Quickly And Easily Get Your Company Stationery Printed

When you need more stationery than your desktop inkjet printer can produce as one-offs, then it's time to turn to a corporate stationery printers to get the job done.

But what should you look out for when selecting which printing company to entrust with your company stationery?

First of all the term business stationery can include a lot of different items. So let's just define the kind of printing we are talking about here. Potentially these are the sort of items we mean.

? Letterheads
? Continuation Sheets
? Envelopes
? Compliment Slips
? Business Cards
? Printed Order Forms
? Invoices
? Statements

In fact the list is pretty endless, so this isn't meant to be exhaustive, but you get the idea.

Next, consider the quantity of corporate stationery that you need to get printed. The reason I mention this is that many printers will be set up to handle a certain amount of stationery production, but once you bust through their print threshold they will struggle to provide you with competitive prices for the level of print run you require.

Now of course most commercial printer do not advertise quite where their print run thresholds like for stationery, meaning that you need to ask a couple of savvy questions in order to find out whether you are getting advice and requesting a quote from the kind of printing company who can really provide you with the best bulk stationery printing service.
What is your average print run of letterhead, compliments slips, etc?

This is the leading question you should pose to any printers you approach to ask for a commercial stationery print quote. But it is of course the first question that you should also ask yourself. Exactly what is your need? Is it for 1,000 or 100,000 letterhead or more?

If you are clear about your own requirements then you will find it much easier to request a relevant quote.

Right, now approach the corporate stationery printers and ask them what their usual print runs are. Some printers are best set up to produce low quantity print runs of stationery. This is usually based on the capabilities of their particular printing presses.

If you are in need of say 250,000 letterheads then you will typically find that your high street or small family firm of printers in unlikely to have the print machinery available to produce what you require.

But there is a very simple way to get to the bottom of this, and yet most people in charge of ordering their company bulk stationery fail to ask the question. Simple approach your prospective printer and ask them what kind of print runs constitute normal for them?

By the way, there is a caveat to the advice above.

Corporate stationery printing comes in more than one flavour. If you look at your own company stationery you will be aware that it is printed in a number of different colours. These will typically consist of 1, 2 or 3 Pantone spot colours. And if the number of colours exceed three then the chances are that your stationery is printed in 4 colour, which is also somewhat confusingly known as full and/or process colour printing.

So be sure to ask about average commercial stationery print runs, but add in the question about whether this is in spot or process colour. If nothing else, the printing company producing your stationery quote will suddenly be aware that you are someone who knows what they are talking about!