Promoting Your Business Using Holiday Cards Year-Round

Holidays abound throughout the calendar year, and if your business is only taking advantage of the Christmas holiday season to send greeting cards, then you are missing many opportunities!  Take out your calendar and use other holiday opportunities to reach out to current and potential customers.

There are a few guidelines, however, to ensure you avoid alienating customers during holidays. Although holiday cards should feature your company’s name and logo, you don’t want customers to view your business as using these holidays just to advertise and send them junk mail. You want your greeting cards to remain tasteful, like your business, so customers enjoy receiving these holiday greetings.

• Don’t Sound Like a Commercial – It’s important to use the holiday as an opportunity to wish your current and potential customers good wishes without peppering the sentiment with your company’s name. For instance, writing a 4^th of July message might read, “We wish you a spectacular 4^th of July filled with fireworks, family and fun! Sincerely, Morris Landscaping.” You don’t need to include a company bio and repeatedly insert your company’s name. Less is more when writing holiday cards.

• Individualize Your Greeting Cards – Although most businesses will buy holiday cards in bulk, taking the time to individualize the cards will go a long way with your customers. Obviously, if you have a large mailing list consisting of hundreds or thousands of current and potential customers, choose a select group that you really want to reach out to, whether it’s a new customer or established one. That way, you help promote loyalty among your customers and will impress them because no matter how large your customer base gets, you still remember individual customers.

• Choose Stylish Greeting Cards – Setting a budget for sending holiday cards is expected, but don’t choose a holiday card just because it’s a great deal. Instead, choose the most stylish holiday card that complements your company’s brand and style within your pre-determined budget. This might even mean ordering semi-custom holiday cards, but the end result will be worth it when you get the positive feedback from new and old customers alike.

When you’re sending holiday cards, remember to keep the tone neutral, especially when sending holiday cards during the Christmas season. It’s important to send a general message of “season’s greetings” because this type of message has universal appeal.

Draw Repeat Business With Semi-Custom Greeting Cards

Greeting cards are traditionally a great marketing tool because businesses rely on customers to purchase a product or service in order to succeed. Businesses also rely mostly on repeat customers to continue making those purchases and even telling others in order to grow.

Sending greeting cards for certain occasions, such as holidays or to celebrate a business anniversary, make existing customers feel appreciated. Customers recognize and remember a custom greeting card, whether it was sent in appreciation or with a special incentive.

There is a way around designing a completely customized greeting card, which can help you save money, but still appear like a custom product once printed. Pre-designed greeting cards allow businesses to “design” the greeting card by choosing from ready-made designs and then customizing the card with a logo, business name and message.

These hints will help your next greeting card printing go smoothly and stay on budget:

• Be Colorful – In general, choosing a full color greeting card is the best decision because not only will using color make your greeting cards appear more customized, but will enhance the design you choose.  Color will make your greeting card will shine.

• Match the Design to Your Business – If you fall in love with a design that features a whimsical garden scene, but you operate a law firm, you might want to skip the flowers and find a design that reflects the tone of your business better. A florist might choose the whimsical garden scene, however, because it meshes perfectly with the business.

• Be Eco-Friendly – Customers respond to ecologically responsible businesses, and one way to show your dedication is to choose eco-friendly greeting cards. These could be printed on recycled paper or plant based renewable paper, or you can even consider using “green” soy ink.

• Save Money on Size – Printing your greeting cards in a standard size will not only save you money in postage, but will reduce the printing cost that comes with larger paper and reduce the cost of creating custom envelopes. Customers will appreciate the custom feel and won’t require a larger than life greeting card.

Customers like their patronage to be recognized and sending greeting cards is the perfect way to encourage continued loyalty and business into the future.

5 Ways to Enhance Your Menu Printing

A carefully designed, attractive and legible menu is essential for any type of restaurant. Even a carry-out deli should put thought into their menus, although the end product will be very different from an expensive, sit-down restaurant.

A restaurant’s menu is a key marketing opportunity that should be capitalized on. The menu is also a great way to inject a little personality to separate your restaurant from the rest. Your menu should be organized logically and make it easy for customers to focus on the food. Here are five menu printing tips to enhance your menu design.

1. Use Quality Paper

Menus should be printed on thick, sturdy cardstock to avoid unnecessary tearing as they are handled by many people on a daily basis. Cardstock is more durable and comes in a variety of colors if you don’t want a plain white menu. Color is a great way to enhance any menu, as long as the food items and descriptions are easy to read.

