Print Posters and Flyers for Economical Event Promotion

Hosting an event is like putting together the pieces of a puzzle: everything has to fit just right for the finished product to look great. You’ve gotten your sponsors, procured materials for set-up, and sent out invitations to a hefty guest list. But there is something missing from your upcoming event.

For any public event, promotion and advertising are important components. Without promotion, even those who RSVPed and said they would show up may decide to opt out for a more favorable gathering, especially if there is no buzz about your event or party.

The question is, then, what is the best way to promote an event?

Most people have a limited amount of money to spend on advertising, and require a maximum return on their investment. Here are some ways to quickly and easily promote your upcoming event, without breaking the piggy bank.

Go Postal

Print posters and flyers to promote your next event. Put them up around your local event area, or anywhere around town that you can. Choose from hundreds of different templates for specific types of events, or create a custom poster or flyer that is perfect for that one-time special event.

Find out which local businesses will allow you to post your flyers on their community boards. Look up the law in your local area to find out if you can post flyers in places with high pedestrian traffic. For example, bus and train stops are great places hang posters that will catch commuters’ eyes and get them thinking about your event.

Promote your Sponsors

Want an easy way to pay homage to those generous sponsors who’ve given you the means to put on your fabulous event? Upload their logos onto your posters and flyers. Every time someone looks at a poster or flyer, they will be able to instantly recognize the sponsors and can begin to associate them with your event.

It’s easier than it sounds. Many of the templates available for printing posters and flyers already have areas dedicated to uploading images. They’re perfect for sponsor logos. All you have to do is request an image from each sponsor. And there’s no doubt each sponsor will be excited about the prospect of extra publicity for their companies, in addition to the guarantee that more people will hear about and attend your event.

 

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Print Posters and Flyers and Grow Your Small Businesses

In many ways, it seems like budgets are getting tighter and tighter these days. Business owners everywhere are searching for more cost-efficient ways to promote and advertise their services to a wider range of consumers. The race to attract as many people to your business as possible, and by any means necessary, is on. What small business owners want to know is, where do they fit in?

Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to spend a lot of money to build a great client base. What you do have to do, is spend time strategically planning out how to reach your potential customers. There is no denying that we live in a digital world, but rest assured, print advertising is still very much alive and well. In fact, printing flyers is one of the cheapest ways to market your business today.

Template for Success

There are literally hundreds of colorful and unique templates you can choose from to print flyers and posters for your business. It all comes down to deciding what images are desirable to use in marketing your business and its services.

A new nightclub owner might choose to include the image of a dancer on his flyers, while a sports bar owner would more likely choose something like the image of a football player or a goal post. Businesses will want to choose colors and pictures that catch people’s eyes and make them want to see or learn more about what’s advertised.

Cater to Your Needs

If you have something more specific in mind for your flyer or poster, and you’ve spent time dreaming about your ideal business image, try printing custom posters and flyers that are made just for you.

What’s more, you can upload the logos and images of your partners and affiliated businesses right onto your flyer. That way, when you post your flyers in areas where lots of potential customers will see them, they will also be able to see your partner’s images, all on one convenient flyer.

For small businesses with small budgets, these posters and flyers are as low-cost and high-quality as they come. Start printing for as little as $1.04 per flyer. Depending on what city or town your business is in, you will want to research the best places to legally post your flyers. Once you have this information, the possibilities for reaching potential customers are endless.

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Print Custom Banners for Attention at Outdoor Events

You’ve just been invited to sell your products at a local outdoor venue that has booked the show of the year. Great! But when you’re actually at the show, how will you get the attendees to buy your items? If you’re at a music concert, not by calling out to them, as they probably won’t be able to hear you.

Even if you’re at a trade show or an outdoor market and all your items are neatly displayed before you, all the commotion between the customers and the other businesses trying to get their attention can result in people completely missing your booth.

What’s the Best Way to Get Noticed?

