In an effort to save your business money, it’s quite easy to print your own free business cards. However, the difficulty lies not in the printing of the business cards, but rather in the free sites that offer the necessary templates.
Most free business card template sites offer a host of layouts that seem eye-catching, intriguing and colorful – all features which normally raise printing costs through the roof with a paid business card sales package. By printing these free business cards yourself however, you’ll be saving a tremendous amount of energy, time and headache, without question. But before jumping in and printing off several hundred of these free business cards on your own machine, make sure you have the following bases covered, first.
You’ve spent a couple of hours finding the perfect free business card templates to print off and showcase your small business. But then, your first run shows some weird shading all over the front. You look closely to find that the word, “Promo” or “Sample” cleverly written all over your cards. What?!
Take the time to read the fine print on the free business cards template site before actually printing anything off. A ‘watermark’ (the shaded words discussed above) may not show online, but will definitely show up once you print – until you pay a small fee. Free isn’t necessarily free just because you can do the printing, so make sure not to get dinged and ruin a couple of perfectly good sheets of business card paper.
Speaking of paper, take the time and invest the money to purchase some high-quality, 80 pound bond or heavier business card stock for your free business card template printing project. You may have to visit a printing shop to get the right type and quality (or color, if you aren’t going for the standard matte white); most office supply stores seem to carry the lower-quality, low poundage stock of late. Nothing smells like cheap than free business cards printed on paper that bleeds, fades, folds or has perforation marks on the sides. Invest wisely, and you’ll have few problems.
The last, but one of the most important, items to review when printing off your free business cards from a template is to make sure you've got enough ink that prints clearly, legibly and professionally. Many printers today do an excellent job, but doing a test run never hurts. If what you see is not what you got, don't hesitate to stop by a local printing shop with your test run business cards to see if they have any suggestions to present more professionally. They may well suggest you print your cards at their shop, and if the quality surpasses your own printer's capabilities, it'll probably be money well spent.
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