Sun & Sales: 5 Print Products to Heat up Your Summer Marketing

Whether you’re a retail business and want to showcase a linen collection, a cafe with a cookbook featuring light summer fare or a community organization promoting activities and classes, Saddle Stitch Booklets ensure you’ve got it made in the shade.

With room for up to 64 pages laid together and stapled through the fold line, a saddle stitched binding gives you plenty of space for artwork and text in custom layouts. Captivate customers and clients with full-color imagery that makes a splash, premium stocks that look and feel just right and UV coatings that protect your summer marketing content.

For Michael Kane, director of marketing for Karen Kane, saddle stitch book printing beat the heat. “This was a format [that] has always resonated with our customers. It looks polished and professional and lends itself to a wide range of projects,” he said.

Designed with full-page imagery of casual dresses and flowy tops in front of airy backdrops with minimal text, Kane’s custom booklets were not only a selling tool, but also a brand asset.

“This book allowed us to help buyers visually see our collection in print, while also reviewing samples, so they could picture how everything would look merchandised together in their stores,” said Kane.

Another way to have a profit picnic from summer marketing? Custom Postcards. First, we suggest forgetting what you think you know about them – it’s not all hellos and how are yous. We’re talking marketing postcards, recipe cards with grilling tips, event promotion and package inserts.

With a wide range of custom options, you can do more than dip your toe into postcard printing. Try a vertical orientation for summer camp announcements and list details from top to bottom. Or plot plant progress from left to right while promoting gardening classes. And do either with coated and uncoated paper stock options.

For Morgan Behnke-Conard, graphic designer at Paperkite, personalized postcards ensured her client, The Farmers’ Museum, stayed top of mind during busy summer months.

“The Farmers’ Museum is active online through social and email marketing, but we also like to keep a connection to their active fans and members with pieces like this. It’s a tactile and immediate way for them to keep in touch,” Behnke-Conard said.

Behnke-Conard’s bright color choice put a sunshiny spotlight on the museum’s activity schedule, ensuring an attention-getting appearance. Another way to not get lost in the crowd? Add perforation to create instant RSVPs for events, coupons, loyalty punch cards or business cards.

And while our stock and finishing options helped Behnke-Conard amidst the crazy days of summer, so did our easy online ordering platform. “Smartpress has been our go-to for years,” she said. “The pricing is competitive and the online tools and customer service keep our jobs on track.”

A surefire way to ensure your sales are sunny side up is adding custom Brochures to your summer marketing mix. With more than 10 brochure folds to choose from, Smartpress is the online printer that lets your creativity soar.

Showcasing products and services? Try a single fold. Advertising summer rec programs at your community center? Go with a traditional tri-fold. Need a lot of space for a lot of graphics? The double/French fold is for you.

Just remember to consider the paper weight for your summer marketing brochures. Smartpress offers both text and cover weights so you’re free to advertise however you like. But which one do you choose? Think of it this way: the more folds you have, the lighter your stock should be. We recommend using a cover stock for one or two folds and text stock for three or more.

(Hint: Folds that aren’t compatible with the stock you choose will not be select-able in the Folding Options dropdown on the product page, so you can’t go wrong.)

Nothing says summertime quite like a sunny patio. Entice regulars and newcomers to sit and sip a while with convenient Waterproof Menus. Printed on a synthetic waterproof stock, these custom menus are easy to sanitize so you waste no time turning over tables while customers rest assured knowing safety and cleanliness are top priorities.

Whether you’re showcasing creative cocktails, printing happy hour menus with apps and taps or designing themed menus for poolside loungers, Smartpress lets you experiment with ultra gloss or matte coatings, scoring, drill holes, rounded corners and more.

A must for restaurants, breweries and wineries, waterproof menu printing cannonballs perfectly into hotel, water park and community pool marketing collateral, too – no courtyard, food court or concession stand can go without it.

That was the case for Jennifer Halliday, creative director at WW Hospitality Marketing. Halliday’s summer marketing included designing synthetic menus for her client’s pool happy hour, doubling the real estate with double-sided printing and simple seaside graphics.

“Our clients are always blown away by the quality of Smartpress products, timeliness of production and shipping,” said Halliday. “We are always impressed with the attention to detail and excellent customer service provided by the team.”

Design Tip: Print your own menus for multiple services with Versions. As long as your printing specs are the same, you can design multiple menus with different artwork and content. Think of the time and money you’ll save on printing lunch, dinner and happy hour menus in the same order!

Whatever your business goals, from building capital to boosting attendance, Small Posters can do it all. With custom sizes, stocks and finishes, our poster printing lets you go big and bold with text, a focus on artwork or both. And since school’s out for summer, your details get seen by even more potential customers and event attendees.

Shipping flat, our custom posters are all the advertising you need. Print your own posters to announce events like movies in the park and food truck festivals or promote golf tournaments, garden tours and fundraising barbecues.

However you use marketing posters, finish them off with a coating or laminate so they stay protected as they’re displayed in neighborhoods and your community.

Design Tip: Order shrink wrapping to keep your posters protected and organized until you’re ready to use them. As part of our online printing services, we can even add chipboard between posters so they don’t bend, fold or crease.