Outdoor banners are one of the top marketing techniques available, and they are showing up everywhere in places you find high volumes of people. In a scenario where people are pressed for time and are bombarded by an almost endless amount of things to spend their money on, like a trade show or outdoor market, putting banners up around your booth is an easy way to catch people’s eyes.

Your products sell themselves, so the key to increased sales in your book is getting people to come to your booth. Print custom-made, giant posters, banners, or signs with your company name and logo right on them. Choose from unlimited colors, and, with state-of-the-art inkjet printing technology, enjoy the beautiful results.

The Value of Branding Your Image

Printing custom banners for display at an outdoor show can also help you brand your business image. Are people having trouble associating your company name or logo with the business services you provide? What better way to mesh the two together than to present them as one on a unique banner!

Many businesses are currently looking for ways to cut costs. Outdoor banners are printed on waterproof vinyl and are extremely durable, so that you can reuse them time, and time again. In addition, all posters are printed with UV stable ink, which last 3-5 years. That’s a long time and a lot of use from one print job.

Attract people to your booth at the next outdoor event you attend with custom banners and posters printed specifically to your liking. Banners (and some posters) come with grommets for easy and secure set up that allows you to do your job without having to worry about how they look. Concentrate on networking and selling products, while your unique banners and posters attract the attention for you.

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Use Custom Banners to Attract Potential Employees at Job Fairs

Job fair season is rapidly approaching, and employers are amping up their recruiting departments to go out there and tap into the resources at hand. The goal is to seek out the best of the best. Employers tend to look for top-notch candidates who exhibit specific characteristics that will help them succeed in a particular position.

Employers have their choice when it comes to job fairs. Choosing the right job fairs to attend is an important task, especially with regard to the type of candidates that recruiters will be meeting and interviewing. Even if an employer has spent time planning out which job fairs to attend, it is still crucial to attract the cream of the crop within each fair.

How to Attract Attention

The easiest way to attract people’s attention at a job fair is to present them with something that they can’t forget. It’s either that, or mastering the art of first impressions (I’d choose the former, but that’s just me). Now what’s more visually stunning than a large, colorful, custom-made banner?

Printing large format posters, banners and signs are great ways to promote awareness for a particular employer in a situation where so many other employers are vying for that attention. When it comes to poster sizes, bigger really is better. The bigger the poster, the more opportunity the business will have to catch the eye of potential employees.

Employees are Consumers Too

Don’t forget that potential employees are consumers too: they may initially be attracted to a business much in the same way any other consumer would be. Rather than using neutral tones, print a banner with the company logo in vivid, bold colors and see how fast people line up to be interviewed.

These banners, posters and signs are all custom-made to fit what each customer wants and needs, and satisfaction is guaranteed or the order will be reprinted. Choose from an unlimited amount of colors; the full Pantone PMS spectrum is up for grabs!

Banners and large format posters can be printed up to 1440 DPI for absolutely amazing color matches, vibrant images and sharp lines. Vinyl banners come with grommets for easy, on-the-spot hanging, so there’s no need to waste time setting up at the fair. Envision the company logo, bright and brilliant, on a massive banner attracting the best talent that job fair has to offer. Now that’s a great reason to print!

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Pitching a Music Festival Fundraiser: The Diversity of Community and Communication

Frank Murdoch has Master’s degrees in Social Work, Vocational Rehabilitation Counseling, and Vision Rehabilitation Therapy. He serves as vice president of a small local non-profit organization devoted to providing services to the physically disabled in the region of Lafayette, Louisiana. Their goal is to provide access to media that might not otherwise be available to those unable to read print materials. Murdoch, an avid comic book fan who lost his vision at the age of twenty-four, has a personal interest in this goal and can readily communicate the importance of the project.

The long-term fundraising goal is $10,000 over the next two years. In the short term, they hope to raise $3,000 to get started.

