Newsletters are simple and inexpensive to print yet can convey an enormous amount of important information to recipients. This makes them ideal for both ‘internal’ marketing (to keep staff and stakeholders up to date) and external marketing of your products or services to clients and prospects. As such, they constitute a very useful and versatile component of any sales and marketing strategy.
Benefits of Physical Newsletters vs. Electronic
Another key benefit of physical, printed newsletters is that they are easy to pick up and put down at any time. This allows readers to dip in and dip out of articles whenever they like. Compare that to e-newsletters, which tend to be forgotten the moment they’ve been buried in your in box by more recent emails. The traditional newsletter beats electronic versions hands down in this respect.
Printed newsletters are also far more versatile from the distribution perspective. While e-newsletters arrive only at your handheld device or desktop computer, physical newsletters can find themselves in front of their target audience in a much wider variety of ways. They can be handed out, mailed through the post, left on coffee tables, offered to visitors via company foyers, reception desks and waiting rooms, handed out with other sales and marketing literature like brochures and price lists, used as inserts in other publications and distributions — and so on. Physical newsletters also require no Wi-Fi or data signal to work, so can be perused pretty much anywhere, any time. Try doing all that with an electronic e-newsletter — it’s simply not possible!
Add-ons
Physical, printed newsletters also lend themselves to additional add-ons. These include things like tear-off order forms that people might find useful if they want to order your products or services and those can even come with pressure-sensitive glue and postage pre-applied. All that needs to be done after filling in the form is for the page to be folded so it sticks together in a kind of pre-built envelope, ready to post. Other add-ons include coupons for special offers or voucher codes that the customer can use in-store or via a website. Another great thing to build into a printed newsletter is an element that the recipient might find useful to keep, for example an integral poster, calendar of events or table of key dates for the year ahead. That’ll be a useful reminder of your brand, product or service, all year round.
Newsletter Sizes & Formats
The most cost-effective sizing recommended for newsletter printing is to use one of the ‘A’ sizes. For example, A4 is the most common one used in the UK commercial world. However, A5 and A3 are also feasible while still making the very most out of standard sheet sizes available to printers like us. It goes without saying, though, that there are many other options including square newsletters, triple-page ‘roll fold’ newsletters and so on.
We can, of course, also fold newsletters in half so they’re easier and cheaper to post out, particularly if they don’t contain too many pages and are on paper that’s thin enough to fold when there are multiple pages. It’s a fine balance, though; as one wouldn’t want to make the pages too thin, otherwise you’d start to see what we call ‘show through’ i.e. the ghost of the reverse side of the printed page slightly showing through to the front face that’s being read. There are a great variety of paper thicknesses, weights and finishes to choose from, though, so just ask us about the options.
Paper Finish
At Southside Print we offer a very wide range of different paper stocks for your printed newsletters. We have
Just along the road from Southside Print is Tabard Barbers. One of our nearest SE1 clients, they’ve been keeping us busy recently with quite a few different printing jobs — and very smart they look too. These include:
5000 full colour, digitally printed student ‘information’ cards. These can be thought of as both flyers and postcards depending upon your point of view. Their purpose is to publicise the special offers available to students during a period between September and the end of November 2018. They were printed on 350gsm card-weight material, sized at A6 in a landscape format and were printed to both sides.
Full colour, digitally printed loyalty cards for use by their customers. One version was for men and another for women. They were printed the size of standard credit cards, a size that’s convenient to store in one’s wallet, purse or pocket. One side was left uncoated so it can be rubber stamped each time the customer in question receives a hair cut or treatment of some kind, the idea being that they receive a free cut or treatment once they’ve filled the card with 9 stamps (the tenth being free). The other side was ‘soft touch’ laminated so that the cards feel good, look attractive and are protected from wear, tear and moisture. They were designed and artworked by a local design company based in Borough SE1.
Loyalty cards are a great marketing tool for businesses such as hair salons, barbers and cafés. They quietly encourage repeat business from customers and this loyalty means more profit for those businesses using them. And, because the customer benefits too once they’ve filled their card, it’s a win-win for everyone.
A full colour, digitally printed poster (shown below, right). This was sized at A1, so utilised our large format inkjet printing service. It was mounted to Foam-X, so it was both light weight and rigid.
About Tabard Barbers
Tabard Barbers one of our closest neighbours, being just along the road from Southside Print at 13 Tabard Street, from which they took their name. These days, as being a men’s barber, Tabard is a women’s hair salon which offers outstandingly good value compared to other hair salons in the area, under the fantastic management of the very talented Cece. At Tabard, it’s the full package; you will receive a warm welcome and complimentary refreshments along with “the very best hair styling, grooming and treatments in town” as it says on their website. Men’s grooming services include anything from a buzz cut to a beard trim while ladies’ services include a professional wash, cut and blow dry, hair ups, highlights, comprehensive colouring, bleaching and various treatments. Discounts are also available for students and children up to the age of 14 (see their site for details).
Tabard had an impressive ‘designer’ make-over in recent years and now skilfully combines ultra-modern interior design with historical details like exposed brickwork and stripped floorboards. Indeed, the building’s basement still contains the ancient ovens, which survived from a time when the building was used as a bakery long ago. These were discovered during renovations.
The salon and barbers is now one of the oldest family-run businesses in SE1 and Southwark. It has been in Tabard Street for nearly forty years, having been passed down the generations to the current owner, Dasos Anastasis.
Are you looking for an Order of Service printer for a wedding, funeral or other type of ceremony? We can help with the printing and design if so.
The ceremony itself can be for a wedding, civil ceremony, renewal of vows, a blessing, funeral, remembrance service, religious ceremony and so on. For any of these, an ‘Order of Service’ will be a very useful and welcoming document for the guests who will be attending.
An Order of Service programme is usually produced in a booklet format although can sometimes take the form of a simple double-sided card. At Southside Print, we can design and print it in whatever style you prefer, of course; after all, every ceremony is different.
Typical Content
The front of an Order of Service programme usually shows who and what the ceremony is for along with a time, date and venue.
Then, either on the front or inside, it usually outlines, step by step, what will happen during a ceremony, all in the correct order. The steps can include a welcome message followed by things like readings, hymns, prayers, poems, blessings, music (each usually noting the author etc.), the ceremony itself, perhaps the signing of the register if it’s a wedding — and so on.
Sometimes on the back page, the organiser may choose to thank the guests for coming and to acknowledge key people for their input during the event. These may include anyone who spoke during the ceremony along with, perhaps, naming and thanking people like bridesmaids, the ushers and so on. The back may also mention details for any reception if it’s a wedding or civil ceremony, and how to make donations (often given in lieu of flowers) if it’s a funeral.
