How to Avoid Wasting Money and Save Cost Printing Smarter

Printing costs will quickly fly out of control if you're not prepared and don't save cost printing smarter. If you understand the printing process, you're on step ahead of most business owners.

But here are a few tips to help you trim printing costs before you blow your budget.

Printing Format

There are always more cost effective formats that make more sense to print than other, similar sizes.

Not only do you need to make sure your brochure fits into a standard size envelope (even if you don't plan to mail it at this time -- you may down the road). Non-standard envelopes will only increase your costs if you print your brochure as an odd size.

For instance, an 8-1/2" x 11" sheet of paper folds neatly into three panels, fitting nicely into a #10 envelope (the most standard format available).

Your Printed Piece Doesn't Have to Be "Overdone."

Don't feel the pressure to produce a fancy, high color brochure. The cost to print full color vs one or two colors is pretty considerable.

In fact, if you're planning on doing a mailing, you can often do more for your business by writing a simple sales letter. It's been proven, and a personal letter helps you "sell" much better than a brochure.

By using a well-written sales letter instead of blowing your budget on a fancy brochure, you'll not only get a much better response to your marketing efforts -- and a higher Return on Investment.

Select Paper Stock Wisely

When you are printing in small quantities, you may be able to go with a higher quality paper. But the paper-production process has improved so much over the past few years that it's not worth even an extra few dollars on "fancy" stock that costs twice as much without giving you much more in the appearance of your piece.

Don't Rush Your Work (or the Designer)!

Mistakes are costly and by the time the printer has your file in their hands -- the costs escalate. By rushing to get your brochure printed or even your business cards your increasing your chance of mistakes.

And for every little mistake that needs to be fixed on press -- or even after the job has printed -- you're flushing money down the drain.

Proofread

You should always print out hard copies of your work and proofread.

And even better, ask someone else to proofread it for you.

It's very difficult to find your own mistakes and as mentioned above, those mistakes are much more costly after they're in the printer's hands.

Most printers charge in the range of $75 to $100 an hour for typesetting, which is who will fix your mistakes. And don't be surprised if you get hit with a minimum of one hour's time charged automatically.

Get to Know Someone on the Inside

Printers are busy and they typically have lots of clients. It's up to you to make sure they pay attention to you as if you're their biggest client -- even though you probably aren't.

By getting to know your customer service person, it'll make it easier for you to call and get the help you need -- when you need it. Being friendly with someone "inside" will help get your work pushed through a little faster and sometimes save you money and time.

Use online printers

The first time I printed a job with VistaPrint.com - a popular online printer - I felt like I dropped my file into a big hole -- hoping it would eventually come out alright.

But the savings are usually considerable and once it works out fine -- you'll be glad with the decision.

The more reputable online printers work just as if they're offline in the "Brick-and-Mortar" world. So you don't have to worry about staring at a computer screen waiting for help because you can just as easily pick up the phone and deal with someone one-on-one.