The group has held successful fundraisers in the past, but they have also experienced some fundraising disappointments, so it’s important that they get this one right. Murdoch plans to offer the board his own pitch for a music and cultural festival, dubbed “The Diversity of Community and Communication.” He likes the theme of diversity because the program addresses “the diverse ways in which to provide information to all of us equally.” The theme would allow him to “incorporate multiple things from the community to our advantage and still press our agenda: more inclusive inclusion of persons with disabilities into the community.”

Murdoch envisions an event showcasing a diversity of cultures, especially in regards to food and music. If his idea is approved by the organization, he will then pitch his idea to various sponsors.

“The first thing I’ll do,” he explains, “is pitch my idea about diversity and equality… then talk about the richness of diversity in the community appealing to their cultural backgrounds and appreciation for food.” He would also discuss how the proposed program could create “more access [for recipients] for everything from cultural awareness events to important governmental practices and then into their pockets: sales and advertising.”

To create a diversity of music, Murdoch would like to approach a diversity of artists. With help from others in the organization, he has complied a list of acts he hopes will agree to perform, including Acadian musician Nellie Harrington, indie group The Wooden Wings, classic rockers Strazza & Company, blues musician Dege Legg, rockabilly group The Howdies, Cajun rock and rap artist Michael Juan Nunez, zydeco groups Nathan Williams and the Zydeco Cha-Chas, Curley Taylor, and Rosie Ledet, and Southern Creole Blues group Henry Gray and the Cats. In addition, he hopes to showcase “an interactive act in between set-ups and breakdowns,” including belly dancers from long-time supporters, Desert Shadows, Oasis Bellydance Studio, and Trybe Habibi Bizarre.

In order to arrange for a prize draw, Murdoch wants to approach local restaurants, to showcase the diversity of food in the community including Cajun, Creole, Asian, Italian, Mexican, and Middle-eastern cuisine. He knows that many businesses “are happy to provide a thirty-dollar gift certificate to promote their restaurant at the gig,” and adds that he could further help his sponsors by providing them with additional publicity. If his pitch goes forward, “several weeks before [the event] people see four thousand fliers around the city and residential areas to inform people that there is going to be an event and who is sponsoring it.”

Murdoch advises those hoping to pitch a similar music festival to think about reaching the broadest possible audience. Of course, you want to create something new and different. Figure out who your crowd is, and then “appeal to that crowd’s mental and emotional aspects that will get them to help you out.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Small Scale Online Educational Fundraising

Peace and Education Coalition, Second Chance Campus offers a year-round alternative high school that “services urban at-risk youth, ages sixteen to twenty-one, who have left their traditional neighborhood school for various reasons such as safety, teen parenthood, going into the workforce, [or] relocation.” For the last nine years, Nancy Salas-Herrera has taught literature and art at one of Peace and Education’s two Chicago campuses, where approximately eighty-five at-risk students work toward their Chicago Public Schools diploma on an accelerated track, in a program that acknowledges their unique needs with features such as on-site daycare and classes held later in the day than at traditional high schools.

Salas-Herrera’s love of teaching originated, she believes, in eight grade, when Ms. Rosemary Shedor at the Sacred Heart of Jesus asked her to teach a history lesson. She remembers, “I jumped at the opportunity!” and she “even threw in a pop quiz.” Then, she realized, “I knew I had to—not wanted, had to—get into teaching.” She wanted to “share, interpret, discuss, deconstruct…to inspire others.”

She describes her art classes as “organic and free,” including “touches of the traditional with a flavor of the unpredictable. I like to incorporate functional crafts, like paper lanterns and loom knitting, and multicultural art from around the world.” To imbue her students with a sense of ownership, she requires them to evaluate and critique their own work, with the help of a guiding rubric, and to defend the grade they feel they deserve.

