Case Studies | Money Saving Tips

3 More Ways to Protect your Printed Business Checks & Documents

  

 delicious  

  

In a previous post, we discussed some of the methods that people of a disreputable persuasion often use to alter printed business checks in an attempt to get their hands on money that doesn’t belong to them. We also talked about three security devices that can be included in your custom business checks to thwart these wrongdoers. Today , we introduce you to three more options that can keep you important business documents secure.

Special security papers. There are actually a handful of security features that fall under the umbrella of special security papers. These are features that are built right into the paper itself: optically dead base sheets, fluorescent fibers, true fourdrinier watermarks, and chemical reactive inks and dyes.

Optically dead base sheets and fluorescent fibers glow with a slight blue tint when they’re placed under a UV light. This is a security feature that a villain can’t reproduce by printing or scanning. If the recipient of a check is suspicious about its authenticity, passing it under a UV light can reveal it for what it is: funny money, or the real deal.

Fourdrinier watermarks are true watermarks. By imprinting the mark during the production of the paper, the watermark can be seen from both sides of the check. This is because the paper is slightly thinner in the watermarked area.

Chemical reactive inks and dyes are another indispensable element of secure checks. Bad guys and gals like to fancy themselves alchemists of sorts; turning stolen checks into a goldmine. Using everything from bleach, acetone, carpet cleaning solutions, and benzene, they’ll do what they can to spot alter or wash a check. Adding chemical reactivity options to your custom business checks means you can foil evil schemes right from the start. These specialized inks and dyes are designed to turn brown, make fluorescent fibers visible without a UV light, and other reactions that alert the recipient to an alteration attempt.

Bleed-through numbering. Usually used for sequential check numbers, bleed-through numbering ensures that when your checks are printed, the check number is visible from both the front and back of the check. This makes it virtually impossible for the evildoer to wash out the check number and replace it with one of their own choosing.

Security screened backers make the photocopying or scanning of your business checks impossible. On the back of check with a security screened backer, you will see the words “Original Document.” By scanning or copying the back of a check, these words disappear, alerting a recipient that the check they’re holding is not, in fact, an original document.

By using these three options combined – special security papers, bleed-through numbering, and security screened backers – you can be confident that your printed business checks will be tamper proof. You can also conduct your everyday business dealings with confidence, knowing that your custom business checks are safe from the tampering hands of reprobates and wrongdoers.

3 Ways to Protect Your Business Checks and Limit Your Liability

  

 delicious  

  

Business checks are one of the most valuable assets to your company, but they can also pose a huge liability through check fraud. To make matters worse, criminals have any number of options at their disposal for misappropriating and altering your business checks for their own nefarious purposes.

Spot altering, check washing, and counterfeiting business checks are just a few of the most common ways that bad guys can gain access to your company’s cash. A counterfeited check can be created with relative ease using simple computer software or by scanning, photocopying, or laser printing. Spot alteration (which is the removal of some information) and check washing (which results in the wiping clean of all information printed on your check) are both accomplished through the use of chemicals, like bleach and acetone. Sometimes, even everyday items like specialized pencil and pen erasers and White Out are used.

But before you sound the panic alarm, take a look at three of the most effective business printing security features that’ll help you stay one step ahead of the unscrupulous: Optical Deterrent Technology (ODT), thermochromic ink, and true and artificial watermarks.

Optical Deterrent Technology (ODT). This is a patented security device that can be printed onto checks and other important documents. If a ne’er-do-well does get a hold of one of your checks, the chance of a successful scan or photocopy being created is nil. Whether using a black and white or color copying process, the word VOID or COPY will appear across the face of the check, alerting any recipient that the check isn’t valid.

Thermochromic ink: it’s not just for mood rings anymore. This ink uses leuco dyes that shift or disappear in response to temperature changes. Just pressing your finger to the ink is enough to change the color, indicating that the check is legitimate. Instructions on the check also let a recipient know how to determine if the ink is present. If there’s no color change, the check recipient will immediately know they’ve been given a fake check.

True and artificial watermarks. Don’t let the word ‘artificial’ fool you. Artificial watermarks are every bit as good as true watermarks. The difference is in how they’re made. A true watermark is pressed into the paper during manufacturing. An artificial watermark is printed on the paper with a special ink that can only be seen at a 45-degree angle. Scanning or photocopying a check with either type will render the watermark invisible, and thus easily identifiable as a fake.

Document security is critical to the financial well-being of your company, but you don’t have to abandon traditional paper check methods to keep yourself safe. By implementing the three methods above, you can continue to do business the way you’ve always done it, but with added security benefits.

Green Trends in the Printing Process

  

 delicious  

  

We all know that the consumers today are interested in the practices of companies with which they do business. Many companies are feeling pressure to restructure their operations to be more environmentally friendly.

