Nothing grabs the interest of prospective donors better than unique direct mail campaigns. When crafting your marketing campaigns, it is important to be as creative as possible in order to successfully appeal to targeted individuals. You can send letters with personalized content to individuals and/or get creative with images and graphics. In addition to getting crafty with the content, organizations can also opt to use different types of paper or print materials, including specialty inks, to truly give individuals a unique experience and to provide them with a positive outlook of your organization’s brand.
Why Use Specialty Inks?
It’s easy for nonprofit organizations to disregard the importance of branding. After all, the heart of what you do is not about earning a profit but making a difference for a cause. However, adding a unique look and feel to the material your organization produces can help instill more interest in potential donors, and cement the interest of current donors.
Specialty inks can help organizations looking to diversify their marketing campaigns or set themselves apart from other organizations. Specialty inks come in two types: thermochromic or photochromic.
Thermochromic ink is a type of dye that changes color when temperatures increase or decrease, while photochromic ink changes color when exposed to ultraviolet light, typically from the sun or a black light. Rather than having to select standard monochrome ink or one color at a time, such as blue and red, organizations can take advantage of specialty ink which is versatile and can alter in color. Specialty ink can be used for many purposes and provides organizations with several benefits. Below are just a few benefits specialty ink offers to organizations, as well as their members:
Security
When your printing methods are diversified, it becomes harder for other organizations, for example, to duplicate your work. Specialty inks provide an added measure of security for organizations looking to protect and individualize their brand.
Let’s say an organization is sending announcements with a discount to advertise their charity race. If that organization uses specialty ink (such as raised ink) to craft an intricate announcement / coupon code with specific color schemes, other organizations or counterfeiters will be unable to duplicate the announcement due to its complexity. With the option to change color with human touch, heat, and/or light, printed projects become practically impossible to counterfeit and very difficult to acquire.Other examples included invisible ink to validate event tickets or using reflective ink on gift cards.
Additionally, those printed objects become an important point of discussion for recipients and create shareable moments organizations seek to create.
Brand Distinction/Identity
In addition to security, using specialty ink also allows organizations to distinguish themselves from other organizations. Just like Coca-Cola has unique colors and fonts specific to them, nonprofit organizations can do the same within their direct mail campaigns.
Have your members associate your organization with specific color schemes or fonts as well. Luckily, with printers such as the HP Indigo Digital Press, organizations can luminate mail pieces with glowing inks and more. The Indigo printer, for example, lets you add various color schemes to a large variety of printed materials, such as magazines, promotional content, posters, and greeting cards among other items. Specialty inks enable organizations to create personalized marketing campaigns using unique materials and allows your direct mail pieces to stand out from the crowd.
