It is never too early to plan ahead for any advertising and marketing you are thinking of doing for next year.  Moreover, by building a strong relationship with your existing patients before the new year starts, you can ensure their return  and a full appointment book in 2012.

If you’re thinking of sending out calendars, Sharper’s 2012 Tri-Fold Calendars are an economical year-round reminder.  Envelopes are included free with your order.  Ask us how you can easily customize designs.  Here’s a great idea…try having a few New Year’s resolutions for improved Oral Health printed on the back.

NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS THAT ARE SURE TO PUT A BEAUTIFUL SMILE ON YOUR FACE IN 2012.

1. FLOSS DAILY. Brushing with a toothbrush just won’t completely do the job of removing plaque.
2. CHANGE YOUR TOOTHBRUSH AT LEAST EVERY COUPLE MONTHS.
   A new toothbrush will help build a beautiful new smile.
3. INCLUDE HEALTHY SNACKS IN YOUR DIET EVERY DAY. Choose fruit and veggies over sweets and soda.
4. VISIT YOUR DENTIST FOR REGULAR CLEANINGS AND CHECKUPS. Give us a call. We will be happy to set up appointments for you all at once or throughout the year.

Choose from a wide variety of designs, and if you see something that you would like to change slightly…let use know.  Our very talented Creative Services Team will be happy to set up your artwork just the way you want it.  You can take any of the Sharper™ Designs and add your own copy (front or back)

C-5059 Smile Waterfall

C-5075 Every Smile Is Beautiful

C-5060 Cosmetic - Seasons

And, if you want to remind them of their appointments, we have matching appointment cards for many of our designs.

Get ready for a great 2012. Plan ahead.

Calendars are a great way to keep your practice top-of-mind with patients all year-round.  Check out our Seasonal Collection for more great ideas.

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BRAND NEW! 2012 Desktop Flip Calendars

Our customers have been asking us about these and we have included them in our Sharper Seasonal Collection of Holiday cards and calendars.  We have them available for every market, Dental, Contemporary Health, Pet Care, Vision & Hearing, Financial and Insurance, and General Business.  And, I am sure that your patients and clients will really appreciate these desktop flip calendars.  They measure 6″ x 4.5″ and mail flat.  Envelopes are FREE, and you can personalize them with one of our FREE Sharper logos or use your own.  I wait for mine every year.  Hopefully my Dentist or Realtor won’t forget me…I will never give up my calendar habit! …….. a must have on my desk every year!

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I love this idea!

It makes sense…thank your patients, clients and colleagues and include the gift of a calendar that they can use throughout the year.  It’s a holiday card and 2012 calendar all rolled into one beautiful package.  Perforated down the center, these cards can be personalized on the inside.  The calendar can be separated and your practice or business name will be visible all year round.   Ask us how you can easily customize designs!  Free envelopes are included with your order and personalization is free as well.

Check out Sharper’s Seasonal Collection Store for other great ideas to grow your practice or business.

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This year try something a little different during the holiday season.  Encourage your patients or clients to keep their resolutions by sending personalized New Year’s greetings in one of Sharper™‘s beautifully designed New Year’s cards.

To ensure that your New Year’s card is successfully delivered, put them in the mail a little later to avoid them being lost in the Christmas clutter.  Use them to advertise special introductory offers, new staff, referral programs or just to tell them how much you have enjoyed having them as a patient or client in 2010.  Remind them to take care of their health during the upcoming year and to book their appointments early.

And another idea that is great to strengthen patient or client loyalty and stay visible all year round is to insert a 2011 Magnet Calendar into a large folding card. I know I always love to get a calendar magnet that I can put on my fridge.  It makes it so much handier when I need to make a call.

Sharper™ has an abundance of beautiful magnet designs this year that are real attention grabbers and will surely keep your name top-of-mind in 2011.

Happy New Year! Keep your communication open with patients and clients in 2011.  It’s the best way to build your brand and guaranteed to keep your appointment book full.

