What are the most common errors on MMR flyers.

Every year in Italy, millions of flyers are printed and distributed in order to promote the offers of the Mass market Retail.  Supermarkets and hypermarkets chains insert more and more products with different discounts and often the number of pages increases, until they turn the flyer into a brochure or leaflet.

The use of these tools to advertise points of sale and brands sold represents an important part of the budget and for this reason it is very important to optimize the effectiveness of the flyer, to be sure that once printed they will be delivered but above all ... that they are free of errors.

Certainly, it seems that some large retailers have started a strong contraction in the number of promotions, with a consequent decrease in the number of printed flyers, a reduction also due to costs, distribution little followed, the environmental impact for their disposal. This does not mean that Italian consumers still like the paper flyer and the digital version. 

In any case, whether it's paper or digital, the flyer must be punctual and correct.

What are the causes of the errors.

The flyers are born from software programs that are linked to a management and from this take descriptions, prices, features. All this flows into a file that then gives rise to different forms of layouts: promotional flyer, posters on shelves and aisles, stoppers, advertising pages.

It all seems very simple and straightforward but in reality there are multiple actors and different stages of correction. There are price changes at the last moment, products that the buyer wants to insert when the flyer is almost finished and products to be deleted. And this is where the errors are generated, because every time you make a change you have to be sure to intervene on the latest version of the layout. Moreover, as the information comes from phone calls or e-mails, they often contain typing errors which, with copy and paste, are reported on the layout. 

What are the most common errors in a flyer.

One main error concerns the image, which can be of poor quality, not matching the product or the old packaging.

There are serious errors, such as those of a price or a discount, deficiencies that then have to be corrected with warnings, known but always create irritation in consumers There are others that perhaps escape the eyes more distracted, such as some typing error in the descriptions.

Other inaccuracies are due to localisms, where certain food products are called differently depending on the region. Typical is the case of the "Branzino" and the "Spigola", the first preferred in the regions of northern Italy, the second in the south.  Not to mention the carnival sweets: there are more than 20 variants of the word "chiacchiere", "crostoli" or "liars".

How to eliminate errors.

4 Flying has thirty years of experience in the retail sector. The eTEAM solution came into use in the large-scale retail sector, when the need arose to create an image database and thus eliminate the continuous work of shooting and correction. From that moment on, functionality was added to the needs and requests of customers, until developing a real computer application, able to interface with the customer's management and optimize the production of the paper flyer.

The configuration of eTEAM for the retail sector and the production of promotional flyers has these features:

• It is a collaborative platform on which more people can work online

• Drives a well-structured worflow, with processing, control and approval steps

• Maintains an up-to-date image bank and secure data

• Usees DTP, paper and web automatisms

A distinctive element, which generates all the consequent advantages, is the data security: when manual intervention and the insertion of prices and texts by the graphic operator are eliminated, the security of the result increases and eliminates the time lost for the continuous checks on the drafts. This does not mean lack of control, quite the opposite. The workflow that is tailored to the client is divided into several stages on each of which there are approval methods. 

eTEAM, receives the data of the promotional offer through the mainframe of the customer, and with pagination systems proceeds to process and provide the graphic operator with a layout in which all the cartouches are present, with images and correct prices. The graphic operator completes the pages according to the instructions and loads the layout on eTEAM for internal control, certainly relieved of detailed analysis on texts and prices. 

This is the great value of a solution like eTEAM: well-structured, reliable and secure data can dynamically generate promotional flyers and at the same time also signs and other communications to be displayed in stores. In addition, banners and images for social networks or website and e-commerce content can be produced just as quickly.