Design & Printing Style
Each ceremony is unique and therefore the Order of Service booklet that goes with it should also be unique. Those organising the event will often have a particular look and feel in mind too, so the design style of Order of Service programmes varies widely. The exact type of ceremony will also have a bearing on the most appropriate look and style, of course, so a design for a funeral programme will often look more restrained than one for a wedding. This is where Southside Print can help. We have in-house designers who can take your brief and turn it into exactly what you have in mind for your particular ceremony. With printing and finishing services all in-house too, it means that we can turn the whole job around very quickly and cost-effectively. Our facilities include lamination along with digital foiling, which can really lift your Order of Service away from the ordinary and give it a feel of real quality, all without breaking the bank. So, whether your Order of Service is a multi-page booklet or a simple double-sided card, we can make it look smart and extremely professional.
We also Print Invites, Thank You Cards, Stationery etc.
Another of the things that can make your Order of Service programme and any related stationery really stand out is specialist paper or card. Ask us about this as we have many different options to choose from including textured stocks, tinted stocks, luxury stocks, recycled papers and even luxury lined envelopes. Using any of these can really make your printed piece look superb!
https://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/Order-of-service-featured.jpg4821075Markhttps://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SOUTHSIDE-Print.pngMark2018-09-26 11:50:232018-09-26 12:17:16Looking for an 'Order of Service' Printer?
Sometimes even a supposedly simple piece of design and artwork can meet with unforeseen complications, which can then make printing seemingly impossible. That’s exactly what happened with some business cards for our local client Why Me? recently, when their original artwork went completely missing. They’d had some fairly straight forward business cards produced in the past, but couldn’t locate the original artwork files. That’s where Southside Print’s Matt Potter came to the rescue. Matt is Southside Print’s resident graphic designer. He simply used some of the last few remaining cards as visual reference and, based on those, managed to rebuild the artwork entirely from scratch. He successfully matched fonts, colours, the layout and the design and, in no time at all, the ‘new’ business cards had been printed and supplied to the client — a great outcome for everyone.
Lost your Artwork? Need it Restored?
No problem at all. As with the business cards above, we can usually match fonts or find something very similar if an exact match is not possible. We can also match colours, design layouts and often we can even reproduce or substitute missing graphics. While some graphics are easier to replace than others, our talented design and artwork team can usually save the day and rescue the situation in virtually every case. That’s true whether it’s for business cards, leaflets, brochures or something larger like a poster or display panel. We can supply a free quotation before proceeding, of course, so you’ve nothing to lose by asking us for potential help.
About ‘Why Me?’
Why Me? is a national charity that primarily helps victims of crime to attain some kind of restorative justice. As part of this, the charity’s Restorative Justice Service helps offenders to understand the true impact of their crimes which, in turn, can often help to stop them re-offending in the future. Indeed, this is exactly how the charity started life …
The charity was started by Will Riley, himself a victim of crime. Back in 2002 when Will was a London businessman, a burglar gained entry to his house. Will confronted the burglar, a struggle ensued and Will eventually managed to hand the burglar over to the police. It turned out that the burglar was a career criminal named Peter Woolf. Woolf was sent to prison for the crime but the two men later met again voluntarily at a ‘Restorative Justice’ meeting at Pentonville Prison.
“Imagine the person who has caused you harm is sitting opposite… What would you say?”
Will, the victim, was able to explain the impact of the burglary directly to the offender in question and to obtain answers to some challenging questions. This process turned out to be a healing one and represented quite a turning point for both men. Will Riley subsequently felt that he was no longer fearful of opening his front door and Peter Woolf stopped offending completely, going ‘straight’ after many years of crime. Not only did both men directly benefit but also it meant that potentially hundreds of additional people did not become victims of the burglar once he left prison. Such is the power and potential of Restorative Justice.
The video below explains more and features both Will and Peter, who both now
As we said in our last post, one of the great things about our new online print shop is the ability to order and pay for your printing 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. So, even if it’s the weekend, a Bank Holiday, Christmas Day or 3am in the morning, you can still order your printing without needing to leave your home or office. Of course, you can also order on the go from your mobile device. Either way, you can then tick one more thing off your ‘to do’ list, safe in the knowledge that your job is now already heading into production.
What’s even better, though, is that companies and organisations close to London Bridge, Borough and SE1 can ‘Click & Collect’. There are several benefits:
‘Click & Collect’ is Convenient
When ordering online, simply select ‘Collect in store’ in the Delivery section and then you can collect your printing from our London SE1 shop as soon as it’s ready. Collect at any time during our office hours (9am to 5.30pm week days) or call us to see if we’re likely to be around outside of those hours. Click & Collect means you don’t need to wait in for a delivery and also your printing is going to be as fresh as the moment it came off the printing press.
Click & Collect is Faster
Another huge benefit of Click & Collect is that you can usually get your printing a day sooner than is possible with the ‘delivered’ option.
True 24/7 convenience for print ordering in London & SE1.
Re-Order with a Couple of Clicks
Once you’ve ordered once from our new online print shop, you can log in at any time to see a record of current and historical orders. This makes re-ordering a breeze — simply find a previous order in your account and re-order it without having to start again from scratch. That’s both convenient and a great time-saver!
Rescue Unfinished Orders
Even incomplete orders are included in your order history! Let’s say you were running late for a meeting or were interrupted at the last minute so couldn’t complete your online order. No problem at all — as long as you were logged in when you began, simply log in again when you’re ready to resume and you’ll see your unfinished order right there in your free account. Simply click ‘View’ against the incomplete order concerned and take the final steps to finish it off. With just a click or two, it’ll be queued in our system and heading directly to production.
Know When your Print will be Ready
You’ll know when your order will be ready right away. On every print product order screen, it shows the date that your printing will be ready. In fact two dates are shown — a ‘collect by’ date and a ‘delivery by’ date. So, simply choose whether you would like to collect from the shop or whether you’d prefer to have your printing delivered to your door (usually one working day later than the collection option). Either way, the price is the same*.
Online Printing – from Business Cards to Stationery, Leaflets & Posters
Whether you opt for Free Delivery or Click & Collect, you can order an ever-growing selection of printed products. At time of writing, these include* business cards, stationery packs, letterheads, compliments slips, leaflets (folded or unfolded) and posters (A4 to A0 sizes). Coming soon to the online shop are brochures in a variety of formats (wiro-bound, saddle-stitched and perfect bound) and flyers. Take a look!
https://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/Click-Collect-featured.jpg4821075Markhttps://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SOUTHSIDE-Print.pngMark2018-08-22 11:15:372018-08-22 11:15:37'Click & Collect' Printing in London SE1
At Southside Print, it’s not only about high quality printing, great value, fast turnarounds and excellent customer service, but it’s about convenience for our customer’s too. With that in mind, we’re very pleased to announce the launch of our new online shop. Here, you can order our most popular print items right here on the website, then pay for them using a credit or debit card from the comfort of your home or office. As part of your order, you can request design and artwork for a small additional charge, or simply upload your own if you have a print-ready PDF at the ready. You’ll also see exactly when your printing will be ready at the time of your order. How’s that for convenience!
Buy Your Printing Online!
At time of launch, you can order business cards, letterheads, compliments slips and posters but we’ll be adding more products regularly. Imminent additions include brochures, leaflets and flyers — so watch this space!
