Helpful Tricks for Writing a Business Card Tagline

2010-07-13T10:26:00.000-07:00

Want to know how to increase the survival of your business card? It's as easy as including a tagline on your business card to help recipients remember what your business does and why they kept the card. And a really good tagline will help convince people to do business with you. Here are some tips for writing a successful tagline for business card printing.

Write Words to do with Your Business
First of all, you will need to include words that relate to your business in your tagline. Write down as many as you can think of. Do not stop until you and your team can think of no more words. Do not worry about the appropriateness of the words for business card printing at this point.

Find Synonyms for the Words
Look in a thesaurus for synonyms to the words your team came up with. Hopefully you will end up with at least 50 words in your list. Seems like a lot, I know, but having such a large list simply helps you to see all of the options.

Narrow Down What You Do Well
Write down two or three things that your company does really well, something that sets you apart from the competition. Be honest with yourself at this point and only write down the ones that really do make your business shine.

Think of Words to do with Greatness
You want to let people know that your business is the best at something when business card printing, so get your team to think up words and phrases having to do with being the best or being great. Some common phrases are “number one,” “king of . . .,” or “top dog.”

Write Your Name and Business Name
Write down your full name, as the business owner. Also write down your company name. You may be able to find a play on words with your name and some of the words you have found so far.

Find Homophones
Look at the words you have come up with so far. Are there any homophones for those words? Homophones are words that sound alike but have different meanings and are spelled differently. For example, bear and bare are homophones.

Look for Rhymes, Alliteration, and Clichés
Now try to combine words. Rhymes, alliteration, and clichés can help make your tagline memorable. Look for rhymes or words that almost rhyme. Another way to make a phrase catchy is to use alliteration, which means using words that start with the same letter, like “Barry’s Bodacious Barbeque.”

Select Two or Three Phrases
Try out lots of different phrases. Do not judge them at first; just write down anything you can think of. Then start weeding out the silly, vague, or irrelevant ones. Select your favorite two or three. Your tagline should be no more than 10 words; shorter is better.

Test the Tag Lines Out
Try your taglines out; ask people what they think. Find out if the phrases are understandable. Also make sure the phrase does not embarrass you before you go to press. Ask yourself if it is something you would be proud to put on your business card. Once you've made your choice, simply send your design to your business card printing company and wait for the magic to begin!

Printing deadlines. A reality check.

2010-07-08T14:38:00.000-07:00

This is a touchy subject, and therefore, I will attempt to approach it carefully.

I have noticed lately that more and more potential customers call us wanting custom printed products in an unreasonable amount of time. We have had some requests for 1000 full-color business cards, printed on both sides, with UV coating, in less than 1 hour.

Seriously?

The business card usually has to be designed. The customer has to approve the design. The design then has go through pre-flight, batch stagging, batch imposition, pre-press, and so on (you get the picture). Once the first side is printed, it must dry before the back side can be printed, then it must dry again before cutting. All this takes time... certainly more than an hour... unless some one has discovered a space-time continuum and didn't tell me.

It's been my experience... and I have a lot... that when a job is "rushed" there will most likely be mistakes. Why not allow yourself and your commercial printer the time to do the job right.

Tammy Dills
Atlanta AdGraphics, LLC
www.atlantaadgraphics.com