The history of flyer design can be traced back as far as the 16th century to a method of promotion which in itself is a centuries old art and takes the form of poster design. With an improvement in lithograph printing came the birth of the colourful poster as a method to astound as well as advertise. From Toulouse-Lautrec’s first poster, Moulin Rouge to Alphonse Mucha, a Czech living in Paris who designed the first Art Noveau poster the poster was now to be appreciated as a piece of fine art. Between the end of the 18th century and the end of World War II there had been many highly successful and prominent uses of the poster design in promoting everything from Absinthe in Paris, bullfighting in Spain, The Circus in the UK to American conscription with the inspired “I want you” Uncle Sam posters.

In the sixties the flyer design began as a colourful and popular method of mass advertising for those promoters on a low budget and became increasingly popular as psychedelic imagery was incorporated into the design to promote bands The Rolling Stones, The Doors and Pink Floyd.

From the idealistic and mind altering imagery of the 60s came the photocopied and anarchic punk flyers used by punk bands in Britain such as The Sex Pistols and The Buzzcocks. America had its own hardcore punk scene to design for and had flyers promoting The Ramones and The New York Dolls amongst many others. The designs seemed to fit the mood as monotone designs using ripped pages and imagery of DM boots and mohican haired punks were distributed amongst the punk population.

With the birth of electronic dance music came a new wave of design which would lead to the flyer design of the present day. Taking inspiration from the Ecstasy fueled nights and early mornings of raves across Britain the designs usually took the form of hedonistic and surreal imagery with large use of colour.Everything from 3D vectors to fractal shapes were mixed with staring eyes and dancing figures to promote events such as Fantazia, Amnesia and Rezurrection. A spiritual element pervaded across a lot of these early rave flyer designs.

And so to the present where flyer and poster design is now more popular and accessible as it ever has been. Flyers are designed using a mixture of traditional and modern art and feature in galleries and exhibitions across the world. The club flyer is more popular now as a method of promoting your event or in conveying your message to the public in the most colourful and informative way possible. Until the purely digital flyer can replace the printed flyer in accessibility and popularity, flyer design and printing is alive and well.

I bet you didn’t know that there are multiple levels of advertising and promotion that correspond to intent and stage of business. Understanding these levels helps small businesses tailor their promotions and ads to the proper purpose thus making more money. Let’s look a little closer…

Stage 1 – Awareness
Hey mom look at me! Cries the little child who wants attention. One of the biggest threats to small business is the fact that there may be thousands of people out there who need what they offer – but don’t know they exist.

This stage works on the “if you build it they will come” principle. It’s good if you don’t have much competition, or if you are an established brand opening a new location.

This is the most basic form of advertising and it has its uses. Unfortunately most small businesses never move past this level.

Stage 2 – Gain Market Share
This is a very important stage of promotion an advertising. This is where you put your unique selling proposition out there so that people will choose you over a competitor. You have to be compelling in a way your competitors aren’t.

Most advertising (even from a lot of the big guys) just doesn’t go this far. Your job here is to compel action from the customer.

Stage 3 – Increase Consumption
Gaining new customers is very important, but what are you doing to bring your old customers back? What kind of advertising or promotional tactics will increase the frequency and the size of your average purchase.

Advertising to your current customers is not a waste of money. In fact your ROI is likely to be far higher than advertising to get new customers.

Think about ways to get customers to come back more frequently and spend more with you when they do. You can realize an exponential growth in sales if you get these two components down.

Stage 4 – Capitalize on Opportunity
This stage is where you use opportunities to increase sales. What kind of opportunities? How about holiday sales, long weekends, current events?

Be careful about using very bad news for promotion. Being seen as too mercenary can come back to haunt you. There were some companies that sold terrorist insurance after 911 – but I can’t imagine any did well.

However, offering deals to offset rising gas prices or beat the heat of summer deals can be great was to promote all kinds of things.

You can boil these four stages down into finer points of distinction, but mastering just these basics will give you a head start for a more profitable future.

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