Convenient Shopping from Home or Office
The beauty of ordering online is that there is no delay while you wait for quotations, emailed responses and confirmation of specification choices — it’s all here waiting for you on the website. Simply choose from your preferred options (for example paper weight, finish and lamination if needed), confirm your desired quantity and the price will automatically update itself there and then on your screen — instantly.
When ordering online, you’ll also see two dates; a ‘collect by’ date that’s correct if you wish to collect from our print shop in Tabard Street in London SE1, or a ‘delivery by’ date, which is the date your printing should be with you if you decide to request door-to-door delivery to you. You can even see how many hours you have left on the day of your order before the completion date changes. So, all in all, you’ll know exactly where you stand on every detail when you order online from Southside Print’s new web shop.
Buy Business Cards Online from just £27.20*
If you’d like to order your business cards online, they’re available single-sided or double-sided in full colour. Additionally, you can choose to have them laminated in matt or ‘soft touch’ lamination or to keep them ‘natural’ with either an uncoated finish or a silk coated surface. You can also choose to order from 1 to 4 ‘names’ at the same time and this really saves you money from a unit cost perspective. Order from as few as 100 business cards, with prices starting from just £27.20 + VAT at time of writing. Order business card printing online here.
Buy Stationery Online; Letterheads from just £83.75* & Compliments Slips from only £43.75*
The new web shop also allows you to order letterheads or compliments slips online. You can also simplify ordering via our combined letterhead and compliments slip packs, which start from just £127.50 + VAT for 500 of each. Stock options include 100gsm paper and a thicker, smoother 120gsm paper for those looking to give their stationery the ‘wow’ factor. Order letterheads, business cards and stationery bundles online here.
Buy Poster Printing Online, from just £6*
You can also buy poster printing online. Size options include A4, A3, A2, A1 and our enormous A0 posters. During the ordering process you can choose whether you’d like lamination (matt or gloss available) and whether you’d like your poster(s) mounted to 5mm Foam-x, which is a light weight board with a foam core, suitable for indoor applications. Buy poster printing online here.
Pay Online
Our new web shop allows you to pay online easily and quickly. Most credit and debit cards are accepted.
Collection or Delivery
If you’re close to our physical print works in London SE1, you can save a little bit of money by collecting in person once your job is ready. For those further away, choose to have your printing delivered speedily to you when checking out and
Southside Print have been producing a huge variety of digital printing recently for St George The Martyr, a church just down the road in Borough High Street in London’s SE1 district. Having selected us as their local printer some years ago, we’re delighted to say that they’ve remained a very loyal and regular customer and, as such, we’ve printed rather a lot for them in recent months!
Print Examples
Here are just a few examples of print work that we’ve recently supplied:
A series of stunning business cards were printed in full colour on our digital presses before being ‘soft touch laminated’ to both sides. This protects them and gives them a lovely velvety feel to the touch. We printed the cards on 450gsm silk coated stock and the finished result is superb. Note the beautiful imagery that features on one side of each card (see main image above).
The ‘Quest for Community’ poster/leaflet was printed in full colour, both sides onto 170gsm art paper, which has a beautiful gloss finish. This was part of the St George in Southwark Festival back in April 2016 and we rather like the graphics!
More recently, we printed a series of leaflets for the 2018 version of the same festival. Again, these were printed on our digital press, in full colour, once more using 170gsm glossy paper.
Another item that we printed recently for St George The Martyr is the A5 folded ‘New Home’ leaflet/brochure shown in one of the photographs on the right. Like the other leaflets and programmes mentioned above, these were also printed onto 170gsm paper stock except, this time, they had a silk coated finish rather than gloss.
Last but not least in our featured printing for St George The Martyr is a very interesting, perfect bound, 64 page A4 book. This details the history of the church and its surrounding community (see below for further details). The book features 340gsm covers and 170gsm ‘Arcoset’ internal pages and is printed digitally.
St George the Martyr
Today, as an integral part of the local community, the church is open most days and offers regular religious services and a Sunday School along with a varied array of inclusive programmes and events. These include anything from lunchtime concerts to Easter festivals. The church also runs a food bank, hosts The Dragon Café (the flagship project from ‘Mental Fight Club’) and offers a wide variety of additional opportunities to meet other people, get advice and to offer or indeed receive help of one form or another. The church also has a close relationship with its own school, St Jude’s Church of England Primary School, whose pupils sometimes sing at the services. Visitors to the church are always welcomed with open arms including those who would simply like to see the beautiful building itself or to take a look inside.
For some historical facts about St George the Martyr, please see our previous post from October 2015. That touched upon the Medieval and Roman structures uncovered during restoration works, the location originally being the site of a Norman church and the church’s links to Charles Dickens and Marshalsea Prison — it’s quite fascinating!
St George the Martyr’s Heritage
As mentioned above, St George the Martyr has produced some very interesting new booklets which detail the church’s history and that of the surrounding community. It provides a fascinating insight into the ever-changing area around Borough High Street. The lovely new books are available for sale from the church office.
The Church’s Lunch Club
During the summer holidays, St George the Martyr will be running a lunch club for local children and families who may be facing food poverty over the long holidays, particularly in the absence of free school meals during that period. The lunch club will provide a hot 2 course meal, free of charge, along with some fun activities for the children. The club will take place on Tuesdays, from 11am –1pm, between 24th July and 28th August 2018.
The club organisers would love to hear from any volunteers who may be able to offer help including assisting in the kitchen, serving meals, helping with the children’s activities (they are of pre-school and primary age). The church would also be happy to receive any food donations or financial contributions towards the running costs from any willing parties. Please see the contact information below if this is of interest.
Anyone interested in the various activities or projects is welcome to get in touch by
https://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/St-George-Featured.jpg4821075Markhttps://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SOUTHSIDE-Print.pngMark2018-07-25 16:22:542018-07-25 17:03:20Digital Printing for St George the Martyr, Borough
One of the biggest ramifications of the new GDPR legislation is that marketing departments are going to need to re-think the ways in which they contact prospects and customers. In view of this, we believe that there will be a significant increase in the use of direct mail in the coming months and years. In fact, an incredible marketing opportunity exists right now for those who act fast, ahead of the competition.
Direct Mail
In complete contrast to digital and online marketing, Direct Mail is a marketing approach that uses physical, printed promotional materials, which are posted to clients and prospects through the mail. Such marketing pieces can include anything from leaflets, postcards and newsletters to brochures, catalogues and even boxed samples. They can also include personalisation, for example showing the recipient’s name within the actual printed content, creating added impact.
The key steps needed for a typical direct mail campaign include:
Developing a customer database and/or purchasing a mailing list of prospects;
Copywriting, designing and artworking the mailing piece itself;
Printing the mailing piece;
Stuffing envelopes, addressing or labelling and/or otherwise assembling the finished components of the mailer, as applicable;
Dispatching the direct mailer to the customers and prospects. This can be door-to-door or posted to individual addressees …
Then crucially, of course, you need to be ready to handle any responses when they come in. Analysing the results is also extremely worthwhile so that you can learn from the data and improve things in your next direct mail campaign.
