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"If you are just starting out with your own home-based business, one of the essential tools you need for marketing yourself is a business card. But business card printing can be a serious hassle. What information should go in your card? Where should it go on the card? Full color or black and white? These questions and others are essential as you figure out what works best for you.
Let's start with the most important pieces of information that should be included during custom business card printing and work towards the less essential.
1. Name – This includes both your name and the name of your business. Since this is your own business, your potential customers need your name and your company's name. If that is all they have, then they will probably be able to find you. Of course, you will have more on your card than just your name and your company's name, but if you omitted one of these two items, then you could be seriously crippling the ability of your customers to find you. Make the name of your company and your name the most prominent part of your business card printing project, as these will be the items that the customer sees at first glance.
2. Contact info – At a minimum, you should put an email address on a business card. Most businesses and individuals have an email address or system by which they can contact you if an email is all they have as a means to get in touch. Next, include a phone number. Multiple phone lines such as office, mobile, and pager numbers are not necessary. If you do have all of these phone numbers and wish your customers to have those available, go ahead and put them on your card starting with your office line, followed by your mobile number, followed by a pager. Fax numbers are also often included if available. Put these on the bottom of your card.
3. Title – A title lets the customer know who they will be contacting. In a small business or sole proprietorship it is not uncommon for the owner to use a title such as CEO or president. You can use the title to reinforce your company's core competencies. For example, if you are a creative firm, you may use the title Chief Creative Officer as a way to help your customer know both your position and a little bit more about your company. Put the title underneath or very near the name of the individual to make sure the customer can make the connection between a name and the title.
4. Tag line – A tag line is a short phrase that emphasizes or reinforces your company's values. While not essential, a tag line can help remind the customer what it is you do. In theory, the customer has pulled your card out to find you because they already remembered what you do and are simply trying to get your contact information. Still, when they first see your business card, it is important to have a tag line to drive home how your company can help your customer.
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Nevertheless, despite your experience and know-how when it comes to business card printing, there are times when you still fall short of your expectations just because of certain inconsistencies like the printer unit you have is limited to a few color inks; or the business card printing stock you want is not available at the moment you need it; or even that your computer and software program just don't want to work together anymore for no apparent reason.
Whatever the glitch, here are suggestions to help you get the best results despite unavoidable circumstances in your business card printing project.
When you do your business card printing with images or gradient colors… for best results, always use glossy paper. Glossy paper stock provides you with brilliant shades even when you apply pictures and images with gradient colors. The result would be the same as what you have on your computer monitor.
When you do your business card printing using backgrounds of color or images…always choose a paper stock with gaps in between cards. The gaps give you enough space so that when you overestimate or underestimate the size of your printer's paper feed, you won't have pictures or design printed at the edge of your layout, or worse, that your design might just be cut abruptly.
And when you do your business card printing without the gaps… provide a space of at least 3 mm off the edges of every business card for your images and text.
When you do your business card printing on your personal printer… make sure you use paper stock that is compatible with your inkjet or laser printer model. Certain models and types of printers use certain kinds of paper stock. This is to avoid any problems while printing your business cards, and even worse, damaging your printer unit.
When you do your business card printing on monochrome printers… well, it's just common sense to use fewer colors as possible when creating your design.
When you do your business card printing always set your print settings to the quality you require. This is a simple rule that many users forget too often. Your printer unit has saved print quality settings that may not be appropriate to your business card printing project. So make sure before you print your cards, to put your settings to the dimensions you need.
And as always, when you get persistent problems when you do your business card printing project, might as well get a business card printing company to do the job for you. The costs of printing on your own may just be more than you bargained for.