Bulk Business Cards: Everything You Should Know About Ordering and Printing
Creating and printing business cards is an easy task for an individual: you upload your design, you add your text, you hit print, and you’re good to go.
But when you’re managing a large team that’s growing by the day, it can quickly become a nightmare trying to edit and print bulk business cards for the whole team.
Content
- What does bulk ordering business cards even mean?
- Why you should bulk order business cards
- How to order and print your business cards in bulk
- Things to consider while bulk ordering your business cards
- Are you making the most of bulk ordering business cards?
Think about it. You’ve got your sales department, your marketing team, your finance department and everything in between. Designing business cards for each and every team member within those departments is enough to give anyone a headache.
But it doesn’t have to be that difficult.
Sure, creating bulk business cards needs a lot of consideration, from who you’re making them for to what message you want to send out with each one. But, if you’re organizing business cards for an entire department or company wide, bulk ordering is the best way to do it.
If you still need convincing, just know that for every 2,000 business cards that are handed out, a company’s sales increase by 2.5%.
What does bulk ordering business cards even mean?
Bulk ordering business cards is exactly what it says on the tin: ordering a large amount of cards at the same time. The cards can all be the same, or they can have minor differences, like department names, logos, and individualized names and job roles.
If you’re a large business with multiple departments, a fast-growing company, or a startup looking to expand, bulk ordering business cards is a great investment.
Why you should bulk order business cards
1. Save Time and Money
Let’s face it, you want to save money wherever you can to make the most of your profit margins, and shelling out excess money on business cards might seem like an unjustifiable expense.
Most business card companies offer a discount for bulk orders because it’s cheaper to print out thousands at once rather than a few hundred here and there as and when you need them.
2. Avoid Confusing Customers
When you bulk order business cards, you’re essentially getting the same design printed but with different details on them.
Because the design is inherently the same on each and every card, you avoid confusing customers with non-matching color palettes and non-branded designs.
Think about it:
Imagine if a member of your sales team handed a prospect their card which had one design on, and a member of your marketing team handed the same prospect their card which had different colors and branding on.
Confusion central, right?
3. Keep Things Consistent
Consistency is so important when it comes to branding.
When consumers are constantly exposed to the same colors, fonts, and imagery, they start to recognise brands based on visuals alone.
When you bulk order business cards, it’s easy to make sure they all follow the same design rules. It also avoids the designs getting changed (however small) each and every time you put in a new order.
Now you know why you should be bulk ordering your business cards, let’s dig into how you can do that.
How to Order and Print Your Business Cards in Bulk
Things to Consider Before You Bulk Order Your Business Cards:
Nail Down Your Design
Before you can print your business cards, you need something to actually print which means you need to get your design down on paper (or on screen).
There are no hard and fast rules about how you should design your business cards, but here are some steps you might want to follow to get the best result.
The key things you want to include on all of your business cards are:
- Brand colors and logo
- Individual names and job roles
- Personalized contact details
Feel free to get creative with your design - first impressions are important, and you want your business cards to be remembered.
Think About Who Your Business Cards Are For
Even though you’re bulk ordering business cards, you can still get them created for individuals within your business.
At this point, you want to think about which departments will need business cards or whether you’ll just get some printed for key players in each team. You might also consider getting department-wide cards printed rather than individual ones for every single team member.
Create a One-Size-Fits-All Design
We mentioned just a moment ago that you need to consider the design of your cards, but bulk ordering them can make things a bit easier. Rather than having to individually design each card for each team member, you can create something like a “master” design that can then be tweaked for different people.
It might have the same background and your logo in the same place, but placeholder text that you can swap in and out for different team members.
With Brandly, you can save and store a number of different designs that are relevant to each department so you can easily log in and tweak them as and when they’re needed.
The Message You Want to Send Out
Business cards are often the first contact a client or new customer will have with your business, so sending out a great first impression is really important.
As well as looking nice and having all the right information, your business cards need to send out the kind of message you want clients to hear. This means using appropriate fonts and imagery, or using a specific “finish” to give them a professional or fun feel.
Things to Consider While Bulk Ordering Your Business Cards:
The Shape Of Your Business Card
Business cards are traditionally rectangular in shape, but that doesn’t mean you have to stick to the norm.
In fact, you can help your cards stand out in a stack of others by making them a different shape - maybe circular or with jagged edges, the possibilities are endless (check out this list on unconventionally shaped business cards for inspiration).
This can be decided when you’re putting together your design or before you go to print to give your business card that extra wow-factor.
The Size of Your Business Card
Again, the majority of business cards are the same size so that when they are stacked together with others they blend into the crowd.
But what if your cards were bigger than the others? Or what if they were smaller so they needed to be placed on top of the stack?
It’s small details like these that give you the edge. Like with the shape, the size can be chosen during the designing stage or the moment you go to print.
Remember: you want your company’s cards to be uniform and consistent, so if you decide to go for a bigger-than-average size, you need to do it for all departments and teams.
The Paper Quality for Bulk Business Cards
The final step in designing your bulk order of business cards is deciding what paper quality you want.
Paper quality relates to the “finish” your cards have, whether that’s matte or glossy.
Here, you want to think about what kind of message you want to send out to clients and what finish will look best with your design.
For example, if you’ve got a lot of color on your cards, a gloss finish might look best, or if you want to send out a “hipster” vibe, you might decided to go for a more matte finish.
Things to Consider After You’ve Bulk Printed Your Business Cards:
It’s easy to think the process finishes when you’ve finally got your business cards in your hand, but what happens when you need more?
Having to redesign a new batch of business cards every time you need to place a new order can be time-consuming and incredibly frustrating, which is why keeping the designs on file is cost-effective and much, much easier than scrabbling around to get more designed at the last minute.
With Brandly, you can safely store all designs for every single department so you can quickly log back in, make a few edits and bulk order a new set whenever you need to.
Brandly’s mission is to help you grow your team with flexible services that other “one and done” companies don’t offer. Through the platform, you can manage team members, create lockable business card templates, and design the perfect business card for every department.
This means you can easily order business cards en-masse for upcoming events or client meetings without having to start from scratch every single time.
Are You Making the Most of Bulk Ordering Business Cards?
We’ve spoken a lot about the benefits of bulk ordering business cards.
If you’ve got a fast-growing team or are looking to expand, ordering and printing cards at the same time can save you time, money, and the inevitable frustration that comes from trying to design business cards from scratch every time you get a new team member.
Remember: business cards are some of the first pieces of contact your clients will have with your business. It’s a chance for your team to send out a good first impression and create a memorable encounter.
By making sure they all have a cohesive design, send out the right message, and have all the necessary information on them, you’re giving your business the chance to stand out in a sea (or stack) of others.
Want more actionable tips to help take your branding, design, and marketing knowhow to the next level? Subscribe to our newsletter—delivered straight to your inbox once a month.