Professional Help
Southside Print can help with many of the steps above. Once you’ve supplied us with your mailing list or database, we can turn that into printed labels or, indeed, use a kind of ‘mail merge’ process to personalise envelopes or the direct mail pieces themselves, so that they’re ready to pop straight into the postal system.
With our own in-house graphic designers, we can also make sure that the design and artwork of your marketing piece really looks the business and conveys your promotional message in the best possible way. Clearly and speedily communicating the right message is, after all, just as important as snazzy graphics.
Southside Print are primarily commercial printers, so we can ensure that your printing looks attractive and professional and uses the most appropriate materials, finishes and weights. The weight of your direct marketing piece is crucially important, in fact. Should too heavy a paper or card weight be used, then you might find that your postage costs suddenly escalate. This factor requires careful consideration in terms of not only the thickness and weight of the paper, but also the size. Being a millimetre or gram over a certain threshold can add extra postage costs. When you are sending thousands of direct mail pieces, even just a few extra pence of postage on each item can cost you a small fortune in extra charges, particularly if your recipient database is significantly large. Care needs to be taken and this is one of our great fortes at Southside Print.
Response Rates
So, what kind of response rate can you expect from a direct mail campaign? Well, it all depends upon factors like how closely suited your mailing list is to your product or service and how good your marketing ‘offer’ is in the first place. Also, of course, it depends upon whether you are mailing a ‘house’ list of existing customers (who will be more likely to respond) or an entirely new prospect mailing list, for example one supplied by a professional list provider.
All in all, though, the traditional wisdom is that the average response rate from a direct mail campaign falls typically into the 1% to 5% range, with “an attractive cost per acquisition” according to the Direct Marketing Association (‘DMA’). According to a recent report by the DMA, direct mail significantly outperforms all digital channels, by a long shot. This may, indeed, become even more true now that the GDPR data rules have come into full play. ‘House’ lists usually glean a 5.3% response rate while ‘prospect’ lists typically result in a 2.9% response rate. In contrast to this, digital response rates are significantly lower in comparison (online display advertising 0.9%; email 0.3% [prospect list] to 0.6% [house list]; social media 0.6% and paid search 0.5%). Quite a difference! Cost per acquisition with Direct Mail was shown to be favourable too. However, direct mail was not an outright winner in this respect, being outperformed for that metric by email and social media marketing campaigns, which makes sense given the economy of using those platforms, at least until now — the fortunes of email marketing in particular may soon change now that the new GDPR legislation is in force. Indeed, recent reports from the Royal Mail and other direct marketing associations show that a combination of direct mail and email usually results in the very best results for sales and marketing promotions. So, it makes more sense than ever to integrate both into your marketing strategy.
Direct Mail Formats
Another DMA report showed some very interesting and useful data in respect of formats, with oversize envelopes coming in top position with a 5% response rate. Postcards came in second place with a response rate of
https://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/direct-mai-featured-imagel.jpg468863Markhttps://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SOUTHSIDE-Print.pngMark2018-06-21 16:38:052018-06-21 18:20:30Direct Mail - The Golden Opportunity is NOW
A new football club, the Southwark Dynamos, recently reached out to Southside Print for a possible sponsorship deal. We were more than happy to help and are now proud to announce that Southside Print is the club’s official sponsor for the next two football seasons. Our contribution will help the new club with expenses for training equipment and football kit and our logo will feature on both home and away kits.
A notice on the club’s website made the announcement:
“We are delighted to welcome Southside Print as our Official club sponsor for 2018/ 2019 Football season. Thank you believing in our vision from everyone at the club.”
Caroline Nicholson, the Club Secretary of Southwark Dynamos Football Club, also said:
“Everyone at Southwark Dynamos Football Club is extremely delighted and welcomes Southside Print as our Official Sponsor.”
Southside Print’s Rob Phillips confirmed:
“We are delighted to take up the opportunity to become your title sponsor …. it’s great to be involved”.
The Southwark Dynamos
Southwark Dynamos is an exciting new football club based in Rotherhithe, Southwark, and has the London FA as their governing body. Currently, the club is preparing for the new football season in the South East London & Kent League. As the club says on its website, their aim is ‘to develop and train talented young footballers for tomorrow‘. They help young people take their skills to the next level, preparing them for top-level competitions which will see them playing in front of football professionals. Possible opportunities arising from that include scholarships and even semi-professional or professional football contracts.
The club is family run within the Southwark community and encourages young people – both male and female – to develop their football skills as well as to simply enjoy the sport. Training sessions help to build on skills, strength, agility and stamina as well as facilitating the fabulous opportunities mentioned above. Programs are also run with local schools and youth clubs and include summer football camps.
Staff are fully trained and vetted, with all the requisite safeguarding policies in place at the club. Indeed, all training certification is approved by the FA and other local football associations affiliated with the club.
The Southwark Dynamos train just two-and-a-half miles away from Southside Print at Bacons College Sports Ground in Timber Pond Road, London SE16 6AT (nearest railway station: Rotherhithe). Pre-training and development currently takes place every Saturday between 12 noon and 2pm and the next session is on Saturday 9 June at time of writing.
If you are under sixteen and an avid football player, the club is currently looking for additional players to strengthen its U16s squad ahead of the 2018/2019 football season. So, do get in touch with them if this if of interest. You can call them on 07760 955 978, email them or simply go to one of their Saturday training sessions. More details are available at www.southwarkdynamosfc.co.uk.
If you see printed material that has a mirror-like metallic imprint on it, it’s likely that you’re looking at the printing process known as ‘foiling’. Foiling really gives your printed items an added ‘wow’ factor — any foiled areas will catch the light in a way that other printing processes simply cannot accomplish. Foiling is a great way to set your printing apart from that of your competitors, giving it an extra dimension and almost jewel-like detailing. Foiled areas will glint in the light and give your printed pieces a feel of real quality.
Digital foiling is one of several new services that are now available at Southside Print, courtesy of our Vivid Matrix 530D digital foiling facility. While hot foiling is always available, the new digital foil service offers several benefits over its more traditional counterpart. Here we’ll take a look at the differences, benefits and any limitations of each process.
Similarities
Both processes can accomplish an attractive metallic printed finish to logos, text and graphics, as desired.
Both processes offer a variety of finishes including a mirror-like shine or more muted satin and matt effects.
Both processes offer a variety of colours including anything from the traditional metal colours like silver, gold, rose gold, and copper to more standard colours like blue, green, red, pink and white.
Both processes can also accomplish holographic effects within the metallic coating. These are rather like you might find on a banknote or high quality voucher.
Both processes can also replicate spot varnish effects through the use of clear foils. However, for those looking for the ultimate in high gloss, real U.V. varnishing will accomplish a much higher gloss than is possible using foils.
