How to design and sell your own stationery

Even in today’s tech-dominated world, where we essentially live our lives virtually, stationery still holds its ground. People still reach for their notebooks, to note something down as a quick reminder, or still decorate their homes with beautiful and creative calendars, personal diaries and planners are still used to write heart to hearts and plan resolutions.

The making of custom made stationery involves essentially two main stages

The first is coming up with a design for the stationery. Designing is a creative process that requires you to create patterns, designs and artwork to go on your items, here you can explore your creativity by making content and visuals that are unique to your brand. This part of the process requires you to decide the type of stationery you want to create. Your designs can be fun and quirky, subtle and functional or even a mix of both! Designing requires some training when you have to transfer physical designs onto digital platforms that then go on to printing. You have to be able to operate digital software such as Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator, learning the software and making designs yourself is much more efficient and economical as opposed to hiring someone and making them do it.

The second leg of the process is the execution, putting your ideas into action. To print your designs out you need to get in touch with a printer that takes bulk orders, you can either produce your own products or get in touch with a wholesaler that provides the type of templates ( blank notebooks, calendars,etc.) you require.

While deciding what type of stationery you need to make and design, you have to make sure that it is a product-market fit. This stage is reached by a company when they are able to create a product that appeals to the customers greatly by having high and consistent demand. Product-market fit can be achieved by analysing and determining your target customers, their needs and wants, and by coming up with a unique selling point.

One more important aspect of any small business is marketing. With fun and quirky aesthetics taking over the social media platform, there is a rise in customers that look out for stationery that fits that aesthetic. Social media itself is a great platform to market your stationery products by posting product pictures, providing giveaways through influencer marketing, social media ads. One can also market online by selling their products through online channels such as marketplaces or other e-commerce platforms.

A stationery business is a great business opportunity that enhances one’s creativity and provides a platform to earn through it. With the basics of making and selling one can start a thriving business.

Originally published at https://bulbandkey.com on January 10, 2020.