Most work at home moms are starting a business on a very low budget. This means that promotion is going to be fairly limited unless you can do a lot of the tasks yourself. Unfortunately, many women feel that they are not capable of producing their own promotional materials. So, I am starting this series, which will be ongoing, to cover the basics of doing your own promotion.
We are going to take a look at creating your own business cards. It isn´t that difficult to do and business cards are an excellent tool for promoting yourself. You can hand them out to anyone and everyone you meet, even if they don´t seem to need your services or product. You never know, maybe they will in the future or perhaps they know someone who does.
My absolute favorite program for these sorts of things is Microsoft Publisher. This program comes with Microsoft Office and is very user-friendly. If you don´t have Publisher or are using a different operating system, do a quick search online for business card software. There are several shareware programs that will work just fine. However, for the purpose of this series, I will be talking about Publisher.
In Publisher, there is a template for business cards. When you first open the program, on the left-hand side there is a column, the first selection is Publications for Print. If you click on the little arrow beside that, you will see a long list of templates. Select the one for business cards.
Now, you will see a variety of designs. You can select one that you like (make sure it is from the “normal paper” section) and customize it. Publisher makes this VERY simple. Just click on any of the elements and move, delete or change. You can add your own graphic easily by clicking on the little row of icons to the left. The one with a mountain will allow you to select an image you have stored on your computer. This is a good option if you have a specific logo.
Your business card should be fairly simple. It is very small, so you want it to be easily readable, with just the basic information. You can check and see how it looks in real life by clicking the Preview button at the top of the page (a page with a magnifying glass) or selecting it from the “File” menu. Make sure you have the page set to 100% so you have a good idea of the size.
A business card should have your recognizable logo, if you have one, plus your name, the name of your business and contact information. These days, that could be a phone number, email address and/or website. Your physical address, if yours is a brick and mortar business, should be at the very bottom of the card.
If you are only including your name, that of your business and a phone number, you may also want to include a tag line. This would be how you describe your business. For example, my tag line for At Home Mom is “Everything for work at home moms”. Not terribly original, but it lets you know in milliseconds what this blog is about.
There are special papers for business cards that come pre-stamped. You simply print and then break the cards up. The problem with this is that the edges will be fuzzy and it will look like you printed your business cards at home!
I recommend printing on card stock, which comes in a variety of nice colors, and then heading to your local print shop to get them cut. You could also do the cutting at home, if you have a guillotine style cutter (such as for scrapbooking) which allows you to get nice, straight, professional edges.
Before you print, make sure you have selected the multiple card option on the left hand side of the publishing screen. If you don´t do this, you will end up with just one card per page! And print a sample before committing to printing off ten dozen cards with an error on them!
Now that you have your business cards, start using them. Leave them in the doctor´s office, at the dentist, anywhere you are, really. Business cards are a great way to get your name out there.
Read other posts in the Budget Promotion series:
Part Four: Offering Coupons and Discounts
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I recently signed up for a new affiliate program called SharePayNow. They are fairly new and lacking in advertisers as well as a affiliates. However, it looks like a pretty good program, they have a lot of benefits for both sides.
Part of SharePayNow´s promotion campaign is that they are offering new signups $150 in pay per click credits. There are limitations, but it is still a very good deal if you are looking to promote your online business.
They also offer a great affiliate program. Unlike Clickbank, SharePayNow offers both information and physical products, so theoretically, there will be a lot more to choose from in the near future.
So, if you are interested in getting those $150 in PPC credits, or just want to try out a new affiliate program, head over to SharePayNow.
