Halfway through the year is a great time to do a quick audit of your printed marketing materials. Stuff piles up. Old menus stay in circulation. Cards get printed with the wrong number. By June, most small businesses are circulating at least one piece of print that’s actively hurting them — and they don’t know it because nobody’s looking. Here’s a short checklist.
Pull every piece of print you currently use
Business cards, brochures, menus, flyers, rack cards, takeout boxes, packaging, vehicle graphics. Put them all on a table. The first audit is just: what’s still in circulation? Often you’ll find pieces you forgot existed that are still being handed out by someone on your team.
Check the basics on each piece
Phone number, address, website, hours. These change more than people realize. Old phone numbers that no longer ring through to the right person. Hours that changed during the pandemic and never got updated. A new staff member whose info isn’t reflected. A web URL that points to your old site. Mark anything outdated.
Check the look
Does each piece feel like it’s from the same company? Sometimes the audit reveals that your most-recent brochure has updated branding but your business cards still use the old logo. Or your menu was redesigned but your loyalty card wasn’t. Visual drift is invisible to you (you see them one at a time) but obvious to a customer who sees several at once.
What’s running low?
Don’t wait until you have ten business cards left and need a rush job. Anything below a 60-day supply should go on the reorder list now. Reorders are cheaper when they’re planned, not panicked.
What’s missing?
Is there a piece you don’t have but keep wishing you did? A simple rack card for your service offerings. A loyalty card. A holiday card list. A thank-you note for new customers. The audit often surfaces obvious gaps once you’re looking.
Schedule the followups
Block 2-3 hours on your calendar in the next week to actually handle whatever the audit surfaced. Without scheduling time to do the work, the list just sits.
If you walk through the audit and come up with a list of things to update, bring it in. We can knock through a multi-piece print refresh more efficiently than you’d expect.
Let’s bring your project to life.
Choice1Graphics can help with this — every job we mentioned here, we do in-house at our Webster shop. Have a project in mind? Reach out for a free quote or stop by 505 S Main St, Webster.