Category Archives: Sales

Sales

Short Run CD Printing, Outsource or In-House, Timing and Artwork Software

With the increasing popularity of digital downloads as a means of getting the latest music track into your collection, the audio CD printing and duplication business has seen a decline in large volume orders but it’s certainly not a dying industry. The change has really only been in order quantities but to counter this development there has been a marked increase in the amount of short run CD printing orders that are placed. You can download amazingly complex electronic studio software with multitrack recording facilities and load it onto your laptop for less than a hundred pounds.

Do It Yourself or Call In The Professionals?

This facility of being able to very cheaply set up a home recording studio has led many artists to consider producing their CDs themselves. A CD duplication tower can be obtained for a few hundred pounds enabling people to burn a hundred CDs relatively quickly in their own home studio. Printing the CDs can be done using a regular inkjet printer and inkjet compatible printable CDs. The problem is, all this is time consuming and without putting in a tremendous amount of time and effort, it’s never quite as good as the professionals.

The short run CD printing project budget is always a major deciding factor when it comes to the in-house or outsource decision. If your graphic design skills are not up to scratch, however, you would probably be much better off paying for the professionals to take care of the CD printing and packaging and putting your extra time and expertise into the studio sessions perfecting the music recordings and mixes.

If you do work something out with a supplier, then the next consideration is the quantity of CDs to order. As with most businesses, the more you order, the lower the unit cost. This is especially important for orders of less than 500 discs where there can be a significant difference in price bands per hundred units ordered. After the 500 unit mark the savings per 100 units become smaller as the fixed cost doesn’t change, but if your order goes into the thousands, then you will see a good saving. You also need to be confident that you can sell this amount of units.

There are many small businesses out there which can turn around 200 CDs in 48 hours. You must, however, pay close attention to the artwork that you submit to your supplier if you choose to do it yourself. Many game breaking delays have been caused by unsuitable artwork or even copyright issues where the artwork involves an image created by another artist preventing the supplier from being able to legally produce the work for you.

Artwork Software Skills

Knowledge of design for CD printing and packaging is important but also, knowledge of the printing processes that are likely to be used to print onto the surface of a CD, is equally important in order to produce a design that can be easily and effectively printed. If you’re getting your CDs printed professionally but you don’t want to pay the supplier to produce the artwork as well, you should most certainly ask them for their disc and packaging artwork templates and for some detailed advice about their particular artwork requirements. Different suppliers will use slightly different templates which are tailored to their particular process and, whilst there probably won’t be a huge difference, it may be enough to cause a delay if artwork has to be re-submitted to suit their process.

For those of you who are going it alone with the artwork design, the following information will prove useful and may save you from a major headache later in the project.

There are various artwork software packages available that can be used to design a CD on-body print and the CD packaging print. Some are quite basic but are designed specifically for this job. The following packages can be downloaded from the internet and some are free downloads:

· CD Label Designer 6.0 – (Free download)

· Cover XP 1.65 – (Free download)

· Nero Cover Designer – (Free download)

· Sure Thing Disc Labeler v6 Deluxe – (around £20)

· Disketch Disc Label Software – (around £17)

True to the old saying, you get what you pay for with these packages (or don’t pay for in some cases) but they may serve a purpose for you.

If you already have some graphic design experience then you may have come across or may have experience of using a professional artwork software package. The following examples are not specifically for producing artwork for CDs and packaging but they will all do an amazing job if you work with a template and pay attention to the finer details as they can be used to produce very high resolution or vector quality artwork files:

· Adobe Illustrator, InDesign or Photoshop

· CorelDRAW Graphics Suite

· Quark Express

· Xara Designer

· Serif Drawplus

As you would imagine, these professional software packages don’t come cheap but if you don’t mind using an older version from a couple of years back you can pick them up for a good price from various websites if you search for them on the internet. If your experience with any of these packages is limited then you can also find many tutorials on the web to point you in the right direction. You may even be able to find a tutorial specifically assisting with CD on-body design or CD packaging design.

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Key Things You Must Do When Starting a Home Based Business

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With any business, financial freedom and wealth will not just appear overnight, one thing you must ask yourself when deciding to start a home based business is how you’re going to grow a new business venture to not only make money, but be financially free ? Whether you are a business involves selling products from your home, create products, offer services, write or reselling books online there are some things you actually do for a successful business. Do your homework Find a product or service you want to offer or if you can not think about the idea that there are thousands of ready-made companies out there, such as multi level marketing opportunitis. This is a normal product or products that the person or company will train you to sell it for a hand in return for a commission on the sale. Is your company fit your personality? Each one is different so choose a company that fits you. If you enjoy selling products to people you know one of his strong points then your home based business that involves contact with customers via telephone, email or in person can be the most suited to you. This could be in the Multi Level Marketing where you help others achieve financial freedom in their lives, selling products to the end customer, or business to business sales. If you do not talk to people much or are good with websites and thus the home based business promoting a product or service, such as Search Engine Optimisation or web design or marketing and selling products like books can be the best option for you as you have very little customer interaction. Look for many of the company’s market to get leads and use their own sales reps to close the deal, you get a commission for the sale. This allows you to concentrate on marketing and get more leads. Do your job diligently Now that you have your business and your 100% sure that you want to start time to get to work, working from home is nothing easier than working from the traditional environment, there are still challenges of running a business. To have a successful business you must stick to it. Set the time to start and finish the work day, do not stop watching the TV show in the afternoon just because your home does not have to be at home, at work. Create a business plan and set up goals for each day and set weekly goals that you work toward every day. It could be to get 5 more sales than the week before, whatever you want but keep it realistic. Find ways to promote your company or products, there are hundreds of the company that will promote your business or products but be careful as many are scams. Always looking for information on the company and use the company with a good reputation. Places like the warrior forum is a great place to find and discuss information. To keep your business financially stable When the first sales role do not be going out to paint the town red, determine your monthly expenses from materials down to paper clips. Once you have your monthly expenses you want to work to keep three months worth of expenses in your account to make sure no bills and other unexpected problems used to put your business back. Find ways to maximize the impact of start Word Press blogroll, add more content to your website to get more search engine traffic, start a You Tube channel to promote your business or add more products or services to get return customers. This will help ensure that you have a steady income with full time from the comfort of your home. Knowledge is king If your marketing eBook that was not written yourself then read it so that you are aware of all the details and quality of the product you’re selling. Knowing products will help you answer the questions people can ask and be important to write sales pages. If you provide a service to learn how to offer services with the best quality. You can also purchase a course that will help you learn or improve your skills. The more you know the more opportunities you have to sell in the long run. Follow these instructions and you’ll be on your way to start a home based business that will bring you pleasure and bring you closer every day to financial freedom.