2. Keep Menus Clean and New-Looking

Whether you operate a casual or formal restaurant, if you have a standard menu that doesn’t change weekly, consider a laminated menu. Laminated menus prevent spills from staining or tearing the paper and allow you to sanitize menus after so many people have used them. Laminated menus can be bound in an elegant leather cover for a formal look or printed on a long sheet for a casual restaurant.

3. Table Menus

If you want to highlight a special array of desserts, catering options or merchandise for sale at your restaurant, consider a laminated table menu that is designed to stand on its own and give customers something to read while waiting for food to arrive. Mouth-watering pictures never hurt either!

4. Kid Menus

Kid-friendly restaurants rate highly with parents, and designing an interactive kid menu is perfect. The kids are busy completing puzzles and the parents can enjoy the time as well before the food comes.

5. Menus To-Go

Any restaurant that offers delivery or carry-out orders need to print a separate “to-go” menu to include with every order. It should reflect the main menu in style and design, but be small enough to fit in a kitchen drawer for easy access.

Printing delicious menus is a simple way to enhance your restaurant and keep customers coming back for more.

Streamline Your Business With 4 NCR Form Printing Tips

Carbon copies should be a thing of the past now that NCR forms have been developed. These carbonless forms make businesses that need multiple copy forms more efficient. NCR forms have been chemically treated so that typed or written content will transfer clearly from the top sheet to subsequent sheets.

NCR forms are typically used in business for contracts, receipts, invoices and statements. Follow these four simple ways for NCR form printing to streamline your business.

1. Amount of Parts Needed

Figure out how many parts your business needs from its NCR form printing so that you won’t have to make photo copies when you’re one short. You can choose as little as two parts, but can increase to six and above. Most NCR forms print in two or three parts so that businesses can efficiently distribute copies to all parties who require one.

2. Black Ink or Colored?

If your NCR forms will be distributed internally, choosing black ink is the more cost-effective choice. However, if a copy will be given to a customer, you might choose to add a colored ink to your NCR form. It’s even possible to print several colors on the top copy and revert to a single color on the rest to save money. Also, double-sided printing is an option, especially if the customer’s copy should include any additional information.

3. Do You Need Sequential Numbers?

Some businesses require NCR forms to be sequentially numbered, especially if keeping track of invoices, for example. Maintaining a sequential numbering system is simple and can be done by entering the desired first number on your printer.

4. Binding NCR Forms

Another useful option is to bind your NCR forms after printing. NCR forms that must remain together can be bound as a booklet or along the top edge, depending on your needs. A booklet format gives you the option of including a cover that clearly labels the NCR form category, while binding the top edge is an easy way to distribute forms internally.

NCR forms are easy to print, produce more reliable copies than carbons and can help streamline your business so that every department that needs a copy is assured of getting one, provided these four tips are followed prior to printing.

4 Ways to Make Your Letterhead Stand Out

Letterhead is still a vital marketing tool that every business, big or small, needs in its marketing arsenal. However, with the competition from online marketing, letterhead must be colorful, well-designed and attractive in order to catch and hold customers’ attention.

Thankfully, laser printing makes printing custom letterhead easy and cost-efficient. Here are four creative design aspects to remember when designing your next set of letterhead.

1. Creative Paper Choices – Letterhead is no longer restricted to a simple white or ivory, but can be any color, provided it matches the tone of your business and doesn’t obstruct the content printed on it. Dark colors aren’t ideal because it makes it difficult to read the letter printed, but paler shades of bold colors will work beautifully. A pale green for a landscape architect works well, as can a pale gray for a financial firm. As long as your graphics and content will be legible, getting creative with paper color is a great way to add life to boring letterhead.

2. Get Creative With Watermarks – It’s easy to add a watermark to your letterhead, even if you are printing in-house. A watermark is a subtle way to add a specific image, photo or graphic that will enhance the overall design of your letterhead and make it stand out without detracting from the printed text.

3. Choose a Custom Size – Another traditional format that can be discarded is paper size. Letterhead is not confined to the standard 8-1/2 by 11-inch paper any longer. Instead, you might choose a longer format or a smaller size, depending on what type of correspondence you’ll mostly create. The different sized letterhead will also help set yours apart from others.

4. Embellish – Embossing your logo or business name will lend your letterhead a professional touch and give it interest and texture. You might also choose, depending on the design of your logo, to make it a cutout so that your logo will appear only in silhouette.

Letterhead represents your business on paper, so make your letterhead work for you by selecting a great design. You can combine these ideas or just choose your favorite to make your letterhead impress recipients and bring more interest to your business.