Using Graphics to Enhance One's Business Card

It's not rocket science, and you don't need to have a doctorate degree in graphic arts to design custom business cards that will grab attention, as well as be able to utilize them for a long time. You just need a few tips and simple techniques to make your business card printing a successful marketing tool that generates leads for your business.

Here is useful information to help you create effective custom business cards all the time:

What's your objective?
It's always the first step to have when creating any marketing tool for any business - how will your business card printing be used? What do you intend to do with your business card? Where will you distribute your cards? When will you distribute them? And most importantly, who will you hand them out to?

Whether your purpose is to generate new prospects minus the personal contact; or you're printing business cards to give to already existing customers and colleagues - the bottom line is to determine your objective of creating these cards. What do you want to accomplish? When you have your purpose, it will be easier for you to fit your design according to the results you want to have. It will therefore help you determine what logos, pictures and graphics you need to choose in order to get the response you want from your business card printing.

The Non-Text Elements
The next step now is to determine what photos, clip art, logo and backgrounds you will use to complement your design. Bear in mind that it's not only the text or words that make up the whole of your business cards. You also need to consider the 'non-text elements' such as your logo or additional pictures. You have to make decisions on how you can make all these elements work to get you the response you want according to the limited space made available.

Here then are additional tips to consider when using non-text elements in your custom business cards:

Use your photos to build trust. - Pictures of yourself in your business cards can help you build trust as it provides your recipients a means to get to know you in a non-threatening way. Your picture tells them that there's an actual person behind the business, and that they can rely on that person to provide them what they need. Pictures are also very helpful especially if your business needs a lot of trust and confidentiality.

Use pictures for name and face recognition. - This is particularly helpful when you made the initial contact via phone or an email. Sending your target clients a business card with your photo especially before you meet him or her in person can make it easier for your new contact to find you. It's a thoughtful gesture as far as your new contact is concerned; and it goes a long a way in making it easier for them to recognize your face among the crowd.

Use graphics to add life to your business card. - Photos and graphic arts add life to your otherwise boring and plain business card printing. Don't just stop with your photo to design your business card; use other artwork or graphic backgrounds to enhance your layout. The bottom line is to make your custom business cards stand out. It would be easier for your target audience to filter you out from all the business cards they get everyday if you make yourself distinct from the rest.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit Business Card Printing and Custom Business Cards

Charen Smith writes articles about Internet Marketing. She has an extensive knowledge and experience when it comes to business strategies, techniques and business solutions.

Promotional Products Help a Successful Promotion

Giving away promotional products is a great way to help make any marketing promotion a great success. With the economy on the downside, any incentive that drives product sales is certainly worth the investment. One of the best ways to rework your marketing strategies is to think about promotional items to help bring recognition to your company.

Whether you are attending a convention, trade show, special event, health fair or meeting, giving away a promotional item like a mug for instance (with company logo) is a great way to keep your company is someone's face so to speak. Smart gift items will be appreciated and the more a recipient uses them, the more your company's brand will be remembered.

Select the promotional gift you distribute depending on the where it is being distributed and who the recipients will be. For example, if your company is manning a stand at a health fair, pens, caps and t-shirts with your company logo affixed is a smart investment. If you are sponsoring a golf tournament, golf tees, shirts or umbrellas are always greatly appreciated. If the event is centered on children, book bags, teddy bears or sport's thermoses are popular items to advertise your company's name and logo.

No matter what promotional item you decide to purchase to help make a particular promotion successful, make sure that the product is carefully selected and tastefully reflects the image you want your company to portray. Don't buy the cheapest items on the market, because that will reflect poorly on the image of your company. Also keep in mind that any promotional product should complement the entire media and advertising package that your company owns. Presenting a well put together plan that is enhanced by a small token of appreciation always helps to increase and enhance the company's advertising efforts. If the product is well-liked and effective, the marketing expense should be covered in the long run by a successful promotional campaign.

To find a distributor of promotional products in the UK visit the bpma sourcing site. All British promotional merchandise Association members must supply trade references and a suitable financial history before they can join. During their membership, they must adhere to a strict code of conduct ensuring that their practices are legal, decent and honest.) Look out for their logo displayed on their website or stationary. If you are still unsure you can log onto the British promotional merchandise association website. http://www.bpma-sourcing.co.uk

Should You Advertise?

Advertising is one of those things that just about every small business owner considers at some point. After all, that's how big companies promote their businesses, right? So, shouldn't you be doing it as well?

Well, while advertising has its place in promotion, it has a number of drawbacks which means it's often not the best method for small business owners. Let's have a look at some of these.

Firstly, advertising is great for generating awareness of your business. It tells everyone who you are and what you do and people will notice you and realise that you're around. However, while it's great for building awareness, it's not too good at getting customers. Only 1-2% of people seeing, listening or watching adverts actually buy directly from the advert.

Secondly, advertising needs to be repeated often in order for it to stand any chance of being effective. You need to be repeating it at least three times: let's face it you might see the advert and mean to do something about it, but not get around to it. And if you need to repeat it, this can become effective.

Which brings me to my third point, advertising is a pretty expensive way of doing marketing - the average cost of an advert in your local paper (and I'm talking about a small advert here) is around £150+VAT. If you need to repeat your ad at least three times, that's £450+VAT before you even start. And if you do radio or television advertising, the costs can end up being astronomical.

With all these drawbacks, my preference isn't to advertise, but to concentrate on free or low-cost methods of marketing that have the same impact. After all, if advertising is better for awareness than getting customers, believe me there are at least 50 different ways I can think of, just off the top of my head that will create the same result, but cost nothing to do.

Having said that, there are some good deals around at the moment if you negotiate and are not afraid of walking away if you can't reach the price you're prepared to pay. And there are quite a few places where it's very cheap to advertise and might well be worth exploring. For instance, church magazines tend to be very cheap to do as do adverts in post offices or supermarkets.

Advertising in the yellow pages is also free and is a must for all small businesses - remember yellow pages is where people go if they know your name but can't remember your contact details. Don't be tempted to pay for an advert until you know it works. If you get business from a free advert, you'll definitely get business from a paid advert in there. Test it first.

If you'd like a copy of my 50 free ways to promote your business which is now a 14 page factsheet, please feel free to contact me on helen.dowling@exceptionalthinking.co.uk