But having said that, the new printing technology has also given us the ability to get away from the old one or two color business cards and turn them into a powerful marketing tool. We can design a business card that has images as sharp as a photographic picture, colors and paper stock that makes them a work of art. Taking advantage of two sided prints and millions of colors gives us the ability to produce a card that is much more than just contact information.
Below are a few suggestions on how to design a good business card that has your contact information, but goes further to tell the story:What to include - Your cards should include your name, phone number, fax number, e-mail and street address. Besides contact information, design your cards to convey your marketing message to your prospect customers.
Logos, graphics and images – Be sure to use your company logo on the card. The logo should not take away from the content but a lot of people remember a logo if they keep seeing it, so it’s best for branding. Use images as background or a picture of your work, if it applies. Definitely use graphics to make your card unique, but be careful not to overpower your content.
Use high quality paper - There are many different options when it comes to business card paper stock. There are thin 100 lbs. paper, 12 point, 14 point and recently 16 point paper stock that could be ordered in matte, or glossy. The 16 point papers are as thick as 75% of a credit card and are offered by few companies with newer equipment. Linen and plastic card stock that are commonly available can work with some designs too, not all. Also there are companies that offer variety of other material such as glass, aluminum, etc., but they are specialty items and very expensive. Choose the material according to your design, but the most common is the 14 point glossy, with 16 point being the latest greatest.
UV Coating or not – UV coating makes the card shinier, thicker and sturdier. Also it promises that the content is protected against Ultra Violet (UV) rays and will not change color or fade. The cards that are designed to be matte should not be coated, but the majority of the designs can use UV coating to add to their attractiveness and shine. Some printing companies offer one sided coating, so if you have a one sided card and want to leave the back uncoated, they can provide it to you. Also, some businesses require that the back of the card be printed, such as days of the week for doctor appointments, but not coated so they can write on it later. Make sure that you order your cards with the kind of coating that best suits your design.
Make them available to all – Make sure you always have your business cards and plenty of them. Give them away freely to everyone since it is still the most productive business tool and a great representative of you or your business. Change your card design slightly every time you order a new batch. Something that doesn’t take away from the content, but people like to see change and they remember even the smallest one. Make a trend and email a note of acknowledgment to people whom given you a business card. It will eventually catch on and they will do the same for you. That way, you are sure that they kept your card, as you did theirs.
Put your call-to-action to work for you: If people are just scanning your content, then sticking a call-to-action at a place they can immediately see is imperative. Make sure a call-to-action is in your prospect customer’s benefit and surely distinguishes you from other competitors. After all, your call-to-action is the thing that’s going to get your prospect customers do what you want them to do. If there is an expiration date for your call-to-action, make sure it is emphasized as well.
Make it readable: Many use content to attempt to ‘impress’ their audience with big words, industry jargon and other incomprehension technical words. Lose all that. Instead, write your content as if you’re talking to the customer standing right in front of you. How would you explain what your business does for them? Find those words and put them on your promotional material. Use the words they would be most likely familiar with.
Make it available and easy to get to: Talking about your company, product or service is easy, but make sure that it’s clear to the prospect customers how easy it is to acquire your product or service. Provide all contact information and instructions on how easily they can become your customer. People don’t like to waste time and look for things, just make it available to them in an easiest possible way. It makes a big impact.
Don’t overcrowd: Although you might have some empty spaces, do not provide a lot of content and overcrowd the postcard. You’re far better off creating precise, easy to read content that will capture a customer’s attention. After all, the goal isn’t to inform them of all your services or products, but just the one that they might be interested in and encourage them to take the first initiative, which is your predefined call-to-action. An overcrowded postcard will surely get tossed before it is seriously considered.
Make it visually appealing: Last, but not least, if your postcard isn’t appealing to the eye, customers aren’t going to glance at it, let alone keeping it. It’s best to have a graphic designer design the background and choose a color scheme which will work for you. You are not advertising the design and it should not take anything away from your message, but it should complement it and make people interested to spend their time looking at it. Use images relevant to your message to draw people’s attention, and also add a little description under each image as it relays to your offerings. People notice the image and even more, they like to read the description and see what you have to say about it. When someone looks at your postcard, they should feel confident about you, your company, products or services you offer, that is why it is imperative to invest in quality postcards and not the flimsy ones. After all, that little piece of paper is the only means that represents you and your company to a prospect customer.
Stefan Astaneh is a graphic designer in southern California with years of experience in printing industry. His formal education and training in graphic design mated with his vast working knowledge of printing technology gives him an excellent foundation on the main aspects of advertising in print media.
Soy ink and the environment
Soy ink may be the solution to the environmental health and safety concerns of the printing industry. A new study confirms that soy ink can help to reduce the environmental burden of the printing industry. Soybean oil comes from a renewable source: soybeans. Soybeans beans are widely available at low cost. Soybean agriculture uses only 0.5 percent of the total energy needed to produce soy ink. Almost half of all soybeans produced in America needs no irrigation. As soybeans are growing they temporarily remove damaging carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere.
