Modern Inspirations For Greeting Cards

Do not get stuck with formula type greeting cards. If you want to create color greeting cards today, you have to get fresh new ideas and go for more modern types of layouts. If you are all out of ideas, or do not know where to start though, you should not worry. Here in this article, I will help you find some modern inspirations for your cards. Just read the list below and follow through on these practices. Believe me, it will be easier to get fresh new ideas for your cards.

1. Take it from the Internet.

The Internet is vast and the Internet is free. You can take a lot of inspiration from the Internet when it comes to designing cards. Pay particular attention to those sales landing pages of many websites as well as the specific styles of popular web 2.0 websites.

Just look at how Twitter designs their homepage or see how Google changes their main search page every so often and you will see the best examples of digital art styles today. By matching the sleek and cute web 2.0 styles of these sites, your color calendars will look very modern and of course very trendy indeed.

2. What those mobile gadgets are doing.

Look at those mobile devices and you will also see some of the best types of digital art today. From the sleek interface of the iPad to the cute icons and effects on android enabled devices, you will see how the best digital artists design portable easy to carry materials.

Since cards are more or less mobile display devices as well, you can take inspiration of how these devices render their displays and of course compose their artistic styles. Those icons, backgrounds and text can be a good thing to match or take inspiration from for your color cards.

3. Advanced digital art.

You can actually also gain a lot more extra inspiration from advanced digital art. Look at the cool new art styles getting produced from artists and deviantart for example and you will see how they manipulate the best in digital design technology to create amazing wallpapers, banners and icons.

They are the masters of digital compositing and rendering and typically those art styles can easily be adapted to cards. So you may want to review those digital art sites and see what is now being done with these digital renderings.

4. Highly modified card templates.

It is also possible to alter the actual structure of those cards. By using highly modified templates that have extra folds, slits and pop up elements, you can add a whole new different dimension to those cards, making them all the more impressive and distinct.

Just make sure that the greeting card can still be easily carried and sent through email and you should be okay. The more different the configuration is, the more memorable and fun that greeting card should be to people.

5. Alternative greeting card printing.

Finally, you can go beyond the typical paper materials and ink materials in card printing and use alternatives. These alternative paper and inks can imbue a lot of new features into the greeting card making it really look different. Glossy and metallic type inks in printing are a good initial example.

They give that elegant and gleaming effect to cards, helping them hem in their messages. So ask your printer about your alternatives when it comes go greeting card printing. Try to use more exotic materials for a great more modern effect in your greeting cards.

Conversions

To be assured of new leads online you need to take into account your visitors experience. By this I mean that your visitors should right away know what your website is all about. A well organized site ensures that your target audiences hesitate before leaving your website or blog. In addition, you will be able to quickly get the attention of your readers thus any action you tell them to take they will easily comply.

Even as you work hard towards succeeding in search engine optimization, remember that the traffic you generate needs also to be retained. Every person that visits your website forms an opinion of your site in the first 10 seconds. Therefore, you need to be very careful that every new leads online turn into sale conversions.

A perfect way of making your blog attractive is including images that connect to your content. Humans are visual beings thus nobody enjoys going through a website that has text going on and on. Look for pictures that are related to your text, making sure you add HTML links that lead to other related pages on your site. This way your new online leads will enjoy their experience thus bookmark your pages.

As you read online business tips, be careful not to take in everything you hear out there. Some advices can easily be detrimental to your internet business. The success of your internet business programs depends entirely on the experience of the new leads you generate. Avoid stuffing your web pages with links; not only will this make your pages difficult to load, it will confuse your new leads online.

Analytics Innovation

IBM's acquisition of Coremetrics stifles innovation in the web analytics market. Worse, other big deals are contributing to the trend, e.g., Adobe's purchase of Omniture and ATG's purchase of Webtrends. Okay, the ATG Webtrends deal hasn't happened yet, but it could.

The problem is that acquired companies find it very difficult to innovate. Their attention and effort is now focused on integration with the acquiring company rather than innovation within their product lines. That problem is then compounded by an exodus of talent. Young, energetic, entrepreneurial people don't necessarily want to work for the acquiring company, so they leave.

The next logical innovation for Coremetrics - and Omniture, for that matter - would be a move to real time analytics, with the aim of optimizing the experience of individual visitors and increasing conversions. But that would require a complete rearchitecture overhaul. IBM, however, isn't likely to make the investment. The company just bought Coremetrics, and reengineering a last-generation analytics architecture is a long, expensive process that wouldn't produce results for a year or more, if not years.

Meanwhile, Google continues to advance the cause and capabilities of free analytics. Yahoo! has free analytics as well, but Google Analytics is really the 800-pound gorilla here. With base analytics increasingly becoming free, paid analytics providers face constant pressure to deliver more capabilities and functionality.

