Avoiding Flimsy Business Card Paper Stocks

What marketing material do you print more of than anything else? If you're like most companies, the answer is business cards. Business cards are one of the most important pieces of the marketing puzzle. We include them in all envelope mailers, hand them out every time we meet someone new and leave them on countless counters for customers to pick up. Business cards are economical, too, and the more you print, the cheaper they get per piece. Your business card says a lot about you, your organization and your products or services. Your business card can influence customers to pick up the phone - or toss it in the trash.

Knowing this, it's a wonder why so many businesses continue to print business cards on cheap, thin paper stocks. Cheap business cards cheapen your image. If you want to impress potential customers, you need to have a business card that is impressive. Think about how your business card feels in your customers' hands and the image that is projected. Is your business card light and flimsy, telling prospects that your company stands on shaky ground? Or is it solid and robust, demonstrating that your company is well grounded and prepared to handle any situation?

One of the most common misconceptions about business card printing is that it is expensive. In an effort to save money, many small businesses will print business cards on desktop printers using specially perforated business card paper. This method of business card printing has three distinct disadvantages:

1. Your inks look bad and can smear for a sloppy image.
2. The perforations and thin paper required to make it around the desktop printer cylinder make for a flimsy, cheap-looking card.
3. It's more expensive than professional printing.

That's right - printing business cards on desktop printers not only looks bad, it costs more money than having your business cards printed by a professional printing company. Do the math yourself: to print 1,000 business cards, you would need five packs of business card desktop printer paper at a cost of $80 (200 per pack at $16 each) - not to mention printer ink and your time and labor. However, 1,000 professionally printed full-color business cards printed on high-quality, ultra-thick 16-point gloss costs less than $35 at PsPrint. Or, you can be green and go with 13-point recycled matte paper for less than $10 more. In fact, there's no downside to having your business cards professionally printed on sturdy, professional paper stocks. Going this route packs plenty of benefits: You will look better; your image will look better; your business cards will last longer; and you'll realize more than a 50 percent savings than trying to print on cheap, thin business card paper stocks.