Digital Foiling
Digital foiling requires no ‘die’ (a bespoke metal stamping block) but requires an additional printing pass compared to traditional hot foiling.
Digital printing can be accomplished almost instantly, whereas traditional hot foiling requires a larger amount of set-up.
Fine detail is possible with both types of foiling, however finer detail can be held using digital foiling.
Because it is not indented (indeed it may even be very slightly raised), digital foil may not catch the light and glint quite so much as the hot foil process, which is stamped hard into the paper or card, causing the indent. However, it’s only a subtle difference.
Supplying a one-off foiled printer’s proof is totally viable with digital printing. With traditional hot foil it would usually be cost-prohibitive on all but the highest budget jobs.
Digital foiling is accomplished entirely in-house, so usually offers speed and cost savings over traditional hot foil, being particularly cost-effective for short to medium volumes of printing.
While digital foiling can accomplish holographic effects, they are limited to just a few options including glitter and rainbow patterns. Unlike with traditional hot foiling, it is not usually possible to have bespoke holographic effects with digital foiling, which is limited to off-the-shelf holographic patterns.
The digital foiling process can use special foils that are printable, meaning that you can print black or coloured graphics over the top of the foiled areas. That is particularly useful if you want the entire background of your job to be foil (e.g. glitter foil) with graphics printed on top of the metallic surface, for example on product packaging.
If your job requires foiling on top of an area already printed with ink, it will have to be laminated first (unlike with traditional hot foil). However, this is not always the case, for example if the printed ink doesn’t meet the foiled area and if the job is printed in a particular order.
Traditional Hot Foil
Traditional hot foiling requires a metal die, which costs more the larger it is. This die is heated and pressed into the paper under high pressure so as to make the foiling film adhere to the paper or card.
The pressure used during the hot foil process causes the underlying paper or card to become indented/debossed. This can be quite attractive, in fact, as it can cause the foiled area to glint and catch the light more readily.
While both digital and traditional hot foiling techniques can ‘print’ in a variety of metals, colours and finishes, traditional foiling has a wider range available.
Traditional hot foiling can use totally bespoke holographic effects e.g. you might want your logo to appear in the holographic ‘image’. As well as adding a unique and attractive feel to the printed piece, such bespoke holograms are also used as security devices because they are harder to copy. However, the added cost needs to be factored in.
Unlike with digital foiling, you never need to laminate your sheets if you don’t want to. Foiling can take place on top of any printed ink when you use the traditional hot foiling process.
Although more expensive than digital foiling for small and medium print quantities, traditional hot foil can save money for particularly large print volumes.
Using Foiling in your Printing
Foiling adds a high quality feel to key details on printed pieces like packaging, stationery, business cards, annual reports, brochures, book covers and wedding stationery and is also a perfect addition for security detailing and top-end bespoke design work. Foiled jobs automatically sell themselves as high quality sales or marketing pieces — almost effortlessly. So if you’re looking to stand out from the crowd and add quality to your brand, we can thoroughly recommend metallic foiling as an option.
https://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/digital-vs-hot-foil-main.jpg4801070Markhttps://www.southsideprintse1.london/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/SOUTHSIDE-Print.pngMark2018-05-16 14:17:172018-06-27 13:12:40Our New Digital Foiling Service vs. Traditional Hot Foil
The Benefits of Printed Newsletters
/in Borough, London, London Bridge, Newsletters, Printers, Printing, Printing services, SE1 /by MarkNewsletters are simple and inexpensive to print yet can convey an enormous amount of important information to recipients. This makes them ideal for both ‘internal’ marketing (to keep staff and stakeholders up to date) and external marketing of your products or services to clients and prospects. As such, they constitute a very useful and versatile component of any sales and marketing strategy.
Benefits of Physical Newsletters vs. Electronic
Another key benefit of physical, printed newsletters is that they are easy to pick up and put down at any time. This allows readers to dip in and dip out of articles whenever they like. Compare that to e-newsletters, which tend to be forgotten the moment they’ve been buried in your in box by more recent emails. The traditional newsletter beats electronic versions hands down in this respect.
Printed newsletters are also far more versatile from the distribution perspective. While e-newsletters arrive only at your handheld device or desktop computer, physical newsletters can find themselves in front of their target audience in a much wider variety of ways. They can be handed out, mailed through the post, left on coffee tables, offered to visitors via company foyers, reception desks and waiting rooms, handed out with other sales and marketing literature like brochures and price lists, used as inserts in other publications and distributions — and so on. Physical newsletters also require no Wi-Fi or data signal to work, so can be perused pretty much anywhere, any time. Try doing all that with an electronic e-newsletter — it’s simply not possible!
Add-ons
Physical, printed newsletters also lend themselves to additional add-ons. These include things like tear-off order forms that people might find useful if they want to order your products or services and those can even come with pressure-sensitive glue and postage pre-applied. All that needs to be done after filling in the form is for the page to be folded so it sticks together in a kind of pre-built envelope, ready to post. Other add-ons include coupons for special offers or voucher codes that the customer can use in-store or via a website. Another great thing to build into a printed newsletter is an element that the recipient might find useful to keep, for example an integral poster, calendar of events or table of key dates for the year ahead. That’ll be a useful reminder of your brand, product or service, all year round.
The most cost-effective sizing recommended for newsletter printing is to use one of the ‘A’ sizes. For example, A4 is the most common one used in the UK commercial world. However, A5 and A3 are also feasible while still making the very most out of standard sheet sizes available to printers like us. It goes without saying, though, that there are many other options including square newsletters, triple-page ‘roll fold’ newsletters and so on.
We can, of course, also fold newsletters in half so they’re easier and cheaper to post out, particularly if they don’t contain too many pages and are on paper that’s thin enough to fold when there are multiple pages. It’s a fine balance, though; as one wouldn’t want to make the pages too thin, otherwise you’d start to see what we call ‘show through’ i.e. the ghost of the reverse side of the printed page slightly showing through to the front face that’s being read. There are a great variety of paper thicknesses, weights and finishes to choose from, though, so just ask us about the options.
Paper Finish
At Southside Print we offer a very wide range of different paper stocks for your printed newsletters. We have
Printing for Tabard Barbers, Tabard Street, SE1
/in Borough, Case studies, Digital printing, Large format printing, Loyalty cards, Marketing Collateral, Postcards, Posters /by MarkJust along the road from Southside Print is Tabard Barbers. One of our nearest SE1 clients, they’ve been keeping us busy recently with quite a few different printing jobs — and very smart they look too. These include:
Loyalty cards are a great marketing tool for businesses such as hair salons, barbers and cafés. They quietly encourage repeat business from customers and this loyalty means more profit for those businesses using them. And, because the customer benefits too once they’ve filled their card, it’s a win-win for everyone.
About Tabard Barbers
Tabard Barbers one of our closest neighbours, being just along the road from Southside Print at 13 Tabard Street, from which they took their name.
