Vista Print Free Business Cards Demonstrate Marketing 101 Principle

Vista Print has built an empire in the online printing industry, and one of the key tools they used was one of the oldest marketing techniques there is – offering something free. If you do a search on the Internet you will find that many printing companies now have some sort of promotion involving free online business cards.

The approach makes sense; printed materials are physical products that are valued for their appearance. When printers started doing business online, their potential customers had no way of knowing what kind of quality they could expect. There has been a lot of skepticism about doing business online (much of it deserved, due to the proliferation of crime taking place via online channels), so new online businesses and established companies that were intending to expand their market base needed a way to prove themselves as purveyors of quality goods.

Enter free business cards online. Why business cards? Perhaps because they are an item that everybody needs, regardless of the industry they are in. All professionals, whether they are housekeepers or corporate attorneys, need to print business cards and every time any of their contact, business or position information changes, they need to reprint them.

Companies want all their employees’ business cards to have a consistent look so once they have set up a satisfactory template with a printer, all future business card orders are likely to be sent to that printer rather than going to the trouble of redoing templates or risking substandard appearances for individual orders.

Vista Print.com makes good use of these principles. They offer a full box of business cards, not just a sample, and they have an assortment of ready to use templates that make ordering simple. On the back of their free cards, they have a small promotion for their company, so the free Vista Print business cards end up being advertising for their company that customers distribute for them.

It seems to be a win-win situation — that is, as long as the expectations of your line of work don’t conflict with using freebies. Financial planners and attorneys must give the appearance of already being successful so using free business cards would send an undesirable message to potential clients that would not be an issue for a small business such as a lawn service or dry cleaners.

Vista Print has that aspect of their marketing plan covered too. They offer business cards without any advertising on them for a very small charge. This allows professionals to purchase business cards with minimal risk and still become customers of Vista Print.

There may be two valuable business lessons in that. Number one would be for you to take advantage of the free business card offer at Vista Print.com, and the other would be to examine the success of the promotion and see how you could use it in your own business. Everybody likes to get something free. What can you give away that will help build your business’s brand and be useful to your customers?