate emissions into the atmosphere
• Vegetable inks with low volatile organic compounds

Choosing eco-friendly products and versions, business houses can save on costs, protect their employees, clients and prospectshealths, and the environment as well.

Foam Sports-balls: Promoting brands and sports alike

The relationship between corporate sponsorships and sporting events is as old as sporting events in the twentieth century. Sports being the best metaphor for life, people are naturally drawn to sports and sporting events. The advent of television gave a big boost to sports and hence corporate sponsorship of sporting events. 

Football, Baseball and Basketball being the most popular sports in Europe and the United States of America, it is only natural that corporate America, would vie with each other to corral a larger portion of the sponsorship pie. For example, sponsorships were 7.8% ofthe advertising budget in 1985, and increased to 13.9% in 2006 (source BMI Sport info).Coca-Cola shelled out $40 million as the official sponsor of 1996 Olympic Games and $500 million to maintain the primary sponsor status. When NEC dropped out of sponsorship of the 2004 PGA tour, Bridgestone took their place and used the event to promote Bridgestone Golf. 

Corporate Sponsorship of sports has gone beyond billboards and T-shirts emblazoned with the team’s logos. Corporates are giving away small promotional items with their company logos and taglines printed on them to select fans, at such events. These items are smaller in number and create a feeling of exclusivity to the recipient. This increases the emotional connect with the brand and word-of-mouth marketing from delighted fans. 

One such popular giveaway in recent times has been foam sports-balls. Made of either dense or soft foam, these balls are designed to look exactly like a real baseball, basketball, footballs, or golf ball. In fact, foam footballs have also been used in matches instead of the game football as they are considered safer in case of fans in the stand being hit by the ball. Such foam sports-balls have been used in different events and for different reasons. For one, they grab attention with the bright coloring of the company logo and secondly, they last longer than mugs, T-shirts or bags that get damaged or replaced easily.

• Soft Foam Football: Best suited for rallies or sports banquets. It can also be sold in college bookstores or in the stadium on the game day. Can be used as one of the elements in a national or regional promotional campaign.
• Soft Foam Basketballs: Best suited for corporate sponsoring a particular team. The ball with the winning team’s logo makes for a great memento. They pop up in college dorms and position the school or university as sport loving.
• Dense Foam Baseballs: These make for a great promotional giveawayat school, college, or university tournaments.
• Large-sized, dense-foam Footballs: The larger than normal (game) size makes these a standout at parties and football events. They also make for a gift item for children and adults alike.
• Dense Foam micro Baseballs: These are cost-effective yet eye-catching promotional tools that can be giveaways at any tournaments as a gift to young people. 
• Dense Foam Basketballs: Ideal giveaway at games, or best used for product launches.
• Dense Foam Soccer Balls; These come in a wide variety of colors and make for a great giveaway or gift to people of all ages.
• Dense Foam mini Basketballs: These are popular gifts exchanged at summer camps, organized by the school or by the boy/girl scouts.

Foam sports-balls are a lot less intrusive than television ads and are more effective in reaching specific segments of viewers - the ardent sports fan. This segment is only growing and represents a great opportunity for marketers. 

HillView’s printing expertise makes us a partner of choice for corporate companies looking at innovative printing solutions for all kinds of paraphernalia including foam sports-balls.

Customized Business Bags a Great Marketing Tool

In today’s over-marketed world, brand owners and brand marketers seek ways to rise above the “Marketing Noise”. Promoting a business brand can be a challenge if the business is in a category where the competition is regressive and the differentiation between two brands is quite thin. That is where, promotional items come as a breath of fresh air. Although the concept of using items like T-shirts, bags, and other personal paraphernalia to promote a brand is not a new one.Nevertheless, it is effective every single time. Promotional items make it easy for prospects and clients to say thank you and improve memory recall.