As a literature teacher, she employs a decidedly interdisciplinary technique, bringing “art, food, film” into the lesson and using whatever methods she can think of to illuminate the subject. While teaching The Kite Runner, for instance, she invited an Afghani restaurateur to cater the class and speak about his homeland. The students also made and flew their own kites, researched the history of Afghanistan and, after they finished the book, watched the film. Other innovative lesson plans have included making papier-mâché helmets for Beowulf, hosting a costumed medieval feast for Canterbury Tales, and evaluating their own homemade Rorschach tests when they read “Flowers for Algernon.”

The Chicago Teacher’s Union provides all CPS teachers with a one hundred dollar stipend, Salas-Herrera’s yearly supply budget.

Typically, her principal provides a ballpark figure regarding available funds for art and selects and purchases student text books. Salas-Herrera researches economical novel sets. “Many times,” she explains, “I get free supplemental materials from the web or swap with other teachers in order to save money.” To supplement her funding, she finds free materials on Craigslist; asks friends, family, and students to donate materials; or chooses projects that require “recyclables or natural objects” such as “branches and sand.” But, to do the project she had in mind for this quarter, she needed markers.

Last year’s markers were done for: old, dried up, and unacceptable. Salas-Herrera required $186 for new markers, to complete a large poster project, as well as teach future lessons in which she wants to “introduce Seurat and pointillism, and pigment dispersion.”

The principal of Peace and Education Coalition, Second Chance Campus encouraged teachers to try a website called DonorsChoose to raise additional funds, and Salas-Herrera was further encouraged in this by the endorsement of other teachers, in addition to such personalities as Ophrah Winfrey and her “darling” Stephen Colbert (to whom she adds: “Mr. Colbert, I have another project brewing. Won’t you please, please help me?”). She found the site “easy to use” and its staff “quick to respond to questions.” She adds, “I like that they are honest [about] how and where the funds are being applied to satisfy the request.” To that end, she created her own DonorsChoose project, “Craving for Crayola Markers.”

Her students were encouraged to spread the word, and Salas-Herrera publicized the project on her own Facebook page. In short order, several patrons of the arts donated the money and she soon had her new materials. “It was a wonderful feeling,” she recalls. “People still believe in art education.” She will “definitely” be using DonorsChoose again.

The students at Peace and Education Coalition, Second Chance Campus face challenges that many high schoolers will never know. They may be culturally limited because they are “are afraid or reluctant to venture out of their neighborhoods,” and they often cope with “financial difficulties, run-ins with the law, drug/alcohol abuse, lots of peer pressure, and teen pregnancy.” Some of them are “struggling learners” who require assistance from special education teachers. Often, their emotional issues come to the fore of the classroom, resulting in “disruptions” and student who “shut down” until Salas-Herrera must talk to them individually to “get to the root of the matter, as much as they allow me to know. Sometimes, they just need to cool and calm themselves down before they can approach the daily lesson.”

It’s a challenging atmosphere, and while the work can be difficult, Salas-Herrera says it’s “awesome that I am teaching right by my old neighborhood, the Back of the Yards. I am grateful that I am giving back to the community where I was born and raised.” Alternative schools, she feels, often get a bad rap, but she wants the world to know that, “these kids are not bad. Most them just made some bad choices, but…aren’t we all flawed at some point in time? I commend them for trying to make it right and graduating with a high school diploma. I think it  is an excellent step onto the right path!”

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Performing Humor and Smart Comedy on Stage

According to his website, robertmac.com, “Robert Mac is a comedy creator, collaborator, connoisseur, and critic,” as well as “the thinking man’s non-thinking man.” A rare breed, he is a stand-up comedian who doesn’t resort to profanity, misogyny, or chest-beating, and still made the Entertainment Business Journal’s list of top one hundred comedians. How does he define his act? That’s “the hardest part of the job,” he says. “How can I tell you what my act is when I can only see it through me-colored glasses? Other people say it’s smart, clever, silly, cerebral.”

He readily admits that he’s chosen a difficult path in life, or, as he puts it, “stand-up is a tough racket.” Still, Mac has been able to find success in his chosen field, performing not only at comedy clubs around the country, but also private and corporate gigs, along with the much-coveted television appearance.

