Nearly every business needs stationery. Some of that stationery can include letterhead, thank you cards, business cards, envelopes, etc. Since your letterhead and stationery is a direct reflection of you and your business, you want your business stationery to be just right. Business stationery is one way that you present your business and sell your merchandise or your services, so you must have quality business stationery.

One way to have quality business stationery is to have full color stationery. Full color stationery conveys an impression of a business that is doing well enough to afford the best. Whether you are very successful or not, having that full color business stationery is the answer to the question of how to make a good first impression on customers, whether they are potential customers or good customers that patronize your business repeatedly.

But what is full color stationery? When you say full color stationery, you are usually talking about four color printing. Four color printing is the best printing technique in the printing business. It is the one the produces the nice glossy colors we all admire.

In addition to choosing four color printing services, it is also a good idea to choose heavier stock paper for your full color business stationery. Heavier paper also conveys an image of success, and it makes people feel as though you care enough to spend money on quality paper, whether you actually do or not. Nice paper stock is just another way to make your business stationery more appealing to others.

One other important thing to remember when choosing your business stationery is to get full color envelopes to match. Envelopes are the right way to complete any business correspondence you send, because it shows that you care about the details, even the little ones. Business stationery and envelopes are the complete package.

Custom printing in any medium is a great creative way to reach a variety of customers. You have your choice when it comes to printing options. They include:

* Business cards
* Logos
* Letterhead and stationery
* Flyers
* Brochures

Alone or in concert, all of these forms of advertising are extremely effective in getting your contact information and, in general, news of your business out into the world. When you customize and design your own logo, stamping it on everything through bulk and wholesale printing, you're increasing your sales potential with each run of the printer. And it's so cost effective that it's really hard to turn down. Consider the possibilities:

Business cards Business cards are small enough to be slipped into the hands of a networking agent or a potential client or slid into brochures. Clipped anywhere and easily filed, customized business cards are essential.

Logos Like business cards, it's difficult to run a business successfully without a logo. Create your own or hire a graphic designer or artist to create one for you. Use an online company that offers a step by step guide to designing a logo with their selection of templates, fonts, and colors. No matter what, before you get too far in your advertising campaign, you must create an original logo.

Letterhead and stationery Letterhead and stationery will utilize your logo in order to stamp your brand at the top of all of your correspondence. Clip a business card to the top and there's no way that the recipient will be unable to track you down.

Flyers Post flyers with your logo and reminders of upcoming sales and promotions before big grand openings or special events. They grab attention and serve as a reminder when used in addition to other media.

Brochures Brochures offer a chance to not only imprint your brand but offer detailed answers to questions that a potential customer might have about your products and services.

In the past obtaining letterhead meant contracting with a professional print company and graphic artists to design and print your letterhead. Now it is possible to design and print letterhead from a standard computer using commercial off the shelf printing technology. Most common office word processing programs have built in utilities that facilitate the design and use of letterhead. After creation, it is possible to print letterhead on blank paper for later inclusion in documents or the print letterhead template can be used as the background of the document. In the latter case, the letterhead does not have to be printed on a blank piece of paper. Rather, the letterhead will be part of the finished document and will appear when the final draft is printed.

Before you can print letterhead for use in your personal and business correspondence, it is first necessary to design the letterhead. Most word processing programs allow the use of document templates. Templates are patterns that serve as the background of future documents. Creating a template typically involves creating a custom document header, document footer and, if desired, a watermark logo. The template can be loaded at the beginning of document creation and, after the document is created, the printed final product will include both the message and letterhead.

After creating the letterhead and document, it is easy to print it. Most common desktop printers are capable of printing in full color with professional quality. Therefore, it is quite possible for the small business to print letterhead that is professional quality using their own equipment.

Stationary has the, often deserved, reputation as being a necessary evil in modern printed business communications. No business can afford to go without full color stationary since their competitors have it, but few companies are using their business stationary to its full potential. When corresponding with current and potential clients, the first thing they notice is the business stationary on which the document was printed, and full color stationary is particularly noticed since the judicious use of color can often reinforce the goals of the company and the content of the message.

Obtaining full color stationary used to mean entering into a contract with a printing firm. However, thanks to the miracle of modern computing, it is now possible for companies to print their own business stationary using relatively inexpensive desktop computers and ubiquitous word processing software. Laser and inkjet color printers are well within the budget of almost all companies, and they are perfectly capable of producing quality full color business stationary. The Microsoft Word business document suite was designed to allow the user to print documents using custom business stationary.

With the rise of the internet, more and more customer communication is taking place via email. Email messages used to consist entirely of ASCII text, which precluded the use of business stationary in electronic messages. However, modern email programs can interpret a number of character encoding schemes and most also support HTML messages. Therefore, it is possible to include full color stationary in email documents as well as printed correspondence.

Flyers are a proven way to help you build your business, whether it is a new business or one that is more established. Flyers are a quick and easy way to get the word out about services you currently offer, or new services that you have just begun to offer. Flyers are also usually very inexpensive and you can get quite a few flyers printed for a fairly reasonable price.

Of course, you can either have some type of printing service design and print your flyers for you or you can choose to purchase any one of several software packages that helps you design and print your flyers quickly and easily. Either way, your can get very attractive and professional looking flyers at a cost that is affordable for your printing budget and for your needs.

The software packages let you design your own flyer, or you can use one of their helpful flyer templates that make designing your flyer very simple. They do not take a lot of time to do, and most of the various desktop printing software packages are user-friendly, so you don't have to learn a lot of particulars about how to use it before you begin. You can start designing your flyer in minutes, and can have it completely designed in under an hour, depending on what you want.

The other choice is to have a local printing service design and print your flyers for you. Flyer printing services are usually reasonably priced, and it pays to shop around to find the printer service that will give you what you want at a price you can be happy about. You can also order flyer printing from online sources. This can be a good option for those that cannot find flyer printing services in their own area.

With online printing services, it is always a good idea to check out how much the shipping cost will be, because sometimes there are hidden costs in the shipping.