Though, there are various categories of promotional items, bags are a recurring favorite with both brand marketers on one side, and prospects or customers on the other. While there are various reasons, motives, and incentives associated with gifting business bags to prospects, customers, vendors, partners and employees, the three primary reasons for doing so, in the recent past are:

• Projecting your brand identity effectively: It’s interesting that although promotional items are equally popular with both men and women, they are perceived differently by the two genders. It’s been proved through various consumer studies that, to men, the quality of the item is more important, which is why, they are open to wearing a high quality T-shirt that carries a brand logo, the same way they would use any other quality promotional item. Whereas to women, the utility value of the gifts or giveaways is more important. Which is why, a high-quality bag which carries the brand logo clicks well with both men and women. These could be spacious bags that can accommodate laptops, cosmetic kits, toiletry, clothes and the like. Or they could be the smaller Tote bags that are used to carry small purchases which have become a rage off-late.
• Protecting the environment:A study by Clean Air Council has revealed that in just the US alone, as many as 1 billion shopping bags are consumed every year, creating 300,000 tons of landfill waste. The quantum is unimaginable if one were to consider global figures. Tote bags that are fashionably or aesthetically designed makes for a good replacement to the disposable plastic bag. Shoppers can carry their own tote bag every time they shop and their reuse,helps reduce the demand for plastic bags. In some countries, retail companies are encouraged to give discounts to buyers who bring their own shopping bags, while many countries are mandating carrying of one’s own bag. What better way for Brand Marketers to project and promote their brands than to appear as crusaders for a clean, green environment?
• Promoting Health and Fitness: There is an increasing trend towards employers being concerned about the health and fitness of their employees. While on one hand, employers may have their own interests at heart, on the other; it mirrors the increasing health and fitness consciousness in people. With a large proportion of them being diabetic or obese, Americans are exercising like never before. To brand marketers, this is a great opportunity to promote themselves! Which is why; companies are gifting fitness kits to their employees, prospects and partners, which carry their logo, taglines and a brief overview of their offerings. These kits are designed to carry fitness/sports equipment and promote the cause, while promoting the company.

HillView has years of experience in digital printing, and printing on promotional items. We have a wide spectrum of printers and technologies that can emblazon your logo and other imagery on business bags, and help promote your brand the efficaciously and cost effectively.

Promotional Advertising Specialties - Calendars

In the software and device world, calendars may be a trivial feature, but in real life, calendars are anything but trivial. Almost every human being who is literate refers to a calendar at-least once a day for one or more reasons. Which is why, calendars continue to be printed to this day despite the ubiquitousness of calendars on devices.

There is a clear reason for this. Research has shown that, people in general and customers/prospects in particular remember 5% of what they read, 10% of what they hear but an astounding 25% of what they see. On any given day, these facts can be said to be true of software and devices (one sees or uses a plethora of tools, features, and functionalities on a device), as they ultimately do diminish memory recall. But in the physical world, an object that is seen day after day, does have an impact which does enable tremendous memory recall.

It’s for these reasons that marketers and advertisers list calendars as one of the most preferred promotional items. These are not merely opinions or preferences that are subjective. There are enough statistics to corroborate these findings.

In 2011, Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) and Calendar Advertising Council conducted a study in parts to assess the relevance or impact of printed calendars. The findings from the study which covered various facets, was an eye-opener. A comparative analysis was done with the conclusions of similar studies conducted by the Calendar Advertising Council in the past.

Among the people surveyed: (Source: various sources including www.ppai.org)

• Over 78 percent use a printed calendar at home or workplace
• 82 percent said they enjoyed receiving advertising calendars
• 75 percent had a printed calendar in the kitchen
• 37 per cent of respondents had at least one calendar at work
• 63 per cent had between two and nine printed calendars at work
• 1 per cent had more than 10 calendars at work
• 67 percent preferred a wall calendar as against computer and cell phone calendars
• 70 percent and above recalled the advertiser and message on their calendars
• 70 percent said they may do business with the company again
• 48 percent had a more favorable impression of the company that handed out promotional calendars
• 41 percent reportedly referred others to the advertiser
• 37 percent said they looked at a calendar once a day
• 61 percent looked at a calendar between two and more than 10 times per day at home
• 24 percent said they looked at a calendar once a day at work
• 76 percent looked at a calendar between 2 to 10 times, a day at work

