Business Cards Land

Whether you choose Glossy Business Cards or Matte Business Cards, there are benefits and drawbacks to each!

Matte Card

Rather than being shiny and reflective, a matte card has a “light-absorbing” eggshell finish!

Major Benefits:

Unlike Glossy Business Cards, You can write on them with a pen!

This is perfect for people who want cards that they can add extra information too, such as real estate agents who like to add property info to each personal business card that they’re handing out.

For coffee shops and other small businesses that use business cards for “buy ten cups get one free” style offers, then it would also be preferable to make matte cards that can be stamped or initialed.

They have a very “tactile” feel!

Quality matte cards from companies such as Overnightprints.com have this “silkiness” that is very pleasing to the touch. If you want to convey “elegance” and “sophistication” then this is a print finish that you might want to use.

Glossy Business Cards

Major benefits:

A Glossy Business Card is Sturdier!

With the addition of a glossy UV coating, a glossy card is thicker, sturdier, and more protected from the elements than a glossy card! A glossy card is quite hard to permeate even with a small amount of liquid or moisture, whereas a matte card is less sturdy and is not so impervious to wet fingers and so forth!

Glossy Cards can make Print Colors really “pop”

By adding a gloss finish to your prints, the color of your prints become brighter and more reflective. If you are going for a really colorful, eye-catching look to your prints, then you should choose a gloss finish!

The Alternative:

Spot UV

Matte and Gloss are literally like night and day! But there’s something that some print companies offer that give you the best of both worlds, and that’s Spot UV!

Spot UV is a print technique that combines matte and gloss finishes in a very cool way. By spot glossing areas of your design, you can make design features, such as logos, shapes, people, etc stand out like never before! The technique combines the best of both matte and gloss world, providing sophistication as well as color-popping bright and reflective color.

Popularity: 36% [?]

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Mommy Card Designs from OvernightPrints.com

For Mother’s Day this year a great little “mommy gift” would be “business cards for kids” . Better known as “mommy cards,” these child safety cards are becoming increasingly popular with concerned parents. Many online print companies, such as Overnight Prints, are marketing this idea by providing “kid themed” designs for customers to add their child’s information to.

Basically, what “mommy cards” are, are business cards that display the name, photograph, family contact details, medical info (i.e. blood type), and other emergency information. Slipped into a child’s backpack before they go to school, they could be a real “life saver” if (God forbid) a child were to get into an accident or got lost somewhere!

You may be a bit late, if you are thinking of making them for Mothers Day this year. However, they are a very practical gift at any time of the year for mom’s and kids; there’s nothing that a mommy appreciates more than to give them the gift of a little more “peace-of-mind” when it comes to their child’s safety, and I bet young kids love to feel important by flashing around their very “grown-up” business cards to their peers.

Popularity: 21% [?]

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You’ve seen loyalty cards for “buy 10 get one free” offers; why not print one of your own?

The “loyalty card” is by no means a new idea, but it’s a really effective marketing technique for all small business owners. It’s cheap too – the price of a couple of sets of business cards is all it costs!

If your a coffee shop owner, then you’re probably well-aware of the benefits of creating loyalty cards to pick up repeat business. It’s such an easy, risk-free promotion. You create a business card that you can stamp everytime a customer buys a coffee – buy 10 cups and get a cup free! This same technique could also be applied to just about any other small retail business, i.e, local bakeries, frozen yoghurt stores, dry cleaners, fast food places, etc, anywhere that sells repeat business items.

This is how Gareth Blower who owns La Dolce Vita, an independently run coffee shop in Detroit, created his cards:

He designed a set business cards titled “loyalty card” – using his logo brand.  He added a little blurb about the offer (for every 10 cups of coffee the customer buys they receive a free one.) He also added a row of small block- spaces to his design, to create a place for the card to be stamped.

Gareth also purchased a stamper to mark off the coffee cups purchased. He sent me a link to the “stamper” that he uses on his customers cards.

Another really good idea is to make your business card into a coupon for a free consultation, a discount, or a free gift with a purchase. Make sure that you include an expiration date on them and  hand them out to all your customers. This technique would work particularly well for web-retailers who can add discount codes to the checkout section of their sites.

This small business furniture store created discount code business cards

Popularity: 61% [?]

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Happy New Year, everyone!  Hope it’s off to a great start for you – as usual, Tyler and I will keep delivering some great business card ideas that are sure to help you in the coming year!

Got another idea for you – another way to use business cards.  I was invited to several charity events and even church Christmas events in the past month.  Several of those event tickets/invitations were actually printed on business card paper.   Here’s one of them – the gentleman runs a charitable foundation and had his contact info on the other side of the card:

Business Card Event Ticket

Don’t think this idea needs a lot of explanation – it’s just another illustration of the fact that a “business card” doesn’t have to be used in a traditional way.  The size, portability and affordability makes it ideal for many other uses.

Popularity: 22% [?]

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While you’re thinking about end-of-the-year business purchases, and whether or not to take advantage of sales on business cards (sign up for the email list at OvernightPrints.com to be notified of special sales), consider this idea.

Hello Name Badge Business Card

I’ve really gotten a lot of mileage out of this business card.  I use it as a “generic” card when I don’t want to hand out my formal business card, or in personal situations.

It’s also great as a stand-in for a nametag.  You can stick it inside one of those clear plastic name badge holders or business card holders that either pin to your clothing or hang from a lanyard – and it’s a LOT easier to read than a standard business card.  Some double-sided tape will stick it to your jacket for a few hours, too!

Another nice feature about this business card is that because it IS generic, people often ask what I do when I hand it out, or comment that it’s a good idea.  I customarily leave the back side blank so that I can write my phone number or contact info on it.

This business card background is available at OvernightPrints.com – it’s in the “Misc” category of their business card templates.

Popularity: 14% [?]

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• Geared Business Card – Incredibly intricate business card