(Business cards I’ve made for my AlwaysAmy & AlsoAmy shops using photographs of my own items.)

Every one’s always talking about photos because taking great photos of your items isn’t easy but it is absolutely necessary if you want your shop to sell well & stand out.

I always say, ‘When in doubt, retake your photos!’ If your shop is slow, retake your photos. If an item isn’t selling as well as you think it should, retake your photos. If want to revamp your shop & give it a fresh look at the beginning of a new season or sale, retake your photos. If you are looking for a way to brand yourself & make your shop stand out, retake your photos.

Online shopping is a 100% visual experience. Customers can’t touch or smell or even taste your items, they can only see your items & read about them. So you want to make that visual something that grabs their attention & sticks with them!

You want to do this with not only every listing in your shop but all the things that are associated with your business: your banner, your avatar, your blog, online ads (such as ProjectWonderful slots) & your promotional items. & using your pictures on your promotional items is actually what I want to post about today.

(Two ‘post cards’ promos front & back that I made using photographs of the NEW flower hair clips in my AlwaysAmy shop.)

Every promotional item I use for my shop is customized with my own photos. If I am buying business cards from an online site or a local printer I NEVER just settle for any of the pre-designed, generic logo stuff. Why? Because thousands of other businesses are opting for that same logo so it doesn’t help me stand apart or make a unique impression. Because rarely, if ever, do those generic logos actually convey the feeling that I want to send out into the world about my business. (Which by the way is, ‘POW! You’ve gotta see this!’) & because, honestly, I’m not a logo kinda girl. I don’t have bazillions of dollars to paint the world with my logo & promo it until everyone knows it. & that’s what is necessary for a logo to really work for you. But I do have some pretty snazzy photographs & I think they say more about my shop in a glance then a logo (especially a generic one) could.

Plus, I want my customers to actually SEE something they might find in my shop & a logo heavy promo or business card doesn’t give me a chance to do that. I want to use that business card to share my best selling item with them, not show them some swirly flower graphics (unless I was a graphic artist, then I might! HA!).

You have a very small moment to catch the eye of a potential customer & tell them about your business & what better way to do that then with a beautiful photograph? After all, a picture says a thousand words.

When I am making my promotional items, a lot of times I will let my photos stand virtually alone with just a bit of text information, the URL for instance, so my customer knows it’s an online site, possibly a shop. I add my tag lines & product information to the backs of cards so as not to clutter or detract from my photos when possible. I like to pick basic design layouts that draw attention to my photos with boarders or lines that lead the eye. I use the colors in the photographs throughout the design & in the text to pull it together.

For me, it’s all about catching the customer’s eye quickly with a big, bold photo & peeking the customers interest with just enough product information so they will follow that promo item to my shop.

I want every business card & button & magnet & post card & address label that I use to really show the care I take with my creations. To do that, I use (what I think) are the most alluring photos of the best selling items that I create. I put my best foot forward, as my granny always says.

(Two magnet promos I made for my shops. That robot picture gets me every time!)

I’m sure you are looking at my promo items & thinking they must have cost me an arm & a leg. Well, they didn’t. I have a very limited budget for stuff like this & I try to be a smart shopper.

I got all of these promo items from VistaPrint the last time they were having a huge ‘free stuff’ sale. I know a lot of people have bad things to say about that company & I am not here to argue that or promote them.

I will say that I safeguard myself when I order from them by using the PayPal Plugin Widget that creates a one time use Credit Card number & automatically withdraws the funds from my PayPal account. This ensures that VistaPrint never gets my banking account information. I also double check each order to make sure I haven’t checked any odd boxes or opted in for any of their extra services. I have been dealing with them for a lot of years & have not had problems but I know others have.

VistaPrint isn’t the only online printing company that has great deals on promo items & I’m sure with a little research you can find a business that suits you. I like them because they have tons of designs that you can customize & the cost for adding my own photos & making the promo items uniquely mine is small.

And while cost is something we all must consider, I have to say, if your options are between getting 1000 generic promo items for next to nothing or 500 unique & eye catching promos for a reasonable price then I think we all know which to pick. I mean really, when you see a group of random business cards which promo items inspire you to investigate a shop? Why would your customers be any different?

Another thing you need to consider if you are going to be using your own photographs on your promotional materials is time.

How long will it take you to distribute all the promo items you have? Will the items pictured (or something similar) still be in your shop?

You don’t want your promo items to be dated. You don’t want them to show an item that you quit making last fall. You don’t want them to lure customers in & then disappoint them. So when you are picking your photos you need to keep in mind that your promos might circulate for 6 months to a year. (Or you can hope.) Pick items that are true to your style if you only create one of a kind pieces. Or pick an item that you know you are going to recreate for your shop several times, if that’s possible.

I like knowing that I have an ‘expiration date’ of sorts on my promo items. This motivates me to move them on out the door! What good are business cards & stickers & buttons & post cards & magnets if they are just sitting at your house & not shouting to the world about your lovely little shop? Not much good at all really, so move them along!

I try to send out at least 100 promo items a month in a variety of different ways: swapping business cards with other Etsy sellers, sending coupons to people doing craft shows or making goodie bags, making Friendship Books, sticking them on bulletin boards, tucking them into library books, leaving them in public bathrooms & dressing rooms, adding them to my envelopes when I pay my bills via the mail, handing them out to strangers that I strike up conversations with & more.

Because no matter how you make your promos, how great they are or how much you pay for them, they won’t do you any good unless you put them into the hands of potential customers!

(An over sized post card I made showing off a variety of items from my AlwaysAmyshop!)

I hope the next time you are reordering business cards or are looking to purchase new promotional materials of any kind for your shop, that you will consider the benefits of customizing them with your OWN photos. It’s a great way to communicate with your customers without saying a thing.

{This was originally posted at http://always-amy.blogspot.com/}