Issues related to being environmentally responsible cannot be ignored. Our environment is heavily impacted by all businesses. Some of the impact on our environment is because companies rarely recycle computers or electronic equipment. Paper on the other hand is almost universally recycled and now most of the ink used in the printing process is much more environmentally friendly than in the past

Petroleum-Based Inks are being replaced with vegetable based inks

Petroleum-based inks add to the air pollution in our environment. The problem is that as these inks dry, they emit petroleum and alcohol, while releasing volatile organic compounds (VOCs). In an attempt to control these emissions, numerous printers have begun using environmentally friendly vegetable-based inks. 

Some of the vegetable-based inks are made with corn, soy, walnut or coconut oils.

• These inks reduce or even eliminate VOCs altogether.
• This allows companies to clean their presses with water-based cleaners.
• The soy-based ink may provide more accurate colors than its petroleum-based counterpart may.
• Paper printed with the vegetable-based ink is easier to de-ink than those printed with conventional inks.
• Vegetable-based inks closely resemble their petroleum-based counterparts when considering drying time and rub-resistance.

Many printers that use the environmentally friendly inks enjoy other benefits as well:

• The ability to recycle the aluminum in the printing plates.
• The ability to collect paper waste to be sold to recyclers.
• The improvement of processes, reducing spills and waste.
• Environmentally friendly consumers being proud to do business with them.
• Consumers proudly referring their friends and family to them.

Environmentally friendly inks are one of the many green trends taking place in the printing world and since printing and promotional products remain an important advertising and marketing medium this is good new for businesses and consumers alike.

Vector Art: The Key To Quality Printing

  

 delicious  

  

Have you ever received a print project, anything from business cards to document folders, opened the box to check out the finished product and been disappointed because your logo looks like crap? That's what happens when your printer or promotional merchandise supplier doesn't use vector art or a high resolution bitmap.

You probably have no idea what vector art is, but if you ever buy print or promotional items for your company you should, understanding vector art will save you time, money and headaches.

Vector art is high resolution art work made up of paths which are defined by lines, points and curves represented by mathematical equations. Vector artwork or images can be decreased or increased in size while retaining their sharpness and detail without compromising quality. Vector images usually require less memory and a smaller file size, it is the standard format for corporate logos or illustrations and typography.

Always use vector images for any kind of printing or promotional products that have illustrations or images with type incorporated. If you don't use vector artwork and instead use another format called Bitmap, which is the standard format for JPEG images, TIFF images, GIF images, and PNG images, make sure it's at least 300 DPI to ensure the finished product doesn't come out looking, well, like crap.

This is the primary reason you can't pull a logo or some other image off a website and use it as the artwork for a print or promotional project. Website images are low resolution images with a DPI (dots per inch) of 72 which is fine if you're viewing it on a computer screen but to print that same image you need a resolution of at least 300 DPI (dots per inch).

The other critical thing about vector artwork is that it can be re sized without impacting the quality of the image, this is key for print projects as you often have to re size images to place them where you want them. Check out the images below for an example.

This one uses vector art and you can see that the quality remains consistent even as the size of the image is reduced or enlarged.         

This next image doesn't use vector art, instead it uses the Bitmap format and as you can clearly see the larger we make the image the fuzzier and less distinct it becomes.         

How can this information save you time, money and headaches? When you come up with a logo design or have a graphic artist create artwork for you, make sure when the project is complete you get all the artwork in both formats, vector art and a high resolulution bitmap. This ensures you have the right format for whichever use you choose, on line to be viewed on a screen or off line to be viewed in print or on promotional merchandise.

You'll need both formats anytime you're working on a marketing project whether it's updating your website or producing a printed desk pad calendar as a gift to clients and prospects. When you have all the artwork you need in the correct formats you simply send it off the the appropriate vendor. If you don't have vector art for your printing projects you're stuck trying to recreate it, find it, or chasing after the artist that originally created it, either way it's costly, time consuming, and a headache, all of which you can do without.

Color in Printing: RGB and CMYK Do You Know The Difference

  

 delicious  

  

When ordering printed marketing materials or promotional items with your brand colors, it pays to know that the colors you see on a proof on your computer screen will not necessarily match the colors of the finished, printed product.

Promotional marketing companies send proofs via email so you can review the artwork on your computer before approving the artwork and giving the company permission to begin printing.

However, colors viewed on a computer screen can look different than the same colors printed on a brochure, a t-shirt, an accordion folder, or what ever printed marketing product you might be ordering. That’s because two different technologies are at work on a computer monitor and the process of printing.

