Business cards as a marketing tool

Businesses in Bath could be forgiven for thinking that, in these difficult times, that marketing efforts should be cut in order to provide savings for their business. Not true as it is more important than ever to be putting your message in front of customers but it can be difficult to justify marketing materials during difficult times for businesses in general. Consider more cost efficient printed marketing materials such as business cards. Business cards are not just for exchanging contact information; they can play a big role in the marketing of your company. Aside from exchanging the expected information such as company names and contact details, your business card can now to be seen to include your company USP or slogan and the major customer benefits of using your company.

The printed style of your card can make it stand out from the crowd. Recycled materials can appeal to consumers, information printed vertically rather than horizontally can stand out and fold over cards are increasingly popular as they allow your company to display more information. The quality of your business card speaks volumes about the type of company that you are and it is important to keep the quality in mind when designing a business card in terms of fonts, styles and colours and also when you are looking to print a business card. There are local companies who will be able to quote on business card printing in Bath and ensure that your creative efforts do not go to waste in the production process.

World Cup Ambush Marketing

A group of female Holland fans attending Holland’s opening World Cup football match against Denmark were apparently told to leave at half time after FIFA accused them of “ambush marketing”. Dozens of Holland’s female fans entered the stadium wearing very skimpy orange dresses which just happened to be designed by the Dutch Brewery Bavaria Beer in their brand colours. The dresses were not branded but the women and Bavaria Beer were accused of trying to break the strict sponsorship codes at these kinds of events. Budweiser are an official sponsor and therefore the only beer brand to be allowed to advertise inside the stadium.

Bavaria and Dutch football fans were caught up in a similar storm over ambush marketing in the last World Cup in Germany in 2006. Over a thousand Dutch fans were made to remove Bavaria Beer-branded lederhosen [Read more]

Meeting printing deadlines

When producing company literature such as newsletters or magazines, meeting printing deadlines is essential in order to avoid costly mistakes, but in some situations your company may be working right up to the wire and there is a fine balance between having the most up to date information in your company literature and missing the printing press deadlines. You only need to look at the newspaper headlines on the morning after the election to see that the deadlines of the country’s printing press [Read more]

Tourist industry very important for British business

Businesses in and around Bath, from small brochure and flyer printers to large corporations, will all be aware of the importance of the British tourism industry for generating extra business. The visitor economy is worth £114 billion a year to the country. A man from Bath has been chosen as one of the faces of a new campaign to promote Britain.

Mr. Martin Salter, who was once the ceremonial pumper at the famous Roman Baths, but is now the official person who meets and greets visitors at the Jane Austen Centre in Gay Street, was chosen in a printed poster competition. Thousands of entries were submitted but Mr. Salter, who has been described as one of the best known figures in [Read more]

Digital v Litho competition in Bath

There are different kinds of printing companies around Bath, ranging from small brochure printers to large print management firms. A local printing company, CFH Total Document Management, recently staged a contest between litho and digital machines in a race to produce 8,000 duplex four-colour process mail pieces.

Working from raw PDF artwork and a CSV data file, each printed item had to be personalised with different names and addresses. As part of the challenge, 500 out of the 8,000 items had to be stuffed into envelopes ready to post. The print company used their two Xerox iGen4 digital presses to compete with their Drent VSOP nine-colour litho press.

The outcome of the competition was interesting. Whilst the result was close, the [Read more]

Bath and North East Somerset printer moves to digital

Many printing companies in Bath, form small stationery printers in Bath to large firms dealing with high volume runs, will be monitoring the influence of new digital possibilities. Earlier last year a print company near Bath, Integrity Print, made its move into the digital arena.

The company is based in Midsomer Norton and has a turnover of £60 million, retains over 350 staff and operates a diverse pressroom with over 50 different presses. The move into the digital arena came as a result of acquiring the assets of Toplife Labels when they bought them out of administration. Integrity Print saved 30 jobs when they kept on all of [Read more]

Bath print firm continues in successful business

A Bath printing company, Ralph Allen Press, established in 1925, has now been in business for over 83 years. The company describes themselves as one of the best equipped and most experienced print companies in the West, with a reputation for openness and efficiency.

The company’s continued existence was assured last year after a 100% share buy-out by joint managing director Mr. Jason Hindle. Mr.Hindle raised a £500,000 package from Lombard to buy-out the shares from former business partner Stuart Neathey. Following the majority takeover, Mr. Hindle stated that the ongoing aim of the business was to [Read more]

Litho can compete with Digital

Back in January 2008 a printing company in bath, Bath Colour Print, halved the time it took to produce its short run booklet jobs when they acquired a JDF-ready Horizon Power Collator. The company uses the twin tower Vac-Turbo book production line to produce short run work from its B2 and B3 Heidelberg perfecting presses.

The Bath colour printer, now established for three years, continues to enjoy the advantages of the kit. They continue to make savings with the production of 250 16pp four-colour brochures. Shortly after instillation of the new machinery company director Mr. Rick Higgins said:

It allowed the firm to compete with digital rivals for short-run jobs

The main reasons for this were that the CPT Litho press was faster, ink was cheaper than toner and there was [Read more]

Complex architect’s print models delivered in 24hrs?

Realization Group Miami USA can now produce complex client models in 24hrs using Z corp.150 build material and a ZP printer 450 multicolor 3D printer. The printer is compatible with the existing ZP printer 150 and the ZP 650 colour 3D printer.

This illustrates huge advancement in 3D printing following years of research and development undertaken in many countries since 1986.

Let’s take Adrian Bowyer for example, senior lecturer and head of biometrics at the University of Bath. He is currently developing a rapid prototyping machine, known as RepRap. By studying the way organisms build structures he is able to abstract design from nature and use this in a digital world.

He says:

…it’s about methods for getting one, two, and three dimensional micron-scale structures made [Read more]