If you are looking to raise brand awareness and promote offers to your target markets, then without a doubt you will be looking to undertake a promotional direct marketing campaign. This is a traditional form of marketing that is widely used in every business and can help generate new business and maintain your market share.
Designing and printing some leaflets is a very cost effective way of communicating your message, and get the basic right and you can enjoy a very successful direct mail campaign. By the basics I am obviously referring to your message, your design and finally your formatting and media. The word media is used to describe the weight of paper you opt to use and the finish you give the flyer as well.
When you are ordering your leaflets from an online printing company, you will be asked to select the style of leaflet you want printing. This will typically be standard sizes universally used such as A4, A5 and A6, perhaps DL size….even A4 folded to A5 to give you 4 print faces? You will also be asked which weight of paper stock you would like to use. This can range from anything from 80gsm through to 350gsm, and just to clarify, gsm stands for ‘Grams per square metre’, which means the higher the gsm, the thicker/heavier the weight of paper.
It is very important to know what weight of paper you need your leaflet printing on, the last thing you want is to spend all that time designing and printing your leaflets only to find when you get them back from the printers you are disappointed at the look and feel…something that could have been so easily avoided if only you had known a few key points.
Thicker/heavier stock infers quality, durability and as such is more expensive for larger items and is usually reserved for business cards or perhaps covers on brochures. The typical weight of a business card is 350gsm.
At the other end of the scale are 80gsm flyers that are usually the items found as inserts in your local newspaper. 80gsm is pretty thin, usually mass produced and distributed with an expected shelf life of just a few minutes…or however long it takes to read it. As you would expect, this weight of paper is the cheapest option and typically when you see offers from print companies, the paper stock the offer is for would be this weight, unless stated otherwise. This means that on the face of an offer, if 80gsm is not quality enough for you and your brand, then you can expect to pay almost twice the amount for a more middle of the road weight like 180gsm.
Along with the paper weights, you have the finish options. These vary depending on the paper you select, you can have coated or uncoated, matt or silk or for the high quality, heavier weight items you can opt for gloss. Just remember that if you are promoting the use of sustainable or recycled paper, you should not ruin this by adding on a varnish or coating as this can affect the ability to recycle after use.