Printing as a Marketing Tool for Entrepreneurs

| Sunday, April 24, 2011
By John Kirzno


Printing is not something that is on the front burner for most home-based businesses. Now that we have computers in our homes and easy access to printers, it's easy to produce our paper-based marketing materials ourselves. If you are a creative type it's possible you even came up with your own logo and designs. For many people this is a very enjoyable part of starting a business.

The hitch comes when your business starts to take off and doing everything yourself is not so much fun anymore. Your days are busy and you need to focus on your core products and services. If you are like many other entrepreneurs, you will find yourself in a situation where you need brochures for a convention that's coming to town or flyer's for a craft fair next weekend, you have appointments all week and there's just no way you can fit it in.

At times like this, a local business service center can be a lifesaver. Outlets such as The UPS Store do much more than packing and shipping. They can be like strategic partners in your business, freeing your time for other activities and helping you as your business expands and grows. Many of these business service centers are independently owned and operated, so the people there understand your requirements and are also plugged in to the local business community.

A huge time saver that is available now is online printing services. You can upload your print job and the printer will pick it up. They will print it out and make as many copies as you need. In addition to the printing, they can also do the collating, folding, binding, laminating, or any other finishing services that you might need.

There's another advantage to this besides the obvious one of saving time. The job will be done right. You can be 100 percent sure of your materials looking professional and always making the very best impression. This is particularly important for your presentations and marketing materials.

Savvy home-based business owners think of printing as part of their strategic marketing plan. Many send out a newsletter to prospects and repeat customers. While the overall trend is to electronic newsletters delivered by email, there are still many people who prefer to receive them on paper, so it's a good idea to have something available that looks good and is on quality paper. Your business service center will have a selection of papers available and you can choose the one that suits the tone of your business.

In addition to printing, a business service center can also help with packing, shipping, faxing, rubber stamps, labels, forms, and office supplies. They are also a great place to take care of those on-off requests that pop up, such as when someone wants you to fax something or when you need something notarized.




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