Posters are an ideal product for bulk printing. printing cheap wholesale posters is the dream of any marketer or company looking to run their campaign, advertising their business, products or service, promoting their event or as an artist mass producing their artwork on a low budget.
Cheap wholesale posters are perfect when you’re on a tight budget. To help you run your campaign or printing project even more economically, we’ve outlined 12 top tips to help you save money by printing wholesale posters cost-effectively.
1. Determine precisely how many posters you need
The sooner you know the exact number of posters you need to print, the better. As you progress with your marketing, the number may change, but as long as you know all the factors that go into it, you can easily adjust it. Knowing the absolute minimum is good, but keep in mind that the optimum number is usually above it. Having a few more posters on hand gives you a safety margin for mishaps. Knowing your needs will help you take the next step.
Make sure you order a few more prints than you think you need.
2. Set your goals
To get the best option when printing cheap wholesale posters, you need to state a goal that you want to achieve.
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If you want to sell the posters, this could be the minimum profit you want to make on each unit.
If your banners are for promotional purposes, ideally you should know the effectiveness of your campaign, i.e. the number of conversions, acquisitions, leads, registrations or products sold.
Customer behaviour can be difficult to gauge, especially when you are active on multiple channels. Over time, you’ll gather valuable data on the performance of each run, but at the most basic level, think in terms of cost per piece.
- Compare the absolute minimum quantity with a higher print volume: the cost of each individual poster is reduced on larger quantity orders, and will allow you to reach a wider audience.
- It’s a balancing act: don’t aim for the moon, but whether you’re marketing or selling, definitely print all the posters you need at once. Staggering orders for the volume you need will incur higher costs.
3. Distribute wisely
The distribution of your posters encompasses your list of customers or prospects, a strategy for targeting them and a method of delivery.
You’re hardly going to sell all the posters in person or place them yourself in places that are relevant to your target audience, but the more you can save on distribution, the better.
As a business or professional, the important thing is to print cheap posters in bulk, stretch your budget as far as possible and target your audience in places that are relevant to them. Know your demographic, because at the end of the day, you only have a limited amount of posters.
Make sure your distribution team is doing a great job of getting them in front of the prospects that are important to your campaign.
If you’re going to sell your posters or simply need them at an event, figure shipping costs into your overall budget as early as possible. Size (and weight) will play a role here and could influence your decision on the exact size of the poster you order.
Rationalise your distribution costs by checking the details with your mailing service in advance.
4. Choose the right size and options
Posters are available in eight different sizes and you can choose from five types of paper. There are also options for custom sizes, although you will need to allow for a surcharge.
Only you can ultimately determine what size and options are right for your needs, but here are a few pointers:
Does your sign want to stand out because of its size, or can you grab people’s attention with a standard size and eye-catching design?
Will you need to send the posters by post, and if so, is there a size that is definitely cheaper to send by courier?
All paper offers great quality, but for promotions a lower grammage will usually suffice. You’ll only need to go above 130g if your posters are going to be on display for a long time. Double-sided prints, of course, only make sense if you’re going to hang them in places like window fronts.
5. Avoid stock photos
Stock images are a useful tool, but they require a licence fee. If you resort to free images, they will either scream “stock photo” or be so popular that others have (over) used them before you.
Make a unique design.
Stock photography, in general, has a vague sense of familiarity that is not usually associated with great design. Focus on the central idea or information of your poster and illustrate it with simple vector art and clear typography.
Be careful when using stock photos, unless they’re from a good image bank
6. For printing cheap wholesale posters book your design quote
The success of your poster is determined by great design. If you’re hiring a designer to handle it, keep your two budgets for printing and design separate.
Avoid cannibalising one for the other. Designers don’t work for free; if you pay a pittance, your poster will end up looking skimpy. At the other extreme, if you let design eat into your printing budget, your great poster won’t be able to unfold to its full effect.
7. Design your own
If you take matters into your own hands, you can free up a large part of your budget. However, designing your own poster obviously requires a lot more than PowerPoint skills. Luckily, there are plenty of free resources you can use. Take inspiration from featured poster designs and find a free design template to build your poster around.
Remember: don’t copy someone else’s work, as it can cost you in the long run. Just look at the originality and effectiveness of guerrilla marketing.
8. Customise your posters
As an artist, the easiest option to personalise your poster for sale is with your autograph. A sharpie signature is possible on all types of paper, but if you’re going to create mixed media pieces by painting on your posters, consider a paper weight of 120gsm or heavier.
As a marketer, you can customise your posters, for example as a set for specific locations, areas or events. However, this involves higher production costs due to smaller print runs. You will have to determine whether the higher return on investment is worth it.
Alternatively, you can print a QR code on your sign that leads to a website, newsletter sign-up or event app, and segment your potential customers to target them specifically.
9. Save on fonts
First of all, don’t use too many fonts. It’s best to limit yourself to one or two and differentiate them with font weights. Don’t overload your poster with too much typography and too many typefaces.
Professional fonts also come at a cost. There are many font foundries where you can get free font substitutes that will also look great, but always check the licence to see if you can use it commercially. For example in Dafont you can set the filters to “100% free to use”.
Stay with one or maximum two fonts to save some money if you choose the paid ones.
10. Use the right blacks
If your poster design uses a lot of black (for example, in the background), it is especially important to find the right colour values for the black tones. For example, for CMYK, values of 100%, 30%, 30%, 30%, 30% produce the best black. Not taking this into account can make your poster look washed out and appear grey in print. Ultimately, this is a matter you should discuss with your printer.
How does this affect your budget? You’ll avoid having posters that have zero ROI because they look unattractive, or having to reprint because of the wrong colours.
11. Review and proofread your poster
We can’t fail to mention it: a very effective way to print cheap wholesale posters and keep costs down is simply to avoid reprints due to errors. So check, double-check and proofread your poster before sending it to us for printing.
Detect all typos and misspellings, find all design flaws and make sure your poster meets the printer’s requirements. If you have hired an external designer, make sure you let them know this from the start.
12. Finally, consider the context
An event or campaign poster may only be used once, or for a limited time. But most likely there will be several occasions and even different channels where you can use your poster.
Maybe you can reuse the design as an e-book cover, website pop-up, t-shirt design or other analogue medium.
Don’t get endless recycling or saturate your audience, but transferring your poster to other media in a creative way can save you some marketing dollars.
Use our tips to stretch your budget to the max, print cheap posters in bulk and maximise your return on investment.
If you know any more tips for printing cheap wholesale posters, please comment 🙂