PDA

View Full Version : Designers, Would You Like 1,000 Free Business Cards?



vangogh
03-11-2009, 03:26 AM
This is a real offer. uprinting.com (http://www.uprinting.com/Free-Business-Cards-KickStart09/) is running a promotion where you can get 1,000 free business cards if you're a creative profssional. The offer ends March 31st so if you were thinking of ordering cards now would be a good time.

For the printers here take a look at this promotion and think about how many designers are going to find out about it over the next few days. Sure the company is going to give away a lot of cards, but think how many loyal customers they'll create over the next few weeks. And also realize those customers are all going to be creative professionals. Just the kind of people who end up deciding where their clients will order cards from.

Pretty good promotion for the cost of some business cards.

Just H
03-11-2009, 09:19 AM
Interesting - I'll definitely take a look. Seems difficult for some of us smaller businesses to give away on this magnitude but it's easy to see how this kind of marketing will spread the name and get customers to have first-hand experience with their process AND product without having to spend money. What can we take from this to use on a smaller scale for our businesses?

For my graphic design biz, I could probably order business card or brochure holders w/ my logo on and give them away. Or I could offer a biz card or postcard design free where client only pays printing cost. I also enjoy designing t-shirts so could get x number printed up w/ my logo and give them out. Not quite the same but at least gets me thinking how I could use this approach in my biz.

rezzy
03-11-2009, 09:31 AM
I have seen someone VividColor will send you a sample of their paper and printing. I thought that was a good idea and allows their product to become tangible.

Its already found its way on Digg. I got my code. :)

Thanks Van, Steven.

vangogh
03-11-2009, 12:01 PM
H, I don't think this will cost them as much as it first seems. 1,000 cards doesn't look like it costs them all that much to print. And they're limited the offer to creative professionals. In the end this will likely cost less than an ad, but they'll be letting their target market test their service.

If they pick up some new loyal customers they'll do pretty well with the promotion.

Remipub
03-11-2009, 04:38 PM
My personal experience with designers (specifically) is that many already have an established source and it would take more than a box of free cards to convince them to switch. What has proven more successful (albeit a much slower process) is simply to offer great prices and even better service.

Most of the time when I've earned the business of a designer client it is because I approached them right after they were disatisfied with something about their existing supplier.

vangogh
03-11-2009, 05:01 PM
You may be right, but still I think it could be a good promotion to pick up new designers as clients. Some will be new designers still looking for a printer, some will be unhappy with their current printer and looking to change, some may simply be willing to try something new and then your service can convince them to switch, and some may be looking for a backup.

Odds are people who are happy with their printer aren't going to be looking elsewhere for free cards so you probably wouldn't be giving away freebies to them.

If you've tried this and it didn't work then I'd understand not trying again, but it struck me as a good way to get some people to try your service for what should be a small cost per lead.

rezzy
03-11-2009, 05:03 PM
I dont do print design, but if a client asked for recommendation I could point to them.

I have not been actively looking for a printer, but this could be an incentive to get them in my good graces.

Remipub
03-11-2009, 05:12 PM
I have tried something similar ... though not with business cards. I don't think it's a bad idea at all, but in my experience I spent more on the promotion than I made from it.

It's very possible that my promotion wasn't up to snuff, hard to say - that was when I first started printing, but I'm not sure I'd do it again. That being said, I do sometimes like to offer free cards to people as a thank you for referring me business. But I don't do that so much as a promotion as a way of saying thanks.

vangogh
03-11-2009, 05:16 PM
You'd certainly have more experience with this than me so I'll trust you when you say you tired and it didn't work so well. I can see potential downsides of many people not looking to go with as you a printer are just after the free cards. I would think only offering the free cards to designers would help alleviate that.

It could have been your specific promotion like you say. Did you find you lost money on the giveaway or was it more a matter of the promotion not attracting much attention? If the latter maybe a better promotion reaching more people would do the trick. If the former then maybe you could find a way to reduce the cost to you or limit further who you give the freebie too.

Then again maybe the idea just sounds better than it really is.

Remipub
03-11-2009, 05:24 PM
When I did it, it was before they days of www proliferation so the fact that the web is virtually universal may alone make the difference. But in my experience - not a lot of designers bit on the idea, and those that did were strictly looking for something for free. Those tended to be the new start ups, or those who frankly didn't have clients that used much printing. My promotion was on a small, local scale, so my investment in money wasn't huge, but quite a bit of time. The few free items I did produce didn't create return business. However, when I had the opportunity to talk to a design client and show them what level of experience they could expect - those very often became long term clients.

vangogh
03-11-2009, 05:27 PM
Hopefully sometime in April this site will let everyone know how the promotion went. I saw it last night through a blog I'm subscribed to and posted it here. I also tweeted it and noticed at least a few people retweeting the link to the site. At the very least the link has reached a few thousand people just through a couple minutes of my actions and I assume I wasn't the only one spreading the word.

Might be worth trying again, though you would have to watch out for those just looking for the freebie.