Colors on a computer monitor are created using RGB; monitors mix shades of red, green and blue to create all the colors you see on the screen. In contrast, the printing process uses either PMS, colors from the PMS matching system or CMYK which mixes the 4 colors cyan, magenta, yellow and black to create all the colors you see in print. To complicate things further you can also use CMYK to create PMS colors by following each PMS color's CMYK formula, when doing this however you must remember that a CMYK conversion will never give you a pure PMS color.

The bottom line is that anytime you are viewing a proof on a computer monitor you are not seeing the true colors but instead you see a representation of either a PMS color or CMYK colors, created using the RGB technology. The final printed color will be close to what you see but not exact, however if you specify a particular PMS number or a specific CMYK formula your finished printed product will be correct.

It gets real tricky for both the printer and the customer, when the customer receives the finished product and decides they like the color shade they saw on the computer better than the PMS or CMYK color specified but that's a story for another day.

4 Critical Things To Know About Promotional USB Flash Drives

  

 delicious  

  

Promotional USB flash drives are a great business gift and a fantastic way to promote your brand; with more and more data being transferred electronically they are becoming an indispensable tool that your customers can use over and over again.

Promotional USB Flash drives come in numerous shapes and sizes with lots of decorating options for promoting your business. They can easily be attached to a key chain so clients carry them wherever they go, or you can even get them in the size and shape of a credit card that not only fits in a wallet but gives you lot's of space to print your message and promote your brand.

If you're in the market for Promotional USB Flash Drives there are a number of things you need to know to make sure you end up with a quality drive that doesn't let you or your customers down.

The Chip matters, not all chips are the same you need to make sure the flash drives you're ordering come with tier one chips. You can get cheaper promotional flash drives using tier two chips but they're unreliable and you can't promote your brand by giving customers a business tool they can't rely on.

if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Promotional USB Flash Drives have to work, if they don't work they are useless. You need to make sure any USB drive you purchase is coming from a reputable supplier. Almost all flash drives are made in Asia and while there are plenty of reputable suppliers some are questionable and if you're not careful you can up with drives that don't work, or drives that don't have the memory you paid for. Chips are a commodity, all suppliers pay pretty much the same for the chips and they are the most expensive part of the drive. If someone says they can give you the same flash drive for much less than other suppliers watch out something isn't right.

Prices change weekly. Memory chips are the guts of every promotional USB flash drive and memory chips are a pure commodity, the prices fluctuate based on supply and demand constantly. When the Japan earthquake and tsunami hit in March of 2011 the price of chips skyrocketed 50% over supply concerns and chip prices continued to change daily for weeks afterward. When you're in the market for promotional flash drives keep this in mind, if you get a quote this week chances are it's valid for a week or less sometimes only for a couple of days, once you know what you want, lock in the price by placing the order.

The housing matters. Promotional flash drives come in all shapes and sizes; from a standard swivel drive to drives in the shape of a house, a car, or even a Coke bottle. The housing you choose impacts the price particularly if you want some type of custom housing such as a coke bottle. Depending on your budget it may be best to stick with some of the more popular housing options because popularity means volume and volume keeps the prices down.

Promotional USB flash drives are a great promotional gift that your customers and prospects will remember and use. Be educated when buying to ensure the drive is useful for a long time and the memory your customers and potential customers have of your company is a positive one.

Bank Uses Accordion Folder As Perfect Cross Selling Tool

  

 delicious  

  

Every business person knows it's much easier, and less expensive to sell something to an existing customer than it is to find and acquire a brand new customer. The standard rule of thumb is that it costs six times more to sell something to a prospect as it does to sell that same thing to an existing customer. That stat alone should provide plenty of incentive to focus a significant portion of your marketing budget on educating and cross selling existing customers.

The first step and one of the simplest ways to sell more to existing customers is to remind them of all the products and services you offer every chance you get. Washington Savings Bank uses a custom accordion folder as a new customer welcome kit that not only provides new customers with a colorful organization tool but also promotes the banks brand and begins the cross selling process the moment a new customer signs on.

The key is that not only does the accordion folder turned welcome kit include all the appropriate new customer documentation but also includes reminders of all the banks services and incentive coupons to sign up for or try out those services. The accordion folder / Welcome Kit allows Washington Savings Bank to begin cross selling to existing customers from the minute they become a customer.

Not only does the Welcome Kit include copies of the appropriate account opening documents, it also includes all the information a new customer needs about the bank. Everything including a letter from the president, Office listings and locations along with office hours and contact phone numbers, an outline of all the retail banking services they provide as well as all the business services they offer.

More importantly they've included incentives in the form of coupons to entice new customers to sign up for and try some of their more profitable services; direct deposit, on line bill payments, debit card purchases and the most valuable a refer a friend certificate. They also include an entire section on all their personal and business lending services along with a full page outline of their $250 gift card program for any home loan closed.