Some of the reasons printed calendars are so popular: 

• They are cost-effective to print, easy to distribute, and cheaper to get it out than a newspaper ad or an online banner
• Since the calendar stays in full view all the time, the memory recall is much higher
• People use the spaces provided in dates to note down appointments and notes
• It’s easy to customize the calendars for customer segments
• The calendar can carry useful information and relevant imagery to impress
• People always enjoy receiving gifts and gifting a calendar or two, at the beginning of a new year or just prior to the new year, adds joy to the season

HillView Printing DPM has several decades of expertise in the digital printing industry and have been printing calendars since inception. We understand its importance from a promotional or advertising perspective. We offer standard and custom calendar types, multiple layout formats, with choice of design, imagery, paper, texture, and printing methods. We can also package and ship the calendars to your customers and prospective customers, completing the entire process for you, efficiently and cost-effectively.

Choosing the right imprint process for maximum impact

Promotional products, which are an integral element of marketing and advertising today, have a history of over a hundred years. Calendars and congratulatory letters with only text were printed using a technique called foil stamping and handed out to customers and prospects. With the advent of time, company logos became more colorful and graphic and the need to use them in promotional products brought about the use of techniques like silk screening. 

Today, different technologies and techniques are used to print on promotional material, depending on the type of products involved and the overall goals of the advertising campaign. Some of these techniques are:

Screen Printing: Screen printing is the most cost-effective option and uses premixed inks and a screen to transfer the design onto the product. It is used for printing on bottles, pens, smooth surfaced balls, tote bags, pens and appliances like water coolers. 

Digital Printing: Digital printing also known as CMYK or full-color printing, color burst or 4-color process printing offers a larger range of colors to print logos. This process uses printing machines instead of screens. Digital printing is used for printing colorful stationery like books and notepads, fridge magnets and mouse pads. 

Heat Transfer: This process is an age-old technique that uses heat to press ink onto the product. It is an effective process for printing multi-colored logos and is used for printing tote bags and apparels like t-shirts.

Laser Engraving: A design is loaded onto software in the engraving machine. Then using the laser beam the design is etched on to the product. This technique is ideal for engraving on metal, glass, or wood and is also used on elegant gifts.

 

Debossing/Embossing: This method engages a combination of heat, pressure and a metal screen to imprint the design on the product and is the most preferred method for leather and vinyl products, chocolates and some varieties of thick fabric.

 

Embroidery: The vibrant colors of a logo or design are best reproduced using embroidering machines, and is the ideal option for apparel and hosiery products like shirts, blankets and towels. 

Foil Stamping: Foil stamping is used when a shiny metallic look is required in the design. This is also the best option when the design has to be customized every time, like the name of a person to be added in the design. 

Lithography or Offset printing,: This is the most favored method when large numbers of prints are required on paper based products like calendars, books and posters. 

Laser Printing: The technology used in this process is similar to that of photocopiers and this is the most preferred option for printing on paper and other substrates. Laser printing offers a better color rendering and is a quick and cost-effective process. This method is used for printing posters, pamphlets, newspapers and billboard contents. 

Pad Printing: Pad Printing is used for printing on irregular surfaces. This imprint method uses a silicone based rubber pad, ink and a hard polymer or steel screen to imprint the design on products like golf balls, liqueur glasses, squeegees, key tags and key chains, calculators, technical and musical instruments,  picture frames, etc. 

Color Filled Debossing: In this technique, a silk screen ink or foil is used, to transfer the design onto the product. It is popular for printing on vinyl based products. 

Silk Screening: Is used for printing colorful and complex designs on a variety of fabrics. 

Dye Sublimation: Naturally occurring dyes are sublimated on to intermediary products like plastic cards or printer paper. Using a heat press, the design is transferred from the intermediary product onto products like apparels, ceramic, metals and other materials.