These days, as being a men’s barber, Tabard is a women’s hair salon which offers outstandingly good value compared to other hair salons in the area, under the fantastic management of the very talented Cece. At Tabard, it’s the full package; you will receive a warm welcome and complimentary refreshments along with “the very best hair styling, grooming and treatments in town” as it says on their website. Men’s grooming services include anything from a buzz cut to a beard trim while ladies’ services include a professional wash, cut and blow dry, hair ups, highlights, comprehensive colouring, bleaching and various treatments. Discounts are also available for students and children up to the age of 14 (see their site for details).
Tabard had an impressive ‘designer’ make-over in recent years and now skilfully combines ultra-modern interior design with historical details like exposed brickwork and stripped floorboards. Indeed, the building’s basement still contains the ancient ovens, which survived from a time when the building was used as a bakery long ago. These were discovered during renovations.
The salon and barbers is now one of the oldest family-run businesses in SE1 and Southwark. It has been in Tabard Street for nearly forty years, having been passed down the generations to the current owner, Dasos Anastasis.
Looking for an ‘Order of Service’ Printer?
/in Borough, Civic Ceremonies, Funerals, London Bridge, Order of Service, Printers, Printing services, Religious Ceremonies, SE1, Weddings /by MarkAre you looking for an Order of Service printer for a wedding, funeral or other type of ceremony? We can help with the printing and design if so.
The ceremony itself can be for a wedding, civil ceremony, renewal of vows, a blessing, funeral, remembrance service, religious ceremony and so on. For any of these, an ‘Order of Service’ will be a very useful and welcoming document for the guests who will be attending.
An Order of Service programme is usually produced in a booklet format although can sometimes take the form of a simple double-sided card. At Southside Print, we can design and print it in whatever style you prefer, of course; after all, every ceremony is different.
Typical Content
The front of an Order of Service programme usually shows who and what the ceremony is for along with a time, date and venue.
Then, either on the front or inside, it usually outlines, step by step, what will happen during a ceremony, all in the correct order. The steps can include a welcome message followed by things like readings, hymns, prayers, poems, blessings, music (each usually noting the author etc.), the ceremony itself, perhaps the signing of the register if it’s a wedding — and so on.
Sometimes on the back page, the organiser may choose to thank the guests for coming and to acknowledge key people for their input during the event. These may include anyone who spoke during the ceremony along with, perhaps, naming and thanking people like bridesmaids, the ushers and so on. The back may also mention details for any reception if it’s a wedding or civil ceremony, and how to make donations (often given in lieu of flowers) if it’s a funeral.
Design & Printing Style
Each ceremony is unique and therefore the Order of Service booklet that goes with it should also be unique. Those organising the event will often have a particular look and feel in mind too, so the design style of Order of Service programmes varies widely. The exact type of ceremony will also have a bearing on the most appropriate look and style, of course, so a design for a funeral programme will often look more restrained than one for a wedding. This is where Southside Print can help. We have in-house designers who can take your brief and turn it into exactly what you have in mind for your particular ceremony. With printing and finishing services all in-house too, it means that we can turn the whole job around very quickly and cost-effectively. Our facilities include lamination along with digital foiling, which can really lift your Order of Service away from the ordinary and give it a feel of real quality, all without breaking the bank. So, whether your Order of Service is a multi-page booklet or a simple double-sided card, we can make it look smart and extremely professional.
We can also design and print invites, Thank You cards, Save the Date cards and other wedding/ceremony stationery for you along with place setting name cards, menus, table cards, large format table plans and pretty much anything that requires printing for your special event.
Fancy Papers
Another of the things that can make your Order of Service programme and any related stationery really stand out is specialist paper or card. Ask us about this as we have many different options to choose from including textured stocks, tinted stocks, luxury stocks, recycled papers and even luxury lined envelopes. Using any of these can really make your printed piece look superb!
About Southside Print
Southside Print are
Restored Artwork for Restorative Justice
/in Artwork, Borough, Business cards, Buy printing online, Case studies, Digital printing, Graphic designers, London Bridge, Printers, Printing, Printing services, SE1 /by MarkSometimes even a supposedly simple piece of design and artwork can meet with unforeseen complications, which can then make printing seemingly impossible. That’s exactly what happened with some business cards for our local client Why Me? recently, when their original artwork went completely missing. They’d had some fairly straight forward business cards produced in the past, but couldn’t locate the original artwork files. That’s where Southside Print’s Matt Potter came to the rescue. Matt is Southside Print’s resident graphic designer. He simply used some of the last few remaining cards as visual reference and, based on those, managed to rebuild the artwork entirely from scratch. He successfully matched fonts, colours, the layout and the design and, in no time at all, the ‘new’ business cards had been printed and supplied to the client — a great outcome for everyone.
Lost your Artwork? Need it Restored?
No problem at all. As with the business cards above, we can usually match fonts or find something very similar if an exact match is not possible. We can also match colours, design layouts and often we can even reproduce or substitute missing graphics. While some graphics are easier to replace than others, our talented design and artwork team can usually save the day and rescue the situation in virtually every case. That’s true whether it’s for business cards, leaflets, brochures or something larger like a poster or display panel. We can supply a free quotation before proceeding, of course, so you’ve nothing to lose by asking us for potential help.
About ‘Why Me?’
Why Me? is a national charity that primarily helps victims of crime to attain some kind of restorative justice. As part of this, the charity’s Restorative Justice Service helps offenders to understand the true impact of their crimes which, in turn, can often help to stop them re-offending in the future. Indeed, this is exactly how the charity started life …
The charity was started by Will Riley, himself a victim of crime. Back in 2002 when Will was a London businessman, a burglar gained entry to his house. Will confronted the burglar, a struggle ensued and Will eventually managed to hand the burglar over to the police. It turned out that the burglar was a career criminal named Peter Woolf. Woolf was sent to prison for the crime but the two men later met again voluntarily at a ‘Restorative Justice’ meeting at Pentonville Prison.
Will, the victim, was able to explain the impact of the burglary directly to the offender in question and to obtain answers to some challenging questions. This process turned out to be a healing one and represented quite a turning point for both men. Will Riley subsequently felt that he was no longer fearful of opening his front door and Peter Woolf stopped offending completely, going ‘straight’ after many years of crime. Not only did both men directly benefit but also it meant that potentially hundreds of additional people did not become victims of the burglar once he left prison. Such is the power and potential of Restorative Justice.
The video below explains more and features both Will and Peter, who both now
‘Click & Collect’ Printing in London SE1
/in Borough, Business cards, Buy printing online, Click & Collect, Compliments slips, Digital printing, Leaflets, Letterheads, London, London Bridge, Online Printing, Posters, Printers, Printing, SE1, Stationery /by MarkAs we said in our last post, one of the great things about our new online print shop is the ability to order and pay for your printing 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. So, even if it’s the weekend, a Bank Holiday, Christmas Day or 3am in the morning, you can still order your printing without needing to leave your home or office. Of course, you can also order on the go from your mobile device. Either way, you can then tick one more thing off your ‘to do’ list, safe in the knowledge that your job is now already heading into production.