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It has been a busy past few weeks in the Creative Services Department at Sharper™.  Orders for 2011 calendars, holiday cards, business cards and stationery and appointment cards have been flowing in as everyone prepares for a hopeful and positive year ahead.  But there was one job that went across my desk the other day that I thought was a really nice spin on the  holiday gift certificate idea.

Sharper™ has a great selection of existing gift certificates to choose from, but perhaps you have a special holiday card from our Holiday and Calendar Store in mind that you would like to combine with a gift giving message? This was what one of our customers decided to do and it worked beautifully!  With Sharper™’s Custom Creations process, you can take any design that we offer and simply change the copy on the front for a minimal cost.  Next, you can add copy to the inside of the greeting card, offering a discount in the new year or a special gift to claim the next time they come in.  Here are a few copy change ideas to show you just how easy it can be:

A Holiday Gift for you from your Veterinarian team. Season’s Greetings.

A Bright and Shiny gift to you and your family from your Dentist.

A Sweet Gift of Health and Happiness from your Chiropractor.

A gift for you this holiday season from your Audiologist.

ABC Clinic would like to take the time to say Thank You.

These are just a few possibilities.
Make your holiday greeting special this year.  The Sharper™ Creative Services team will customize a gift giving design, just for you.  By putting that extra special touch into your Holiday messages this year, you can show your colleagues, patients or clients how important they are to you and the success of your business.  Happy gift giving! We will be watching for your special request.  I always love to see a creative touch

When my daughter was little, she loved the Tooth Fairy.  Every time she lost a tooth she would carefully tuck it in an envelope and decorate it with hearts and flowers drawn in brightly colored crayons.  She would include a note each time, explaining that this was her second tooth or her third tooth, and that she wanted the Tooth Fairy to take good care of it.  Sometimes she would ask questions: “How tall are you?  Where do you keep my teeth? What color is your dress?  I wish I could meet you some day. xoxo (and more hearts and flowers).”

I couldn’t let these notes and questions go unacknowledged, so from then on, I became the Tooth Fairy.  I created a special hand writing that my daughter soon came to identify.  I would carefully answers her questions, usually in the form of a poem or rhyme and leave a dollar in the envelope for her to find under her pillow the next morning.  She would say, “Mommy, this must be the Tooth Fairy!  I can tell by her hand writing.”

To this day (and my daughter is now 20), I still think of those times and how special it was to be the Tooth Fairy if only for a moment.  Then, this past Thursday evening some 15 years later, I finally met the person that embodies the heart and soul of all Tooth Fairies around the world, Toothena.  Moreover, I saw first hand just how powerful her magic really is!

I attended the  Tooth Fairy Children’s Foundation Fundraising Gala with a few of my fellow colleagues from Sharper™, as an event sponsor.  It was so inspiring to see the support, hard work and dedication that went into planning the evening.  The Gala was in support of the foundation’s vision “ to provide every child worldwide with a toothbrush and access to dental care.” And finally…yes finally, I really got to meet the Tooth Fairy herself! (My daughter smiled as I showed her the program from the evening event and the photo that you see here.)

“The Tooth Fairy Children’s Foundation is a charitable organization with the mission to provide every child worldwide with a toothbrush, oral hygiene education and access to dental care.  The Foundation will educate and build awareness of the dental needs of children globally.  Funds raised will be allocated to individuals and groups with the intention of providing dental care for children in need.” – http://www.toothfairykids.org/index.html

The Tooth Fairy Children Foundation’s Project Toothbrush can give your patients a choice to make a difference in this world – by donating their toothbrush (or money) for a child in need.  Thank you Toothena (aka CoraMarie Clark) for bringing smiles to little faces all over the world.  You truly are an inspiration!

And at Sharper™ we are very pleased to offer the Toothena the Tooth Fairy line of dental communication products, perfect for promoting dental care in your community.

Send a Toothena recall card to remind patients of their appointments.  Welcome them to your practice with a Toothena welcome card or have your little patients take home a Toothena Tooth Chart and a wonderful Toothena tote bag filled with patient giveaways.