Daily, he battles the dichotomy of the life of an intelligent stand-up performer. “I put a lot of thought into my material,” he says. One the one hand, while “it’s easy to make people laugh…it’s much more rewarding to make them think and keep them guessing.” On the other hand, his experience is that his job involves, “mostly performing for drunks.” The club scene seems to be about “free comedy and expensive drinks, which devalues the comedy. It’s really backward in many ways. The club owners make their money on booze, so they offer cheap or free comedy to get drinkers into the clubs.”

But Mac is committed to this life, and has been for some time. He remembers, as a child, listening to a Steve Martin routine and thinking, “Do people do that as a job?” His first foray into stand-up took place around 1992. He provided some written material for a friend to perform at a local club’s open mic night. “When he did my material on stage, and got laughs, I felt betrayed in a way,” Mac remembers. “I wanted those laughs. After much cajoling, he finally pushed me onstage and my first set was a hit. I was hooked.”

Almost twenty years later, he performs regularly, an iconoclast in an industry where many performers are seeking to reach an audience that is “there to do shots and whoop it up.” By contrast, Mac plays well to a “bright and attentive” audience. Where is his base? He reports, “I do well with people with glasses,” and that he can judge how successful his set has been by how well he feels when he’s done. “If I’m having fun,” he says, “they’re having fun.” His favorite shows, naturally, are “the ones where they are in the palm of my hand the whole time and they let me run the show.”

What else could a comedian ask for? Reportedly, “a few more television appearances.” But he’d settle for the ability to “make a comfortable living as a comedian . . . and I’m making my way toward that.”

Mac uses social networks to share the news about upcoming performances, including Facebook to direct his fans to hyperlinks where they can purchase tickets or make reservations for upcoming shows. Fans can watch clips of his performances on his YouTube channel. He sells CDs and digital downloads online (and hopes to offer more merchandise in the near future), and even writes an occasional blog called Comedy DNA, discussing humor. In terms of weird publicity stunts, however, he rates this article as “probably the unusualest,” thing he has ever done.

Humor, of course, is subjective. “There’s funny in everything,” Mac says, “but it takes a lot to make me laugh. I think I need to be caught off-guard. Today I laughed out loud, literally, watching my friend Myq Kaplan perform on Letterman—funny, smart stuff.”

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QR Code Posters for Educational Fundraising and School Events

What do you know about QR codes?

You’ve probably seen these distinctive, randomly-checkered, black and white squares on advertisements in magazines and other print publicity. Anyone with a smart phone can scan them in an instant, and be transported to a sponsor’s web page for more information.

How does that help your raise more money for your school?

What if that QR code sent students, parents, and other potential donors to a website where they could instantly purchase tickets to an upcoming dance, theatrical performance, fundraising event. What if that site allowed them to make an instant online donation? What if you could do it all at an affordable price?

By combining the power of QR codes with the convenience of our TicketRiver online box office, we’ve created a reliable tool for your school. TicketRiver helps you collect money, whether you’re selling tickets or just asking for charitable donations to support the arts, athletics, the building fund, or any other program that requires cash.

It’s Elementary

We know you’re busy, and that’s why we’ve made the process as streamlined as possible. You can start with a call to our friendly customer support staff at 888.771.0809 and tell them you’d like some QR Code Posters. While you’re setting up your page on TicketRiver (totally free, really easy), they’ll help get your Posters started. You can send our designers any image you’d like to use, have a custom design created just for you, or even choose a combination, like a custom design that incorporates your school logo.

We won’t print or ship your posters until you’re satisfied with the proof, so there’s no risk. When you receive them, the unique QR code will feature prominently in the image, letting everyone know that they can instantly buy tickets or send money with their smart phones.