Clearly Washington Savings Bank has mastered the art of cross selling and up selling existing customers. Turning a custom accordion folder into a Welcome Kit for brand new customers allows that process to begin the moment they bring a customer on board, and to continue every time that new customer refers back to the kit which also serves as a handy document organizer.

There are lots of ways to generate new business from existing customers, integrating that strategy into the welcome process is a very smart way to get started.

Is An Accordion Folder Worth $40,000?

  

 delicious  

  

Can an accordion folder possibly be worth $40,000 to a hospital? It can if it saves them that much or more.

Everyone knows the cost of health care is sky rocketing and as a result many hospitals are struggling to survive. One hospital’s Quality Care Department determined that, on average, readmissions cost them $40,000. Upon further study the hospital determined readmission often occurs due to the patient’s inability to follow after-care instructions because it is unclear and disorganized.

Armed with this data the hospital set out to find a way to provide detailed, organized instructions to every patient being discharged, if they could come up with an inexpensive way to provide better discharge information and instructions that kept just one patient from being readmitted the savings could be huge. The solution: A custom accordion folder became a discharge kit and organizational tool where detailed discharge instructions covering everything from nurse's notes to nutrition guidelines is organized and easily accessible in a portable accordion folder.

The “Discharge Folder” includes 12 sections with color-coded labels. The labels are categorized for ease of use.       

• My important documents.   
• My discharge instructions.
• My medications.
• My procedures.
• From my nurse.
• From my physician.
• Planning for discharge.
• Nutrition.
• Speech.
• Cardiopulmonary.
• Physical therapy.
• Other.

The Discharge Folder is compact, portable, and made from durable plastic, it includes the hospitals logo address and contact information as well as a sleeve for prescriptions and 3 business card sleeves for referral information to other partner providers.

At the very least the Discharge Folder provides each patient with a professional organizational tool that will make following detailed instructions easier leading to a quicker recovery. If it achieves it's goal of preventing even one patient from being readmitted, the accordion folder turned Discharge Kit will pay for itself ten times over making it worth $40,000 or even more.

Accordion Folders Help Expand Educational Opportunities

  

 delicious  

  

Stanford University is committed to expanding educational opportunities for underprivileged students, so much so that they created a foundation to spread the word about low cost or even no cost opportunities available at some of America's best universities.

Expanding Educational Opportunities is a foundation designed to inform underprivledged students about low and no cost educational opportunities at some of the best universities in the country. Many of these promising students have no idea that they might be eligible to attend universities like Stanford, Harvard, or MIT for free. 

The primary method for distributing the information is direct mail and they recently upgraded their information package by replacing a standard two pocket presentation folder with a more useful accordion folder.

The presentation folder didn't have the lasting value they were looking for, they wanted something the recipient would actually keep and use as an ongoing organizational tool. An accordion folder with a set of color coded tabs to organize the paperwork fit the bill perfectly.

Applying to college is a daunting task that requires research, information and organization. The foundation felt that while a standard pocket folder provides a nice package an accordion folder is not only a package for the important information they provide it also becomes a useful organizational tool the students can use as they navigate the entire process.

Pocket folders are packaging for the information age, they are used in almost every industry from health care to banking, from real estate to education. With a little creativity a pocket folder can become more than just a package for delivering information, it can become a useful tool that the recipient uses over and over again.

Pocket Folders: Passport To A Better Life For Animals

  

 delicious  

  

Pocket folders come in many shapes and sizes and serve many purposes, The Humane Society of Silicon Valley uses a pocket folder to create a better life for animals in their community.

The Humane society or HSSV provides many services for both humans and animals, they needed an inexpensive but effective way to market those services and let people know, both what they can get from the society and also how they can donate to help the society meet their mission of saving and enhancing lives of animals.

Pocket folders provide a perfect solution and allowed HSSV to create a passport to a better life for animals in their community. What had been a mishmash of flyer's, information sheets, and various marketing pieces is now an organized, compact, easy to distribute, marketing package that spreads the word about HSSV while saving them lots of time and money.

By combining a mini pocket folder with double sided stacked information sheets HSSV is able to combine all their marketing materials into one complete pocket sized package that contains everything customers need to know about the organization.

They also use the pocket folder passport to cross sell services to existing customers and potential donors. Adding a discount coupon to each information sheet  provides an incentive for customers to try new services and expands awareness of everything the organization offers.

Pocket folders create packaging for organizations offering services that don't fit in a package. Companies spend millions on eye catching packaging that increases brand awareness and name recognition; walk down any supermarket isle and you'll see hundreds of brand names and colorful logos competing for attention. If your organization is like HSSV and offers products and services that don't fit in a package, get creative like they did and think about a pocket folder to create a package containing everything clients and potential customers need to know about your company or organization.