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I am often asked about the customized notepads that I giveaway to clients, potential clients, our LNCPracticeBuilder marketing workshop attendees and others. When I mention that I do them myself, people are often surprised because I usually discourage people from DIY marketing. However, this is a really easy way to give customized notepads without the expense of a professional printer or ordering them online. So this week, I am going to show you how to design and create a personalized notepad for your clients. If you are not a “crafty” person, don’t fear….it’s like painting your finger nails. It’s an easy, super affordable and thoughtful token of appreciation. And who can’t use another thing to write on?

What You Need:

• Nice paper to print on. (I recommend something like a heavy resume paper. You can often buy it by the ream on clearance and find some unusual colors, textures, etc. The better the paper, the more expensive the final look.)
• Padding compound (Available at paper supply stores, Office Depot, etc.)
• A brush (I used an old, clean makeup brush I had stashed away in a drawer.)
• A kitchen knife or Xacto knife.
• Vise grips or heavy objects (I use phone books, and cans of paint last time)

1. Open your word processing (MS Word, Open Office, etc.) for simple notepads or if feeling creative open a graphics program (Paint.ent (free to download), Publisher, etc) and start a new document.

2. Get creative and place your text, images, Practice Logo etc anywhere you want. I like to keep mine simple and let the user have plenty of writing space. You can make a full page notepad or half-size. You could even divide into four sections and make smaller ones. Here is my example below.

I placed in blue text “from the desk of Joe Client” at the top with a decorative line and it’s hard to see, but I also put LNCPracticeBuilder.com in gray at the bottom of the page. So, it’s personalized and yet it’s branded too in my company’s colors.

3. Print out a couple of test copies to make sure your design is correctly spelled and located on the page. I cannot stress enough the importance of checking for spelling errors, phone number errors and reversed letters/numbers. No client wants a notepad with their name spelled incorrectly. (Speaking from much personal experience here.) Also, test printing makes sure that you have your printer specifications correct before printing out 50 pages with wrong registration. I also print on a photo printer or my laser printer. Whichever type of printer you have play around with the settings and use the highest quality of print you can. (Like the “best photo” option.)

4. I use about 25 sheets of paper and one cardboard chip sheet for the backing to make a notepad. You can use regular cardstock here but it may be too flimsy for a writing surface and may look cheap, so be careful about the backing.

5. After you have printed a separated the notepads into names, stack them up one on top of the other separating each with a cardboard back. For example, if you have 3 names of 8.5 x 11 sheets you will have printed 25 sheets of each name. Put the first client’s sheets on top of a cardboard back then place the second client’s sheets on top of a cardboard back and stack on top of first and finally, do the same with the third. ** Make sure that the cardboard is on the back of the notebook pages rather than on the front. (Yeah, I’ve done that too.)

Printed Sheets

Cardboard

Printed Sheets

Cardboard

Printed Sheets

Cardboard

If you choose to have other than a full size page you will have to get them cut. I always recommend professional cutting versus doing it yourself. Kinko’s, Office Depot, Staples, etc all have a business printing department and can cut 1000 sheets in one pass in like 5 seconds with nice, crisp edges.  Now go back home and finish the notepads.

6. Then, using the padding compound I make the notepad. Take the sheets, even them up by tapping the top of the pad on the counter. Add a junk piece of paper on the top of the entire stack to keep glue from getting on your top sheet. Place the sheets between the vise grips or heavy object like phone books so only the tops poke out. ** Probably should put a cloth or newspaper down to protect countertops. Apply the padding compound to the ends of the paper sheets. Allow to dry and reapply. They need to be completely dry. If you do not have time to let them dry overnight, then I suggest using a blow dryer on a cool setting (heat will soften adhesive) and then let them dry for at least 2 hours.

7. In the morning and after coffee, you can remove from vise or phonebooks and your pads should be ready to be separated. Now work carefully here folks. Make sure that you separate each notepad with pages and a back. I cannot tell you how many times I’ve gotten in a hurry to split them and split the back with the notepad above it. So now I have a cheat system. I flip through the pages and hold it almost accordion style so that I can see the names and pinch one notebook at a time between my fingers then slice. They come apart very easily with a kitchen knife. A voila…you’re done!

You can get creative a find a local die cutter in your community who may be able to cut round or curved shapes and you can make them fancier or more personalized if you know your client’s a cat lover maybe you put a cat on there. Two caveats… make it look good, not cheap. Don’t buy cheap paper. And secondly, don’t make it too busy or your practice branding bigger than the client’s name.

Costs:

$6.99 for 500 sheets of Bright White Linen resume paper found on clearance at office supply store. That’s enough paper for 20 notepads full sheet size. (For 3 half-size notepads it works out to be about $.56 worth of paper)

$7.99 for padding compound—enough to last me forever. 30oz.

$ .60 chipboard backing material ($.020 per sheet at local office supply store)

$ 0.75 per cut for all sheets total. (They just cut right through my stack, cardboard and all)

So, total for 3 notepads that I printed on my own laser printer (be sure to add cost if you have them printed by someone else), minus the initial cost of buying the padding compound works out to be less than $2.00 total or about $.65 ea

Now, you can certainly walk into any local printer and have them do this entire process for you. However you will still need to pay for them to design it and copy costs with cutting and padding. Last time I outsourced 20 some half sheet notepads for a client in just black ink on nice paper it was $25 for the notepads themselves and $35 for them to design and mock up 5 different names. So do the math, experiment and see how you can look big (and thoughtful) on a tiny budget.

If you want more ideas, tips, and affordable marketing tools subscribe to our blog or attend our LNC/LCP Practice Marketing workshop. If you have questions, comments or requests for more how-to’s email me at info@lncpracticebuilder.com

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