Soy ink is naturally low in VOCs (volatile organic compounds, chemical compounds that evaporate and react to sunlight) and its usage can reduce emissions causing air pollution.
Researchers at Western Michigan University have found that soy ink is removed more effectively from newsprint than petroleum ink during de-inking, resulting in less paper fiber damage and a brighter paper. In addition, the waste is not considered hazardous and can be treated more easily, completely and cost-effectively. Residue waste ink is considered a liquid industrial waste that requires proper disposal. Many newspapers and large commercial printers are recycling their ink by mixing black ink with unused color inks. This process reduces waste and results in a more cost-effective, efficient use of ink.
Other benefits of soy ink
Soy ink is available for newspapers, magazines, commercial printing, packaging, business forms and many other uses. Each form of printing requires a different type of ink and manufacturers have made various efforts to meet with the demands of customers. Soy inkt has following benefits:
· Vibrant colors - Soybean oil’s clarity allows pigments to reach their full potential, resulting in deep, rich bright colors. In addition, used in newspaper ink, it shows an excellent outcome of pigments. Soy ink delivers a high quality print when you switch from petroleum-based ink to soy ink, and you may even see an improvement!
· Lower rub-off - Soy inks show a greater rub resistance. This is especially of important for newspaper readers.
· Soy ink is cost effective - The prices of soy ink colors are competitive with conventional ink colors since most of the cost in the colored inks comes from the pigments used and not the vehicle portion of the formulation. Because soy ink provides more intense color, printers may not use as much ink. As a result, more materials can be printed with less ink and thereby reducing their costs.
· Laser proof - This is important when ink needs to be exposed to the heat of a laser printer or copy machine. As the boiling point of soy ink is lower, there is less chance of the ink being transferred to the machine parts instead of the paper.
· Stability - Soy ink maintains its lithographic stability throughout the entire print job, so the press operator makes fewer adjustments during production and rejects fewer copies because of inferior quality.
Does cutting paper usage save trees? Read the facts...
How Are Trees Grown for Paper?
Trees are planted and grown specifically to make paper. Trees that are cut down for paper production do not come from our Favorite Park or wilderness area. When some people hear about trees being cut for paper, they might think of their favorite oak in the backyard, Neighborhood Park or wilderness area being cut to pieces. They might think of birds, squirrels and other creatures being robbed of their homes. The good news is that the production and use of paper are not causing forests to disappear.
Where do trees for making paper come from?
Most trees used for paper come from forests called managed timberlands. Even though the trees in these timberlands may look like “woods,” they are an agricultural crop - like vegetables on a farm. The trees are grown to be made into products for human use. Not using paper in order to save trees is like not eating salad in order to “save” vegetables. In fact, many forests might not exist in the fi rst place if trees weren’t planted and harvested by industry. It takes from 10 - 20 years for trees to grow until they are large enough for harvesting. During that time, those trees are part of a community of plants and animals, and their environment space is known as an ecosystem. Trees provide a place to live (or habitat) for many species of plants and animals, and they add oxygen to the earth’s atmosphere.
How Are Trees Grown for Paper?
Will we run out of trees if we continue to cut them down for paper? No. More trees are planted every year than are cut down. This is due in most part to the success of managed timberlands. Whenever trees are harvested, more trees are planted to take their place. Timberlands can be managed to produce trees and forest products forever. Trees are a renewable resource. As long as we manage timberland and plant trees to replace the ones cut down, trees will continue to grow and grow and grow.
In some ways, this process is similar to growing vegetables in a garden. We plant the vegetables and let them grow until they are mature enough to harvest. When harvest time comes, we collect the vegetables and eat them. Next spring, the process begins again when we plant a new crop. As long as we continue to plant and harvest, the process goes on and on. More trees are destroyed by fire and insects than are cut down to make paper. And, on an average, when a tree is harvested for making paper, five more are planted in its place. If “saving” trees isn’t the issue, why do we want to recycle paper?
The recycling process also produces recycled fiber, a valuable product. Countries with a plentiful supply of recycled fiber can not only use it to make their own recycled paper, they also can send it to other nations to provide them with fiber to make paper products. In this way, an old newspaper recycled in the U.S. can end up as part of a box made in Africa - quite a wise use of a tree!
Think about all the paper products you use every day. Many of these can be recycled to make other useful products. In the U.S., more paper is recycled than is sent to landfills, and more paper is recovered for recycling than all glass, aluminum, and plastics combined.
All in all, wise use of forests and the products which come from them is good for people and for trees too. Forests grow in all areas of the U.S. If these trees were all put together limb to limb, they would take up a space equivalent to one third of the country.
How do we use the wood from harvested trees?
Often, a tree is not cut down for making paper at all, but instead cut down for making boards and planks (dimensional lumber) used for buildings. Paper is then made from the leftover scraps from those sawmill operations. Almost none of the tree is wasted after it is harvested. Bark is used for fuel, and wood chemicals are extracted and used to make products such as pine solvent and cleaning agents, turpentine and gums. Because of the many uses of trees, timberlands are valuable to both nature and people. If we continue to manage our resources wisely, generations to come can look forward to a future that includes both paper and an abundance of trees.
