5 ways to make your business cards more affordable but great looking

By | October 11, 2011

In this tight economy, be carefully with how spend your money. When it comes to printing business cards though, you also have to balance out the cost.

In this tight economy, you have to be carefully with how you spend your money. When it comes to printing business cards though, you also have to balance out the cost, and the impact of the design. So besides printing cheap business cards, you will want to balance out the cost and the impression that you want to project to the audience.

In this guide, I will teach you how to make your business cards in a more affordable way, but still make it great looking. All you have to do is to follow the tips below to balance out all these different aspects of business card printing.

1. Get the smallest standard size – Smaller sized business cards are cheaper. This is only natural as it will require less paper and less ink to print smaller business cards. That is why your first move to make your business cards more affordable is to get the smallest standard size that you can have.

Do not worry, it is not the size that counts for business cards, so you are not losing anything here. You will be saving money though with the reduced size. As long as you compensate with a great design, this move should be great for your business cards.

2. Opt for spot colors – The next move to help your business cards be more economical but still maintain a great look is to opt for spot colors. Instead of using full color business card printing, you can tell your printer to use only spot colors. These are just pure color inks that will be cheaper than full color mixed inks.

So for example, you can use only 2 colors besides black in your business cards. Those two colors can be the ones in your logo and maybe part of the marketing text in your business cards. These spot colors are a whole lot cheaper since no mixing and full color are involved. However, since it is still color, people will still respond favourably to your business card prints.

3. Design business cards on your own – Design development is part of the cost of business card printing. So you can try to save some money and reduce that cost by eliminating that extra cost of design development. Instead of hiring a layout artist, why don’t you try to create your own designs for your business card. They are your cards after all.

With today’s technology, even a novice can already create powerful and professional looking business cards. With just a little imagination and determination you can create amazing business card designs on your own and get them cheaper since you do not need to pay someone to create the layouts.

4. Choose materials wisely – You should also take note that your choice of materials for business card printing will factor into the cost immensely. So if your goal is to save money with your business cards and optimize your costs against a bad market, you will need to be careful with how you choose the inks, the paper materials as well as any other materials to be added in your cards.

Try to go for cards that are a bit thinner, with designs printed in more standard inks. Do not go overboard of course as your own content and design should be enough to actually attract people. Just make sure that the main foundations of the design will be decent enough for mass production, and you can help yourself more easily with more affordable business cards.

5. Time your printing right for discounts – Finally, to get the final cut of costs in your business card printing, you might want to time your printing right for discounts. Most printing companies offer discounts and special packages every so often throughout the year depending on the occasion.

If you think you can postpone your printing a bit and tag on your orders with those discounts applicable, then you should go for it. The opportunity in savings should be well worth the wait really. So see and try to time your printing right to get those discounts.

Now you know the best tips to make your business cards cheap but also great looking. You will need to apply all these tips if you want to be practical and economical in this market situation. So reread the items above and try to remember.