Red and green at Christmas?  It’s as traditional as Mom’s apple pie.  But red and green toothbrushes?  I loved them immediately when the samples arrived at Sharper™! And I got thinking, not only are they the perfect personalized holiday giveaway for dentists to hand out to  patients at every visit during December, but why not get really creative?

What about a red and green toothbrush wreath?  It’s a perfect addition to every dental office entrance during the holiday season welcoming visitors to your practice with a creative dental flare. Just take half a dozen of each color and attach them to an evergreen wreath to create the perfect conversation piece.  Even Martha Stewart would be envious!

Another great idea…decorate a Christmas tree in your dental office with red and green toothbrushes.  Attach them to the tree with silver bows for a little extra sparkle.  Have fun with it.  Red and green toothbrushes only come once a year and you don’t want to miss out on this opportunity.

You might also want to try tying Sharper™ dental floss that has been personalized with your practice name and one of Sharper™‘s wonderful FREE holiday logos to your tree.  Let patients help themselves to these special gifts after a successful dental checkup.  With every brush or floss that they remove, have them replace it with a traditional Christmas ornament.  It’s the perfect way to get everyone at the office in the holiday spirit and help your patients feel more at ease with their dental checkup.

In the spirit of giving the gift of good oral health and continuous dental care, put your red and green holiday gift bags filled with patient giveaways under the tree and hand them out to patients just as they are leaving.  Include red and green brushing timers, toothbrush squeezers, pens and lip balm.  Check out Sharper™‘s Holiday & Calendar Store for more great ideas.

With everyone ordering their Holiday cards, calendars, business stationery, client communication products and giveaways for next year, we are seeing so many customer logo files coming into our design and production team for approval.  If you are considering putting your logo on your personalized giveaways and cards, remember that anything you are handing over to your patients or clients is a continuous reminder of who you are.  Having your logo showcased in the cleanest and most effective way possible is of the utmost importance.

It is also a great idea to keep your communication products with one supplier, printer or designer. Find a reliable source, and stick with them.  Consistency in the look and quality is so important.  At Sharper™ we pride ourselves in the handling of your logo files.  We want you to have the best end product possible and so we ask that you send us the best quality logo you have, and hopefully at the highest resolution possible.

The preferred file type would be vector (refer to a great Sharper article from June – So What’s a “vector graphic anyway?” for more information). Designers love them! They are fully editable, versatile and infinitely scalable – the edges stay smooth and clean regardless of how much you blow it up.  They may come as an AI, EPS, CDR, DRW, SVG file type.

If you can’t track down the original source of your logo design, we’d be happy to help you out.  If you have a good quality tiff or jpeg, our talented team of designers will redraw the image for you for a one-time fee.  Or if you don’t have a logo at all, we can custom design one for you.  Also check out our incredible selection of free logos that may work for you.

Put on your game face this year with a great logo image to support your company brand.

FC-2233SP Thanksgiving Greetings (Premium Large Folding Card)

Can you even fathom the fact that soon it will be holiday time again?  Where did this year go?  It sneaks up on you when you least expect it.  But fortunately at Sharper, we start working on our holiday cards and calendar designs in early spring.  During this time of year, we really get into the spirit of the season in the design department;  decorating our offices with snowflakes and previously designed folding cards, maybe an early bird Christmas tree, and even the odd carol may be heard!  I haven’t put on a Santa’s suit yet, but you never know, maybe this year!

This fall, Sharper has such a great lineup of designs suitable for financial planners, advisers, mortgage brokers and insurance professionals. Many of them are crafted with beautiful foils, glitters and embossing that are so beautiful to the touch, and something that I know I would want to leave on my mantel for a while if I received one.  The foil holiday cards are over-sized and give so much more impact when received.  There is also an incredible array of standard sized holiday greeting cards that make a thoughtful year-round reminder when you include a calendar bookmark or magnet.  Some really great savings on a great product line.

It does keep me alert though, to the fact that the earlier you plan something, the better off you’ll be.  With the new year just around the corner, sending a premium quality holiday card is an ideal way to warmly convey your best wishes and gratitude to clients, colleagues and friends for their continued loyalty throughout the past year.

