Do you still need Business Stationery in the internet age?

This month we are talking about how business stationery can be a really useful marketing tool for any business. I can already hear about half of you saying ‘What is the point of even worrying about some letterhead or notepads, we email all our invoices with pdf’s attached, and if we do do newsletters it’s electronic, just like the ones you send us. If I need a fancy letterhead for a letter I can just print it as part of the letter.’ This is all very true, we do just the same, especially as we are a print shop. That being said, there are many situations where having real world printed stationery will enhance the marketability of your business, and I am going to tell you why

As I said in the intro, the majority of the paperwork generated by businesses these days is done electronically. In some cases it’s automatically created by the programs you use to make your business work, so you have no real control over it. Also printed material does cost to do, while the digital is ‘free’. So why bother?

Reason 1: It makes your business look professional

Sure you can make do with letterhead printed by your printer when you need it, but let’s be honest here, doing that can look half assed at times. If you were to get quotes mailed from two different business, one who printed it out on copy paper on their inkjet printer and one printed with the inkjet again but on letterhead paper with high finish logos and borders, who would you think is the more professional. The answer would be the second choice because they spent the time and effort in giving you a higher quality letter. While this is a subjective thing, we all associate high quality letterhead with the ‘professional’ businesses (like banks and lawyers), so why not make use of that ingrained assumption with your own documents.

Reason 2: Every bit of your paper is your marketing

One of my rules of marketing is that to not paper leave your business without your branding on it. It might seem a redundant statement, but you’d be surprised how often you might write up a quick quote or give out some information on a plain bit of paper. If they pick up a bit of paper a week later and can’t remember who it came from, they will throw it and there’s a potential client you’ve just lost. With printed stationery, everything you do has your details on it, so when someone looks at it weeks later they will know it came from you and you’re the one they should be talking to for your great products or services.

Reason 3: It can be used for more than just for letters

It can surprise you how often you end up writing the same information every time for customer enquiries, quotations being the classic example. We at Copy Express have setup quick quote notepads where we tick boxes based on what the customer is after and lets us write up the prices for them. It also contains our quote terms and conditions, and time limits of how long it’s valid for. Saves time filling it out, makes it clear to the customer, and we have document that we can ensure that it came from us.

Reason 4: It can be cheaper than printing your own

This does boil down to how often you would use printed stationery, but in many cases it works out far cheaper for you in the long run to have your letterhead preprinted than to print your own. The fact of the matter is personal printers are always far more expensive to run than you might think. You could be spending up to $200 for a set of inkjet inks or four times or more that for a colour laser toner set. Either way while they might list 1000+ pages life (and in smaller machines 300-500 pages), in real term you’ll be doing well to get ⅔ of that. If you have big logos or colourful graphics then that will use them up even faster. And that’s not even factoring how much the letterhead paper cost. Meanwhile for the same price as a set of inks you can have 1000 sheets of letterhead stationery with as much colour and art as you like and on heavier, finer finish paper.

Reason 5: Great as promotional items

Looking for a low cost way to thank a customer for an order and at the same time keeping your name in their minds, why not given them a notepad or other small stationery item. While things like branded USB drives or fancy pens are cooler, for a low cost solution nothing beats notepads, memo cubes, or even removable sticky notes. Practical, easy to setup and customise, and fairly low startup costs, making them ideal as a small give away item.

So there’s five good reasons why getting pre printed stationery would be great investment for your business. If you want to have a look at what we can print for you, why not visit our online print system and look under the business stationery range or contact us at Copy Express to find out more.