What’s even better, though, is that companies and organisations close to London Bridge, Borough and SE1 can ‘Click & Collect’. There are several benefits:
When ordering online, simply select ‘Collect in store’ in the Delivery section and then you can collect your printing from our London SE1 shop as soon as it’s ready. Collect at any time during our office hours (9am to 5.30pm week days) or call us to see if we’re likely to be around outside of those hours. Click & Collect means you don’t need to wait in for a delivery and also your printing is going to be as fresh as the moment it came off the printing press.
Click & Collect is Faster
Another huge benefit of Click & Collect is that you can usually get your printing a day sooner than is possible with the ‘delivered’ option.
Re-Order with a Couple of Clicks
Once you’ve ordered once from our new online print shop, you can log in at any time to see a record of current and historical orders. This makes re-ordering a breeze — simply find a previous order in your account and re-order it without having to start again from scratch. That’s both convenient and a great time-saver!
Rescue Unfinished Orders
Even incomplete orders are included in your order history! Let’s say you were running late for a meeting or were interrupted at the last minute so couldn’t complete your online order. No problem at all — as long as you were logged in when you began, simply log in again when you’re ready to resume and you’ll see your unfinished order right there in your free account. Simply click ‘View’ against the incomplete order concerned and take the final steps to finish it off. With just a click or two, it’ll be queued in our system and heading directly to production.
Know When your Print will be Ready
You’ll know when your order will be ready right away. On every print product order screen, it shows the date that your printing will be ready. In fact two dates are shown — a ‘collect by’ date and a ‘delivery by’ date. So, simply choose whether you would like to collect from the shop or whether you’d prefer to have your printing delivered to your door (usually one working day later than the collection option). Either way, the price is the same*.
Online Printing – from Business Cards to Stationery, Leaflets & Posters
Whether you opt for Free Delivery or Click & Collect, you can order an ever-growing selection of printed products. At time of writing, these include* business cards, stationery packs, letterheads, compliments slips, leaflets (folded or unfolded) and posters (A4 to A0 sizes). Coming soon to the online shop are brochures in a variety of formats (wiro-bound, saddle-stitched and perfect bound) and flyers. Take a look!
New: Online Print Shop!
/in Business cards, Buy printing online, Compliments slips, Letterheads, Posters, Printers, Printing, Printing services, Stationery /by MarkBuy Your Printing Online!
At time of launch, you can order business cards, letterheads, compliments slips and posters but we’ll be adding more products regularly. Imminent additions include brochures, leaflets and flyers — so watch this space!
Convenient Shopping from Home or Office
The beauty of ordering online is that there is no delay while you wait for quotations, emailed responses and confirmation of specification choices — it’s all here waiting for you on the website. Simply choose from your preferred options (for example paper weight, finish and lamination if needed), confirm your desired quantity and the price will automatically update itself there and then on your screen — instantly.
Buy Business Cards Online from just £27.20*
If you’d like to order your business cards online, they’re available single-sided or double-sided in full colour. Additionally, you can choose to have them laminated in matt or ‘soft touch’ lamination or to keep them ‘natural’ with either an uncoated finish or a silk coated surface. You can also choose to order from 1 to 4 ‘names’ at the same time and this really saves you money from a unit cost perspective. Order from as few as 100 business cards, with prices starting from just £27.20 + VAT at time of writing. Order business card printing online here.
Buy Stationery Online; Letterheads from just £83.75* & Compliments Slips from only £43.75*
The new web shop also allows you to order letterheads or compliments slips online. You can also simplify ordering via our combined letterhead and compliments slip packs, which start from just £127.50 + VAT for 500 of each. Stock options include 100gsm paper and a thicker, smoother 120gsm paper for those looking to give their stationery the ‘wow’ factor. Order letterheads, business cards and stationery bundles online here.
Buy Poster Printing Online, from just £6*
Pay Online
Our new web shop allows you to pay online easily and quickly. Most credit and debit cards are accepted.
Collection or Delivery
If you’re close to our physical print works in London SE1, you can save a little bit of money by collecting in person once your job is ready. For those further away, choose to have your printing delivered speedily to you when checking out and
Digital Printing for St George the Martyr, Borough
/in Booklets, Borough, Brochures, Business cards, Case studies, Digital printing, Flyers, Leaflets, London Bridge, Perfect Binding, Posters, Printers, Printing services, SE1, South London /by MarkPrint Examples
Here are just a few examples of print work that we’ve recently supplied:
Today, as an integral part of the local community, the church is open most days and offers regular religious services and a Sunday School along with a varied array of inclusive programmes and events. These include anything from lunchtime concerts to Easter festivals. The church also runs a food bank, hosts The Dragon Café (the flagship project from ‘Mental Fight Club’) and offers a wide variety of additional opportunities to meet other people, get advice and to offer or indeed receive help of one form or another. The church also has a close relationship with its own school, St Jude’s Church of England Primary School, whose pupils sometimes sing at the services. Visitors to the church are always welcomed with open arms including those who would simply like to see the beautiful building itself or to take a look inside.
For some historical facts about St George the Martyr, please see our previous post from October 2015. That touched upon the Medieval and Roman structures uncovered during restoration works, the location originally being the site of a Norman church and the church’s links to Charles Dickens and Marshalsea Prison — it’s quite fascinating!
As mentioned above, St George the Martyr has produced some very interesting new booklets which detail the church’s history and that of the surrounding community. It provides a fascinating insight into the ever-changing area around Borough High Street. The lovely new books are available for sale from the church office.
The Church’s Lunch Club
During the summer holidays, St George the Martyr will be running a lunch club for local children and families who may be facing food poverty over the long holidays, particularly in the absence of free school meals during that period. The lunch club will provide a hot 2 course meal, free of charge, along with some fun activities for the children. The club will take place on Tuesdays, from 11am –1pm, between 24th July and 28th August 2018.
The club organisers would love to hear from any volunteers who may be able to offer help including assisting in the kitchen, serving meals, helping with the children’s activities (they are of pre-school and primary age). The church would also be happy to receive any food donations or financial contributions towards the running costs from any willing parties. Please see the contact information below if this is of interest.
Anyone interested in the various activities or projects is welcome to get in touch by
Direct Mail – The Golden Opportunity is NOW
/in Borough, Direct mail, London, London Bridge, Mailers, South London /by MarkOne of the biggest ramifications of the new GDPR legislation is that marketing departments are going to need to re-think the ways in which they contact prospects and customers. In view of this, we believe that there will be a significant increase in the use of direct mail in the coming months and years. In fact, an incredible marketing opportunity exists right now for those who act fast, ahead of the competition.
Direct Mail
In complete contrast to digital and online marketing, Direct Mail is a marketing approach that uses physical, printed promotional materials, which are posted to clients and prospects through the mail. Such marketing pieces can include anything from leaflets, postcards and newsletters to brochures, catalogues and even boxed samples. They can also include personalisation, for example showing the recipient’s name within the actual printed content, creating added impact.