What does all this mean for users? Lower prices. Most customers that have Omniture, Coremetrics or WebTrends also have Google Analytics, which puts huge pressure on the paid vendors to differentiate and reduce prices when renewing contracts and when signing new business. Meanwhile, customers running both WebSphere Commerce and Coremetrics can look forward to tighter product integration in lieu of lower prices.

Door Hangers

Running out of design tricks for your marketing door hangers? Let me give you a few of the new ones that experts are now trying out when they print door hangers. Just read the list below and see if these new design tricks and techniques can be applied to your designs for door hangers. Hopefully there is something that is appropriate for your theme that will give you some advantage in door hanger marketing.
Multi-layered designs - One of the newest tricks that are starting to get attention in door hanger design are multi-layered designs. These door hanger designs involve not just one piece of door hanger paper, but multiple pieces in different shapes to create a layered effect. This not only makes the custom door hanger thicker and stronger, but it also lets a designer be creative with the multiple layers of material. So besides the base paper which is already thick, a designer can create a mosaic or a collage of sorts with many other paper layers with different colors and textures. Done right, this can result in a truly unique door hanger that has a lot of novelty built right into it.
Embossed designs - Another thing that is not necessarily new, but making a new comeback in door hanger printing is embossed designs. Embossed design elements are basically those elements that are raised or sunken within the paper material to get a three dimensional effect. If you have a nice logo or some lines of text that you really want to emphasize, you can try embossing those design elements to make them more noticeable. This effect has already been used in many printed materials like business cards and postcards and it should work well with your custom door hangers too.
Folded door hangers - Now, if you are the type who needs to put a lot of information in your door hangers, a cool new thing you can do is to print folded door hangers. These are basically your run of the mill door hangers with one difference. They have folded elements that store more materials for people to read or explore. The folded element can carry with it extra marketing or promotional information, or it can be a small fold that carries coupons, business cards and other materials. So if you need more space and more interesting features in your door hanger configuration, you should try folded door hangers.
Custom cuts, shapes and holes - Another good design trick to know in door hanger printing is the option to get custom cuts, shapes and holes in your door hangers. You do not need to be stuck with rectangular or regularly shaped door hangers. A lot of door hanger printing companies today can offer some custom cutting, shaping and even hole making done for you. You just need to specify the dimensions (or send a template if your shape is complicated) to the door hanger printing company and they should be able to do it. It will cost a bit extra, but this extra physical customization can do a lot to improve the impact of your color door hangers.
Special embedded materials - Finally, you can also consider adding some special embedded elements into your door hanger. Common extra design materials you can consider include reflectors, glossy stickers, 2D holograms, studs, strings and many other extra physical elements, These add a lot more to the character of the door hanger making it quite a distinct printed material that people pay attention to. So if you have the extra resources, you should try out these extra embedded materials.
You now know some of the new tricks out there for door hanger printing. Try them out to get something new with your door hanger designs.

SMO services

SMO Services: Top secret to business success
Are you not satisfied with the traffic that SEO attracts to your website? Do you think that your business has a lot more potential for success? If you feel that something is still missing after you have spent a lot on SEO services; SMO services might be the right choice for you.
Combination of SEO and SMO
SEO Services just concentrate on the traffic that can be diverted through the search engines to your website. However, there are many other sources through which you can get visitors for your website. SMO services specialize in attracting traffic from these other sources except popular search engines. A combination of SEO techniques and SMO techniques can fill all the gaps in your online promotional techniques and help you to achieve great success in your business ventures.
How to make SMO techniques successful?
One of the main rules of using SMO technique is to make as many links as possible.SMO Services aim to get traffic to your website through social media. Blog writing is the most common social way to convey your business potential to your prospective customers. Creating white papers and content aggregating can also be used for SMO. In order to make SMO techniques work for you, tagging should be made easy. Social networks know no boundaries and good SMO professionals capitalize on this rule to make your content travel beyond any boundaries.
Economical method for promotion
Hiring SMO services is one of the most economical methods of promoting your products and services. It hardly takes any investment in getting your blogs posted on the internet. Becoming a participant on the social media networking sites is also not a costly deal. In terms of traffic, your business does not have to rely on the primary traffic that you get from the social networking websites. There is a lot of secondary traffic that your links can get for you. SMO techniques truly boast to provide your business with a high and fast return on your investment.