You and your team have likely worked extremely hard this past year to build strong relationships, and it is a wise decision to reflect this respect and gratitude in all of your communications throughout the year.  Acknowledge milestones, say thanks and announce any new offers or specials.  Keep clients up to date on any changes in your company.  Create a referral plan to get you moving in the new year.  Sharper™ also has a wide array of standard holiday cards that will serve as a thoughtful year-round reminder when you include a calendar bookmark or magnet along with it.

Sharper™’s Design Your Own Stationery is probably the easiest process I have ever encountered in my travels as a designer, perfect for any business who has not had the luxury of hiring someone to create a corporate branding package for them, or a new business just starting out.  Logos can be an expensive venture, especially if you have no idea what you want.  If you are a new company in your field this may save you the anguish of dealing with hours of design time, proof after proof, and still not having that professional look that you need to get you off and running.

Sharper™ offers a very simple process towards creating a professional looking Stationery package:

• Select your paper.  Sharper™ has 6 different colors and textures to choose from
• Choose a font. Again, there are 6 styles that will showcase your company name.
• Now here comes my favorite part…The logo…and Sharper™ offers a variety of logos absolutely FREE

Inside tip: We just finished creating hundreds of new logo designs that are now available for you to choose from.

• Select your personalization color - you can create a beautiful look in either 1 or 2 color options.
  
  

• Inside tip: Using black for your type, then an accent color for the logo icon will give your new stationery that extra punch

Now that you have your stationery ready to go, you can use that same setup and logo choice on all of your future recall and acquisition postcards, folding cards, tote bags, appointment cards, and personalized giveaways to emphasize your company brand. Sharper™ will have you up and running with a professional look quickly and affordably.  Coordinate all of your designs for your patient or client communications, build your brand and save.

Purchase 3 products – 15% OFF
Promo Code MATCH3
Purchase 4 products – 25% OFF
Promo Code MATCH4
Purchase 5 products – 30% OFF
Promo Code MATCH5

Sharper™’s Custom Creations™ is by far the quickest and most economical way to create a Thanksgiving card that is unique to you and your business.  Express your gratitude, promote return visits and encourage referrals, and do it with that extra special touch.  Your patients and clients will love it!

Choose an existing Sharper™ design and we will customize the front with a personalized message to make it your own.  This is by far the easiest, fastest and most economical way to get the personalized look you want.  The cost is only $60.00 and there are so many beautiful existing designs to choose from.  Along with the front design, we also allow you to customize the inside of your card so that you may add your own message to your clients or patients.

Here are a few more of  my favorite designs that will work well with a custom message on the front:

Call us at 1-800-561-6677 and ask for a Custom Creations™ consultant to get your Thanksgiving Card project started and you are on your way to a successful fall season.

Halloween is one of the favorite all-time events on every kid’s calendar come October. What a perfect time to remind parents of the importance of good oral health, especially when there will be more sweets consumed on that day than throughout the entire year!
Minimize the anxiety of visits during Halloween week by decorating your office in a vampire theme. Vampires are really popular this season. Don’t we all love the Twilight series? Young kids and teens will enjoy the spooky atmosphere in your office.

Check out the Halloween selection in Sharper’s new Holiday and Calendar Store, and if you order early you can take advantage of some really great savings on our Holiday Card Collection!

Mailing out Halloween folding cards, recall postcards, and sending home reuseable dental Halloween tote bags will put everyone in the mood. Stuff them full of patient giveaways.

I really like the Halloween toothbrushes. They are so colorful and so much fun – love the black bristles!

Include one of our free Halloween logos (H26-L) on your personalized dental floss and Design your own tote bag. Adding a logo to your message is a great way to liven up the overall look of your products and brand your practice or business. At Sharper™ we make personalization easy with our vast library of FREE logos, many available in three languages — English, Spanish and French.

I have been in the Graphic Design industry for 32 years, (yes, that was way before they had computers and even web! Oh my! How time flies!)

But still today, I find that the fundamental principles of design apply, and the best design solutions and most successful direct mail campaigns evolve from a well thought out plan, prepared ahead of time. Then, through a great working relationship with your designer and accurate communication, you will maximize your visual solution to ensure success!

