People love nice business cards...

Some startups, long before they get the funding to do the next big thing online - get a card done.

A business card is arguably the single most important marketing tool a startup or an established business has in its arsenal. It's the first thing you offer to a new client. It's the first impression, it's the only thing in your pocket at a networking event besides your camera, phone and wallet.

Sure, websites are supporting material...but most people don't leave your booth or event looking at a screen - you need to do something unique and discreet.

Ever take your business on a roadshow only to realize you have so many products and so little room to transport your supporting material that you have to pare down the list?

With seminars being an expensive adventure its important that all your products are represented well. To reduce the expense of shipping, handling and managing volumes its worth considering an alternate method.

A few years ago, in preparation for an extensive roadshow in New Zealand and various shows in Australia we took stock of all the brochures we had on hand, looked at the cost of shipping and handling and considered taking a small sampling of only the key products. Airlines charge quite a bit for extra weight.

The concern was missed opportunities and the price of sacrifice.

But - we have the Kodak Nexpress Digital Production Press.

We don't need to reduce our inventory of titles, we simply need to reduce the volume and size - no compromise!

Here is what we did...

We took our existing business card template, designed a basic acrylic desktop stand and added a set of 'postcard styled racks' for the major shows to hold the complete set.

In all, we designed 90 cards, each had a single image on the front



and highlighted 4 or 5 benefits, functions or features of the technology. The back of the cards had a variable watermark and a basic design with contact details to reach the marketing team and a www unique landing page - at the time, only advertised on these cards. The cards were not designed to replace existing collateral - they were designed to tease.

The time to design 90 cards was about a month, we used existing images, copy and added an amusing slogan to get folks to pay attention. For software we livened it up a little and had some fun.

In all we did a print run of 85,000 cards and by years end we had given out an estimated 65,000. Perhaps a bit eager on the first run - after all, it is short run variable data!

The cards could be stored in traditional business card boxes making it easy to stack-n-ship. We took only as many as needed - but every product was represented.



The desktop stands are made of white and clear acrylic, the Kodak logo is vinyl adhesive making the costs low and the potential to modify easy. They stack like lawn chairs meaning you can take 3 of these in a large suitcase and about 12000 cards without paying extra at the airport.

This means we were able to have marketing material for 21 products and with the help of the unique landing page, we were able to capture responses long after the show, knowing they were from the feature cards. You could probably redesign this basic stand to include a Kodak digital frame...wireless...hmmm.



The postcard racks were a different story, again, perhaps a bit ambitious at the start, however they were built quite well and 3 years later still show up in the demo centre in Australia. They also have space for 8 A4 sized brochures.

We took this one step further after the roadshow...

Most companies offer some sort of thank you/give away product at a stand. What we did was take a nice business card holder with the Kodak logo engraved on it and insert 15 feature cards in each in advance of roadshow dates or events. A bit of work, but a great learning tool for new staff and even existing customers to understand the extent of our huge product portfolio... and a unique form of demand generation to boot!



For an Awards show, we had 500 guests seated. In advance of their arrival, we took 500 card holders, inserted 15 cards each and added two 'wild cards' for prize draws. We placed them on the seats, so when they arrived they picked them up and took a look at the contents prior to the start of the festivities. That's 7500 cards in one evening...and two Kodak cameras! People were happy, impressed and talkative after the event. We simply could not have been as effective with A4 material, a website or a TVC.

Now try it with Kodak Dimensional Ink!

What did we learn?

• A company that uses competitive products does not want to be seen at a tradeshow with a handful of your brochures? This solves the problem.
• After a 1-on-1 presentation, Product demonstrators hand an elegant business card holder with their own card and several product feature cards.
• 300-350gsm paper and 20 cards per A3 sheet equaled one set per holder printed and cut on a single page - made insertion and collating easy.
• leads were generated for products that would have otherwise not have made the trip.
• people discovered we had more products than they originally thought.
• you can add exclusive offers on the back, hand them out at shows.

The cost? The card holders were less than A$1.75 each. The printing was no different than your typical business card run. (how much do u spent per unit on give aways?)

Have a seminar with 100 invited guests? Do some variable data short run printing and spend $200 on the card holders. Less expensive then an A4 run and you can utilize custom URLS to keep the content fresh.

Think about it...how much $$ did your last banner ad cost to design and post?

These days lots of people are saying print needs to think outside the box.

...Its time to print a new box.

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