Brochures

All business, be it online or traditional, would eventually need brochures to promote their business. But brochure printing need not really be expensive. There are ways you can do to reduce printing cost that will surely make a huge cut on your expenses.
Ever heard of "green" printing? Perhaps you have repeatedly heard "green living" in the streets these days with the growing concern in climate change around the globe. From foods, to grocery baskets, and even fashion style, people are going "au naturale". It's no surprise that even in printing many printing companies are considering environment-friendly printing techniques.
Green printing would definitely help you a lot in your brochures. Aside from cutting down cost, you are dutifully fulfilling your duty to saving Mother Nature. But how do you exactly practice this printing method? Here is how:
1. Recycle. Perhaps, your neighbors and government officials have repeatedly poked you to recycle. This they say is one of the best ways to reduce waste in the environment. Technology has done great in producing papers made of recycled items that are great for brochures. They come in vivid colors and paper weight that will add a great appeal to your brochure. These recycled papers also provide additional design element for better brochure image.
2. Reuse. From time to time, it is best to look through your old brochures and see which can be reused for your new campaign. To do this, avoid putting special seasonal promo in your brochures if possible. Do not put dates unless necessary, so you do not have to reprint when the promo is extended. Also, create brochure templates that can be used for several seasons. Doing so saves you a lot in printing cost and waste in the environment.
3. Consider the shape and size. The shape and size of the brochure is important, but they do not directly affect the brochure effectiveness. The design is what will initially attract the readers. So carefully plan your brochure and make sure you use design fit for use for a long time. This will ensure you do not waste money and paper in the long run.
4. Print multi-purpose brochures. To avoid throwing out your old brochures, design them in such a way that you can reuse them, perhaps as envelops, cards, posters, or folders. Simply folding the brochure can create pockets that can be used as envelop for letters. Putting business information in the brochure can also be cut out later on and used as calling cards. Simply switching from brochure to poster to cards can reduce the cost of printing different types of medium at the same time.
5. Influence through notes. Tell your readers to recycle your brochure when they are finished with it. This way they help in your eco-friendly campaign. A simple note at the back will do a lot in realizing your green campaign.
6. Use eco-friendly inks. If you are printing your brochure yourself, try using environment-friendly printer that use eco-friendly inks such as soy or vegetable inks. This will help a lot in cutting down cost, as the ink cartridges are refillable and reusable. And just like organic paper, these inks will easily decompose reducing toxic impact to the environment.
In our eco-conscious business world today, it does pay to create an environment-friendly image to your company. So, reduce your carbon footprint and help save the environment. Practice these green printing tips now!

Recycled Paper

March 27, 2010 was a big day for our planet. That day, everyone around the world closed their lights for 60 minutes in celebration of global cooperation in an attempt to fight global warming. Earth Hour is done every year to send message around the globe to help fight climate change and save our planet.

That activity is done only once a year. Obviously, it is not enough to save our ailing Earth completely. We have to do drastic measures today if we do not want to experience strong storms, floods, earthquakes, and other natural calamities in increasing frequency. So what do tree-huggers recommend everyone do to help reverse the effect of climate change? RECYCLE.

Recycling is now a quickly budding discipline due largely to the environmental catastrophes experienced in all corners of the globe. As a whole, recycling is not only environment-friendly, but a source of income as well.

A growing trend in recycling today is paper recycling and recycled paper printing. With paper consumption increasing dramatically these days, paper wastes also increases. Recycled paper and recycled paper printing are beneficial and efficient ways of fulfilling our responsibility to ourselves and to nature.

1. Benefits of paper recycling and recycled paper printing. Although end products of recycled papers have rough texture, there is modern technology today that uses bleaching materials to give the paper a smooth quality. So, if you are using a recycled paper in your postcard or brochure printing you will get almost or even better result as using commercial papers. Recycled papers are also cheaper and often more durable, giving you a much better and cost effective output.

2. Printing in recycled papers. The process is basically the same as commercial papers only that you can use eco-friendly inks such as soy and vegetable for a more economical and better quality result.

3. Recycled paper products. The use of recycled paper is basically endless. You can use it in notebooks, scrapbooks, office documents, and even business materials such as postcard and color brochure printing. Also, creative individuals can make their own printed paper bags and artworks out of recycled paper. The possibility is endless when it comes to recycled paper.

4. Paper recycling facts.
a. Israel alone consumes about 1 million tons of paper each year.
b. Almost 40% of all waste in landfills is paper.
c. Most paper thrown as waste is high quality paper.
d. Americans buy about 62 million newspapers every day, and around 44 million of them are just thrown out.
e. On an average, an American will use about 600 to 700 lbs. of paper each year.
f. One recycled tin can would power a television for about 3 hours while one plastic bottle can power a 60-watt light bulb for 3 hours.
g. Approximately, 16% of the money you pay for the items you buy is for the packaging, which eventually ends up as waste.
h. If recycling were made easier, 9 out of 10 people would recycle.

Essentially, paper recycling and recycled paper printing is easy. It can be done at home, in your office, and almost anywhere. So, do you part in saving our planet. Go out there and recycle. Doing so not only reduces the cost of paper printing, but also allow you to share in the noble act of conserving the beauty of nature, especially the trees.