A postcard is like a “mini” billboard. It needs a simple, yet bold message, easily absorbed by the viewer in less than 10 seconds and able to make the recipient turn it over to read more.

Sharper offers hundreds of existing designs to suit your needs; dental welcome cards, orthodontic recall cards, financial postcards, veterinary postcards

….but perhaps you have something special in mind? That’s where Sharper’s expertise in postcard and direct mail design can help you find the perfect solution.
Promote your practice or business and compliment your brand identity with easy, fast and economical Custom Creations™ from Sharper.

1. Who is my target audience? (family, mother, child, youth, senior, professional?)
2. What are the benefits that my practice or business offers the customer?
3. Is there a special offer that I am promoting with this direct mail piece?
4. Do I have a company logo that I will include on the postcard? Is it a high quality file that can be printed properly?
5. What is my call to action? What exactly do I want them to do…Call today? Come in? Make an appointment?
6. Do I have all of my contact information correct? Do I want to include a website address? (Make sure you include a return address at the top of the postcard. It gives the card a professional look.)

Now your are halfway there!

Orthodontic care in both children and adults can be a very involved process, and the bond that you create with your patients during the orthodontic journey can create a relationship for life.

Marking milestones along the way, and just showing you care by sending orthodontic birthday cards is a positive and personal way to reinforce that relationship. You will bring a smile to your patient’s face on their special day when they receive one of your orthodontic birthday cards and remind them of just how hard you both are working towards building that smile to it’s fullest potential.

Here are a couple of my favorite orthodontic birthday cards:

It’s hard to believe that when you recycle all the plastic that piles up in your garage that it eventually ends up on my desk! At Sharper we are so happy to be on board with this line. The BIC Wide Body Ecolutions is made with 69% pre-consumer recycled plastic, and that makes me happy! The wide barrel provides a comfortable grip, and that makes my fingers happy. The larger imprint area for your practice or business information will definitely make you happy! You can choose from a variety of trim colors to create a unique giveaway.

Make a lasting impression with patients or clients AND reduce the amount of waste in landfills.
Include them with your dental appointment cards, chiropractic business cards,or along with your other patient or client giveaways.

And Happy Earth Day
from the Sharper design team!
Please do your part to save the planet.

In order to provide the best communication products possible, Sharper is always working on new designs to serve you better. You’ll find new dental postcards, chiropractic appointment cards, veterinary magnets, plastic supply bags, calendars and many more for all markets… shopping with Sharper is easy! All of our newest creations will appear first in line when you do a search on our website. Look for the little  icon that indicates all of our recently released products. Come back and visit often. Our marketing and design team are always busy creating new products to help you promote your practice or business.

Informative ongoing communication through direct mail such as chiropractic cards is a great way to keep your appointment books full and build lasting relationships with new and existing patients.

Educate families in your community, stressing the importance of chiropractic care to their overall wellness using Sharper’s new large size chiropractic cards, accompanied by your own custom message on the back. The oversized design has plenty of room to include a list of services you offer and is a great addition to your chiropractic marketing plan. Add a map of where you are located, along with your company logo.

If you don’t have a logo, choose one of Sharper’s FREE logo designs for added visual impact.

All of these products have been exclusively designed by Sharper in support of chiropractic health care professionals, as they improve the quality of life for families in their communities through on going communication and awareness of the chiropractic industry.

POSTCARDS

LASER CARDS

Choose from

• dental recall postcards: All cards are exclusively designed for Sharper™, printed on premium glossy 12 pt. Carolina cover stock with a protective coating. Just select a design, then personalize with one of our messages, or customize by writing your own. We’ll print either on the back of the card FREE! Designs may be mixed and matched in lots of 50.
• 4-up laser cards: Our jam-free 4-up laser cards provide you with a variety of your favorite designs that  you can print on yourself. Mix and match in lots of 50.
• dental magnets: Magnets are a great tool to remind patients and clients of the services you offer. All Sharper Magnets™ contain 75% recycled materials and are 100% guaranteed.

MAGNETS