The key steps needed for a typical direct mail campaign include:
Then crucially, of course, you need to be ready to handle any responses when they come in. Analysing the results is also extremely worthwhile so that you can learn from the data and improve things in your next direct mail campaign.
Professional Help
Southside Print can help with many of the steps above. Once you’ve supplied us with your mailing list or database, we can turn that into printed labels or, indeed, use a kind of ‘mail merge’ process to personalise envelopes or the direct mail pieces themselves, so that they’re ready to pop straight into the postal system.
With our own in-house graphic designers, we can also make sure that the design and artwork of your marketing piece really looks the business and conveys your promotional message in the best possible way. Clearly and speedily communicating the right message is, after all, just as important as snazzy graphics.
Southside Print are primarily commercial printers, so we can ensure that your printing looks attractive and professional and uses the most appropriate materials, finishes and weights. The weight of your direct marketing piece is crucially important, in fact. Should too heavy a paper or card weight be used, then you might find that your postage costs suddenly escalate. This factor requires careful consideration in terms of not only the thickness and weight of the paper, but also the size. Being a millimetre or gram over a certain threshold can add extra postage costs. When you are sending thousands of direct mail pieces, even just a few extra pence of postage on each item can cost you a small fortune in extra charges, particularly if your recipient database is significantly large. Care needs to be taken and this is one of our great fortes at Southside Print.
Response Rates
So, what kind of response rate can you expect from a direct mail campaign? Well, it all depends upon factors like how closely suited your mailing list is to your product or service and how good your marketing ‘offer’ is in the first place. Also, of course, it depends upon whether you are mailing a ‘house’ list of existing customers (who will be more likely to respond) or an entirely new prospect mailing list, for example one supplied by a professional list provider.
All in all, though, the traditional wisdom is that the average response rate from a direct mail campaign falls typically into the 1% to 5% range, with “an attractive cost per acquisition” according to the Direct Marketing Association (‘DMA’). According to a recent report by the DMA, direct mail significantly outperforms all digital channels, by a long shot. This may, indeed, become even more true now that the GDPR data rules have come into full play. ‘House’ lists usually glean a 5.3% response rate while ‘prospect’ lists typically result in a 2.9% response rate. In contrast to this, digital response rates are significantly lower in comparison (online display advertising 0.9%; email 0.3% [prospect list] to 0.6% [house list]; social media 0.6% and paid search 0.5%). Quite a difference! Cost per acquisition with Direct Mail was shown to be favourable too. However, direct mail was not an outright winner in this respect, being outperformed for that metric by email and social media marketing campaigns, which makes sense given the economy of using those platforms, at least until now — the fortunes of email marketing in particular may soon change now that the new GDPR legislation is in force. Indeed, recent reports from the Royal Mail and other direct marketing associations show that a combination of direct mail and email usually results in the very best results for sales and marketing promotions. So, it makes more sense than ever to integrate both into your marketing strategy.
Direct Mail Formats
Another DMA report showed some very interesting and useful data in respect of formats, with oversize envelopes coming in top position with a 5% response rate. Postcards came in second place with a response rate of
Southwark Dynamos Score with Southside Print!
/in Borough, Digital printing, Football, Large format printing, Litho printing, London Bridge, Official sponsor, Printers, Printing, Printing services, South London, Southside Print, Southwark /by MarkA new football club, the Southwark Dynamos, recently reached out to Southside Print for a possible sponsorship deal. We were more than happy to help and are now proud to announce that Southside Print is the club’s official sponsor for the next two football seasons. Our contribution will help the new club with expenses for training equipment and football kit and our logo will feature on both home and away kits.
A notice on the club’s website made the announcement:
Caroline Nicholson, the Club Secretary of Southwark Dynamos Football Club, also said:
Southside Print’s Rob Phillips confirmed:
Southwark Dynamos is an exciting new football club based in Rotherhithe, Southwark, and has the London FA as their governing body. Currently, the club is preparing for the new football season in the South East London & Kent League. As the club says on its website, their aim is ‘to develop and train talented young footballers for tomorrow‘. They help young people take their skills to the next level, preparing them for top-level competitions which will see them playing in front of football professionals. Possible opportunities arising from that include scholarships and even semi-professional or professional football contracts.
The club is family run within the Southwark community and encourages young people – both male and female – to develop their football skills as well as to simply enjoy the sport. Training sessions help to build on skills, strength, agility and stamina as well as facilitating the fabulous opportunities mentioned above. Programs are also run with local schools and youth clubs and include summer football camps.
Staff are fully trained and vetted, with all the requisite safeguarding policies in place at the club. Indeed, all training certification is approved by the FA and other local football associations affiliated with the club.
The Southwark Dynamos train just two-and-a-half miles away from Southside Print at Bacons College Sports Ground in Timber Pond Road, London SE16 6AT (nearest railway station: Rotherhithe). Pre-training and development currently takes place every Saturday between 12 noon and 2pm and the next session is on Saturday 9 June at time of writing.
If you are under sixteen and an avid football player, the club is currently looking for additional players to strengthen its U16s squad ahead of the 2018/2019 football season. So, do get in touch with them if this if of interest. You can call them on 07760 955 978, email them or simply go to one of their Saturday training sessions. More details are available at www.southwarkdynamosfc.co.uk.
Southside Print
Southside Print is based in Tabard Street in London SE1, close to Borough and London Bridge stations. We’re commercial digital printers, large format printers and graphic designers and also offer additional print-related services like in-house digital foiling, perfect binding, gloss, matt and soft-touch lamination and, of course, litho printing for those who need spot colour or particularly high volumes of printing.
Southside Print primarily services
Our New Digital Foiling Service vs. Traditional Hot Foil
/in Borough, Digital foiling, Digital printing, Foil blocking, Foiling, London, London Bridge /by MarkIf you see printed material that has a mirror-like metallic imprint on it, it’s likely that you’re looking at the printing process known as ‘foiling’. Foiling really gives your printed items an added ‘wow’ factor — any foiled areas will catch the light in a way that other printing processes simply cannot accomplish. Foiling is a great way to set your printing apart from that of your competitors, giving it an extra dimension and almost jewel-like detailing. Foiled areas will glint in the light and give your printed pieces a feel of real quality.
Digital foiling is one of several new services that are now available at Southside Print, courtesy of our Vivid Matrix 530D digital foiling facility. While hot foiling is always available, the new digital foil service offers several benefits over its more traditional counterpart. Here we’ll take a look at the differences, benefits and any limitations of each process.
Similarities
Using Foiling in your Printing
Foiling adds a high quality feel to key details on printed pieces like packaging, stationery, business cards, annual reports, brochures, book covers and wedding stationery and is also a perfect addition for security detailing and top-end bespoke design work. Foiled jobs automatically sell themselves as high quality sales or marketing pieces — almost effortlessly. So if you’re looking to stand out from the crowd and add quality to your brand, we can thoroughly recommend metallic foiling as an option.
If you