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Changes to university tuition fees come into effect this September, with students starting their undergraduate courses in the new semester now required to pay as much as £9000 per year – up from the government’s previous course cap of £3,375. With just three months remaining before school starts, new students are being encouraged to set up their own mini businesses this summer as a means of making money and cutting down student loan repayments by online leaflet printing firm, Cards Made Easy.

The leaflet printers have seen a marked increase in demand from self-employed entrepreneurs starting cleaning, gardening, dog walking, babysitting and car washing businesses over the last 18 months. It believes students getting ready for their first year at university can tap into this trend for micro-enterprises by setting up shop for the summer months.

Neil Forrest from Cards Made Easy says, “It’s very common in the USA for college students to spend the summer washing cars, gardening or doing odd jobs to save money ahead of university. With tuition fees now so high, UK students can also benefit from this approach to the summer holidays and make much needed extra cash for term time.”

Setting up a summer business can be quick and surprisingly low-cost. Cards Made Easy offers a range of economical leaflet printing and flyer printing packages, with prices starting from just £19.99 for full colour A4 sized leaflets.

Mr Forrest added, “Printed leaflets can be pushed through doors and left on car windscreens making them a great way to market a fledging seasonal business. Lead times on leaflet printing are also short with the entire process from design to delivery taking less than a week. We offer free design assistance too, helping to make sure the leaflet packs a punch and makes an instant impression.”

Leaflets are available in A4, A5 and A6 sizes with a choice of paper weight, finish and single or double sided printing. Flyers can be ordered in sizes A4 – A6, with or without fold and on a choice of stock. Orders for leaflets or flyers can be combined with other business printing services such as business cards or bookmarks to make an even bigger impact. Reordering can be completed easily online to keep stocks topped up.

Leaflet printing service, CardsMadeEasy has confirmed a slew of new reports from The Chartered Institute of Personal Development (CIPD), cosmetics firm, Avon and Forbes magazine. All three have declared that so-called ‘Everyday Entrepreneurs’ are on the rise following a marked increase in the number of self-employed businesswomen entering the labour market this year. After witnessing a surge in orders from start-ups around the UK, the leaflet printing service also believes that more entrepreneurs than ever before are biting the bullet and setting up shop.

Neil Forrest from CardsMadeEasy said, “Over the last 18 months we have seen a marked increase in orders placed by SMEs for flyer printing and leaflet printing. There are so many small businesses springing up that we estimate we have printed more business cards and leaflets for start-ups, freelancers, dog walkers, mobile hairdressers, pet psychologists etc than anyone else.”

Figures from the CIPD estimate that there are 271,000 more women aged 50 to 64 active in the labour market today than at the start of the recession in 2007.  In a study carried out this month by leading academic, Professor Julie Logan of Cass Business School on behalf of Avon, the figures are also positive with 68% of female-led business start ups helmed by ‘everyday entrepreneurs’ with no previous business ambitions.

With four in ten of these new enterprises requiring no start up investment and 64% of such businesses being home based, budget-friendly marketing solutions are critical. Almost half of the women surveyed by Professor Logan confirmed that they were the household’s main bread winner, with 84% expecting their business to stay the same size or grow over the next three years. Helping this new batch of business leaders to meet their business goals while maximising the small marketing budgets common to home-based start ups operating without investment capital, CardsMadeEasy offers a range of flexible leaflet printing solutions.

“Opting for online leaflet printing is a quick and easy way to keep costs down,” Mr Forrest added. “We offer free design help or give the client the freedom to upload their own artwork if they have decided to spend money on graphic design before coming to us. We offer bundles of printed flyers from £16.99 and full colour printed leaflets from £19.99. This makes for a very cheap, very quick marketing campaign and an easy way for new businesses to start promoting their products or services without investing heavily in materials.”

When designing a printed brochure some of the features will be similar to those for a printed leaflet. However, although you naturally have more space and layout in a brochure than in a simple A5 flyer, the content will be different in style and tone of voice.

Company personality

This must be the big focus for a brochure. That doesn’t mean to say that in flyer printing you can ignore this factor. Yet whilst designing your brochure it is sensible to ensure your company image is consistent throughout your marketing material and that includes cheap flyers. Reflecting your corporate image in what you offer, the intrinsic details of your product, and the standard, is largely what brochures are all about. Therefore it’s no good stating on your flyer that you offer cut price clothing if your brochure is stating you offer haute couture.