Time to Shine

Just hang your Posters around the school or wherever you suspect your supporters may lurk. Wherever you go, whatever you do, those QR codes keep working for you, so you can sell tickets or collect donations literally any time, utilizing zero human resources. No one has to sell tickets, collect money, count change, or answer questions. Your TicketRiver page does it all for you!

If you’re looking for a way to move your fundraising campaign into the twenty-first century, capitalize on your students’ love of technology, or raise more money while committing fewer resources to the cause, QR Code Posters are smart way to achieve your goals!

 

 

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QR Code Posters for Fast, Easy, Online Ticket Sales

What if your publicity posters could sell theater tickets for you?

I don’t mean in a metaphorical way: of course, great PR helps you sell tickets. I mean, what if the posters literally sold the tickets, to people who saw them, while they were standing there admiring the posters? What if the moment your patrons saw your advertisement, one feature of that ad was that it would instantly allow them to buy tickets to your upcoming show?

That’s what QR Code Posters from TicketPrinting.com do.

QR codes, those little black and white squares that appear more and more often in our visual environment, allow users to connect directly to websites. Anyone with a smart phone can instantly scan the code and be taken to a page where further information awaits them.

Box Office Bliss

But our QR Code Posters go even further. They don’t just take your patrons to any website; they direct them to your performance’s actual event page at TicketRiver, our online box office. With just a few clicks, your audience can purchase tickets to the upcoming show, without having to walk away from your advertisement, without the possibility that their desire to attend will slip their minds. It’s an instant-gratification ticket sales.

Setting up your event on TicketRiver is fast and easy; the process takes about five minutes and is as simple as entering data into a webform. As long as you have a title and description for your event, along with the time, the location, and the ticket prices, you can get started. The website does the rest: sells seats and collects payments.

Getting your QR Code Posters is even simpler, because our Customer Support staff and talented designers do the work for you. All you have to do is place your order by calling 888.771.0809. You can send us any design you’d like, or let our graphic artists create a custom design for you. We’ll generate the QR code that links to your show and send you a proof for your approval before we start printing.

Waiting in the Wings?

If you’ve been toying with the idea of updating your box office, transitioning to online ticket sales, or just want to add another convenient way for your patrons to get their seats, these QR Code Posters really pull their own weight. They do all the work of your ordinary print publicity, with the powerful bonus of actually selling those seats for you.

It just doesn’t get any simpler than this. Purchase Posters. Sell tickets.

 

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Use Event Badges to Increase Security without Hassle

Security these days can be complicated and expensive. Looking for a way to identify people that won’t take up all of your time? Look no further, one solution is here. And not only is it easy to handle, it won’t break your budget, either.

Personalized Name Tags

Whether you have a group of VIPs to keep an eye on, an entire convention to attend to, or a school to run, security is one of the biggest issues on the books. One way to identify people easily is to print personalized name tags (or event badges) for each person to wear. Each person can wear their name tag while attending an event, arriving at work or going to school, showing others who they are and that they belong on site.

Individual Codes

As an added security measure, you have the option of printing a unique number or barcode on each event badge. Especially in cases where there are a very large number of people around on a daily basis or many attendees at an event, this added layer of security can be useful and informative.

Unique Logos

Print unique logos on your event badges to add even more specialized security to an event, worksite or school. Include almost any design that you can send in a standard file format. Use specific logos to help identify different groups of people, or differentiate between companies at a convention by printing the company logo for each attendee to wear.

Important Details

There may be more information than simply a name or logo that you want to include on a name tag. Any information that can help to identify people quickly and easily can be printed on the event badge. If it can be included in a CSV file, you can include it on an event badge. For example, to print event badges for added school security, add an identifier of either “staff” or “student” to help recognize separate each group.

Event badges are an easy and fast way to add an extra layer of security to any event, site or school. They can be worn clipped right on the front of a uniform, or they can be hung around the neck with a lanyard that can be printed to include a logo as well. Print information on both sides of the event badge to utilize the full space available, or make them double sided so that important information will always be prominently displayed.

 

 

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