Marketing with Custom Photo Business Gifts

This time of the year is when your thoughts turn to gifts for customers and suppliers. If you’re a photographer or have access to great photos of your business, what better way to advertise it than using them in your gifts?

You’ll find a legion of websites that let you turn photos into desk calendars to high-quality business cards and just about anything else your mind can conjure. The good news is that it’s not too late to do it this year; you can get it done on a short turnaround if needed. We’ll introduce you to four online custom-printing services each with a different specialty.

Tips for the Best Results

Before you grab all of your photos and start uploading them to any of these websites, follow these tips to help you get great results. First review your photos and gather together the best of them. If you’re making a calendar you’ll need 13 – one for each month and one for the cover.

For notebooks and objects with space for just one image you can — obviously — go with a single image – or you can gather a number of images together into one collage. If you’re making a coffee table book, you’ll need to budget one to two images per page.

Vistaprint.com

Figure 1: You can make a desk calendar, such as this one from Vistaprint, with your own images or with images purchased from a stock photo website.

Check the website for any downloadable design templates or for information about photo format and size requirements. Use that information to make sure your images are the right size and right format. If not, open them in a photo editor and resize and resave them. If images have people in them, fix any glaring problems such as redeye, crop them to remove any extra background, and adjust brightness and contrast if needed.

If you don’t have good images, visit a site like Fotolia.com or Istockphoto.com and purchase stock images. No matter what business you’re in — from building to baking — you’re likely to find great, appropriate images there.

Consider how to combine your images with information about your business. One option is to open each image in your photo editing software, add a band of color across the foot of the image and type your company name, business details and website in this area.

You can also insert your company logo if desired. The text and logo don’t have to be really large, but this way each image includes your company details and provides a bit of advertising mileage.

When adding details to your images, keep them well inside the edges of the image – in some cases the very edge of an image may be trimmed away in the production cycle so you want to make sure your details aren’t in the trim area.

Make Desk Calendars at Vistaprint

A desk calendar is a good way to keep your business in your customers’ mind all year round. Desk calendars open to a triangle shape, show a single image for each month, and they have a cover image, too.

At Vistaprint, you can make desk calendars using your photos for a few dollars per calendar. One nice thing about making your own desk calendars: you can start them at any month, so if you don’t get around to making them until February, or if you have a marketing campaign starting in May, then start them at that month instead of January.

Moo.com

Figure 2: Moo prints great-looking business cards. You can provide your own photos or you can use one of Moo’s designs.

You can add your own logos and photos to the desk calendars and, for some industries — like builder, baker and beauty and massage — Vistaprint offers pre-designed templates. The site also has a great range of one-off custom printing options, but we particularly like the desk calendars for their combination of good looks, longevity and usefulness.

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