Highest return of investment (ROI)

Before you begin your brochure design, give careful thought to which target of readers are likely to generate the most revenue for your business. If your business offers luxury interior design, then it is better not to deliver to a very low income housing estate. The content of your brochure absolutely must be written in the kind of language your target audience will understand and recognise.

Information detail

With a brochure you can seamlessly weave all sorts of detail about your business into the copy, without direct statement. This doesn’t mean writing reams of long winded copy. Most business owners should be able to succinctly describe what they do in 50-100 words without complex jargon. Try to find room, without over cramming, to print one or two testimonials and you should always have space for images which must be of high quality. Usually on the back cover of your brochure you will let readers know what hours you are open for business. This will accompany all your contact details, including your website address. For a limited company, you should include your registered address too.

Reaction from target market

Desired audience reaction to your brochure is the same with any of your marketing material, including a5 flyers and cheap printing: you want them to contact you. Make sure you do everything possible to generate a response from your target market. Know exactly what the desired response is, such as visiting premises, making a phone call, sending an e-mail and so on. For a printed flyer it may well be entering a competition or responding to a limited offer.

Ask your printer to send you the mock up or draft of your brochure before final sign off for approval and printing. It is at this stage you have the time to ask for amendments, not after it has been printed.

If you need any more tips or advice for brochure design and printing, give me a call and I’ll see if I can help…

Logo design in business flyers is an often neglected slice of the marketing chain which I’ve written about before. The reason I refer back to this subject again is because when a logo is badly designed it’s such a waste of space and funds.

Projecting the right image, when conducting a printed A5 flyer marketing campaign, must be done within a few seconds…before your carefully crafted flyer gets swallowed up whole by the bin.

To avoid this happening and get the reader’s attention, your logo is not insignificant; it can tip the balance and give readers something eye catching to focus on and memorise. Take a look at flyers from other companies and you will see what I mean. After my many years in the printing business, I’ll give you a few quick tips, which I hope you find useful:

• Use blended colours rather than a garish, uncoordinated look
• Lots of decorations will look messy
• Photographs will divert attention
• Using a person will look artificial
• Going ‘silly’ with a pig or a sheep doesn’t impress
• Copying someone else’s idea is not being creative
• A dramatic spread of colour just isn’t cool
• Being neat and focused will reflect reliability
• Something exotic will not look fresh and simple
• The best logo will match all your marketing.

As a busy printer, I see so many logos on different business flyers that give the wrong impression of the company they’re aiming to promote. So often, these companies fail to see that their logo is a serious piece of marketing material.

I hope these tips help because your flyer distribution could be so much more effective if your logo is doing the right job…advertising you.

Be great to hear your comments; let me know what you think…

I’ve been in the printing business for a long time and the first question on most people’s mind before they begin planning their leaflet design is usually: ‘how many new customers will I get from this?’

Return of investment isn’t as straightforward as it used to be with the rise of the internet, so this is not an easy question to answer.

Since the digital age boomed in like a rocket, most people picking up an A5 leaflet from their front door mat will almost certainly go to your website. They are likely to do this before picking up the phone and calling you.

Before the digital age, when everything was done at a much slower pace, anyone interested in your service would simply pick up the phone, mainly because there was no other option. This meant you could sell your service simply by the tone of your voice and choosing the right approach. For better or for worse, those days have gone which means a large slice of your success will depend on your website and, crucially, how good it is. Most people will check your company out online and ascertain how reliable you are.

So, yes you can make an excellent return on leaflet printing. Yet no matter how well you design your a5 leaflets, if your competitor has a crisp, clear and attractive site that is easily navigable, he is going to attract more customers.

If you don’t yet have a website, add a small line onto your leaflet to make readers aware. However, nowadays it is imperative to get a website and to get it written professionally with good search engine optimisation (SEO).

You can add further to your ROI result by engaging in social media activity so that people begin to comment and refer you to others. Supplement this by adding in regular interlinked blogs and articles, and you could be seeing some very good results.

The market for digital printing and printed leaflet campaigns is thriving; it is such a successful way to increase profits that it is worth considering, in an off- and online marketing mix. It’s simple, uncomplicated and often under-rated. Combine it with simple SEO and profits can boom.

Cheap printed leaflets require little capital investment and even if you cannot afford a website initially, you soon will as your business grows.

Let me know if I can advise further…