Printing can cost a fortune. This article will show you how you can cut some of those costs.
So the problem to consider is this: how do you make your business card interesting while still keeping your costs down?
The obvious method, of course, is to shop around.
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Chain copy stores, as
convenient as they are, tend to use machines that are specialized for
printing on lower-weight paper, and that are designed to print in lower
print volumes. The toner cartridge for a laser copier will usually cost
something like $90 in stores (lower at wholesale costs), and will print
about 5,000 sheets. This means that the printing costs remain fairly
consistent, even over high print volumes, since the average cost per
sheet of the toner needs to be factored in to every sheet. And this
means that any high-volume printing you do--such as printing business
cards--will cost you about as much as low-volume printing, even without
considering issues of quality.
One good solution to this problem is offset printing. Offset printing
works by first creating a "plate" of the page, which is fairly
expensive at first--on the order of $5 per plate. Once the plate is
made, however, the maintenance and ink cost of actually printing the
page is extremely low--about two cents, as opposed to ten for a laser
copier. So the price per sheet drops sharply with high-volume printing
operations. At ten sheets (or one hundred cards), offset printing will
cost about $5.20, while a copy store will charge about $1 (less machine
cutting, of course.) At one hundred sheets (or one thousand cards),
however, offset printing will cost about $7, while the copy store's
rate goes up to $10. Add to that the fact that the offset plate only
needs to be made once, which means that if you print a thousand cards
for $7 in June, you can get a thousand more for $2 in September--a
total cost of $9. The chain copy store will charge $20. (Again, less
machine cutting.) That leaves much more room in your budget for the
more expensive finishing options that can make a card great.
Of course, the simplest method of reducing costs is to reduce the
number of features on your card. It's possible to do this without
compromising your original intentions, especially if your design
doesn't actually depend on advanced printing features in order to work.
If you're using artwork, for example, you can try printing it in spot
color rather than full color, or you can make sure that your design
relies heavily on content rather than on, say, embossing. It's a good
idea to come up with your initial design, get an itemized quote from a
printer or copy store on how much it would cost to print the card, and
then see if it's possible to eliminate the most expensive items from
the printing costs without ruining the effect of the card. Nine times
out of ten, you'll find that you can do so.
And of course it's always a good idea to do your own design work--far
cheaper than paying a designer, if you know or can learn some basics of
design.
Once you have your card at a cost that works for you, it's time to start thinking about distribution.
Make sure to reference this article each time that you go to the printer for a new batch of cards.
Find
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