One quote stands in my mind:

“Coming home with 30 or 40 cards is not nearly as effective as having half a dozen [that were from] really good quality conversations where having the business card and the ability to reconnect was important to you,” Ross Parker says. “I think people miss that.”

Do you think business cards are obsolete in the internet era? Let’s hear your take!

Print has been getting a lot of bad press lately. Undeservedly so.

Trees used to produce printing papers are a renewable resource. Beyond that, your use of print can actually stimulate the planting of new trees and the protection of forestland. Read about it here.

Another tip: Consider specifying domestically produced paper for your print projects. It’s more likely to have been produced with the environment in mind.

Well it may not be as much fun as ABC’s LOST! but Photoshop User TV has done a nice job putting together an entertaining episode that will help definitely bump up your portrait editing skills. Enjoy!

My parents became American citizens early on and toiled for years to take their place among the millions of workers that helped to build our nation during its golden age of growth. They opened their first company, a modest letterpress shop in Chicago. Dad was a naturally talented artist, and found that this talent served him well in the printing industry. It was a career that lasted over his entire (all too short) lifetime.

Last week, Mom passed away after a long illness. I miss both my parents terribly, but beyond being sad, I’ve also been reflective. Could they repeat their successes, had they touched down in 2010? How will my own son be able to find his way within the new realities of the job market?

The notion of “hang a shingle, work hard and success will follow,” can seem quaint and even laughable in the age of commoditization, outsourcing and double digit unemployment. A college degree is now out of reach for many, and is no longer automatically equated with job opportunity.

Still, I’m grateful for America, the opportunities it afforded my family, and so many others. I’m grateful for a landscape that still seems to egg me on with a hopeful new vision of the future.

Bella Alpert passed away the day after Mother’s Day.

It’s practically child’s play to make a great impression using print. Just take enough time to write some decent copy for your ad, brochure or mailer. That simple practice has become so rare that even a perfunctory effort at story telling gets attention.

It’s really quite daring to step out and tell a story with drama. Much simpler to advertise with leaden bullet points, as if your reader where looking at a powerpoint presentation.

The art of advertising in print certainly goes back thousands of years, and will likely be around even when the internet is a distant, faded memory. That’s because there {hidden treasure} are always stories to tell, for those perceptive enough to find them, and bold enough to write them.

This is a huge problem for small businesses, where marketing gets stuck between a dozen other priorities. Even dedicated marketers within large corporations are frequently are pulled off task, and lose sight of the big picture. Last but not least,  marketing gets stuck in no man’s land: perpetually caught somewhere between the sales and human resources team.

I believe that every great company deserves great marketing. To make it accessible we’ve created a simple system based on accountability. We put a deadline in place, and you’ve got to check in on a regular basis to report progress. Beyond that, the BrandOne Marketing Coach Program is designed to help you get clear about your company and its marketing.

If having your own personal marketing coach sounds interesting, feel free to check out the program in more detail. The Marketing Coach 2 minute slide show covers the philosophy and general outlines of the program, which will be FREE to all participants who enroll during the first 60 days. I hope you’ll join us.

There’s more about our marketing services at the BrandOne blog site.

Selling complex financial products or services based on price alone is a very weak opening gambit. It assumes your readers are unsophisticated, and are willing to accept unlikely scenarios or outlandish claims. On the other hand, this approach works well if you are willing to bet your company on a large volume of buyers who are interested in low end commodity purchases.

Ready to sell on price? Then you should be ready to compete with the Wal-Marts of the world. That means your product comes in cheap on containers from China and/or that your employees are outsourced to an offshore call center. Not you?

Direct Mail is more than ever the premier outreach method for everyone from Mom & Pops to Fortune 100s. It’s just silly and wasteful to use it as a spamming tool.

Why would I want to do business with your company? “Discount pricing” is the same answer all of your competitors use, and they’re as close as a Google search. For most marketers, low price just isn’t good enough, and just the wrong approach.

They’re printed on that standard paper, using standard process inks, just like every other card you’ve seen lately.

The text is lackluster, the result of software defaults.

The logo doesn’t look quite right, and it’s lost in the cluttered layout.

Worst of all, there’s no memorable message or emotional appeal to the reader. I mean, now that I’ve seen your card, why should I care?

If there’s any seven square inches of real estate that deserves your attention it’s your business card. So frequently it’s the first and only impression of your company in print.

Of course, every aspect of your business marketing deserves your attention. Customers and prospects do notice these kinds of details, if only subliminally. Be it your business card, your website, or the just the impersonal voice mail message that greets your callers.

Is it possible to capture your unique genius, your reason for being in a business card? Absolutely! Take the time to really think this through, and you’ll be amply rewarded.

Take a look at a few of these cards. Some are truly remarkable. And please share your favorite card idea with us; I can’t wait to see where your creativity takes you!

Just spending a few hours in my office cleaning up the remaining tasks for 2009. The last decade has been a wild ride, to be sure. Hope it’s ending on a positive note for you, as it did for us.

To each of my friends, colleagues and customers best wishes for a very Happy New Decade!

I looked it up; the actual saying is “The Proof of the Pudding is in the Eating.” You’ll quickly be cooking up some tasty PDFs with the help of Adobe’s ace presenter/trainer, Kelly McCathran. Those that attended her last program at Copies&Ink were riveted by her wealth of knowledge and clarity of presentation.

Register on our events page.

Please join us on the morning of Friday October 16, 2009. Admission is free for up to 4 attendees from every company. AAF-Inland Empire members should sign up through the AAF website. Space is limited, so please register as soon as possible. Your registration will be confirmed by e-mail.

Adobe Perfect PDF Event: Friday, October 16
Sign in: 8:30 – 8:55 a.m. • Program: 9:00 – Noon. Coffee, tea and light refreshments will be served.
Program and Free Raffle (a full copy of Adobe CS4, $1300 value) will conclude before noon.
Register on our events page.

Event Description:

Adobe® Acrobat®  is the de facto standard for distributing documents in today’s electronic workflow. Anyone who purchased Acrobat, or one of the variety of shareware and freeware programs to build a PDF can make a PDF file, but that doesn’t mean they are making a PDF that displays and prints well on all computer platforms. In this seminar we will cover the best practices for building reliable, complete and consistent PDF documents that work on any platform.
 
Creating PDF Files Anyone Can Open and Print
Preventing Common File Problems
Document Properties
Checking Font Embed Status
PDF/X – Why Does This Matter
Where and When to Flatten Transparency
Customizing Adobe PDF Output Quality
Building a Preflight Profile
Performing Single Fixups
Converting Color
Adding or Removing Crop Marks
Modifying PDF Files
The Best Distiller Settings

Our speaker:

Kelly McCathran is the Service Provider Evangelist for Adobe, her mission is to maintain relationships with the top print shops in North America. To fulfill that roll, she is the primary contact for printers to get the support, training and information they need to successfully work with Adobe’s line of products. In addition Kelly is a Certified Technical Trainer and an Adobe Certified Expert in InDesign, Photoshop, Illustrator, Acrobat, GoLive and PageMaker. Kelly has traveled North America and abroad teaching applications to the largest print shops in the world.