Business stationery is an important part of building a company’s image. No matter how big or small the company, branding your business stationery will help you to increase your sales.

However, business stationery does not mean just the letterhead of your company. Besides this, you need to have your company logo printed on every piece of stationery that your clients might see or use. These include envelopes, shipping labels, invoices, calendars, calling cards, folders, compliment slips, labels and more.

Just putting your brand on the stationery is not enough. You need the formatting to be consistent throughout the stationery. Remember, the formatting of your brand logo will help with the image you wish to convey. A consistent logo will imprint the brand image much more easily. It also shows a united front for your company and delivers the message that you are efficient.

Business stationery is important because it gives prospective clients the first impression of your business. If you do not seem professional, the client will not want to do business with you. However, a good first impression will definitely bring you more business. Whenever you communicate with your clients, leave them with a piece of your business stationery. It delivers a subtle, but powerful message about the kind of business.

When you design your business stationery, ensure that it delivers the right message across. A youthful business can afford to be more creative. However, if you deal with a very serious line of work, such as law, you need to keep the business stationery curt and professional.

You can print either in colour, greyscale or in black and white. Colour printing is usually much more effective compared to black and white and greyscale stationery. This is because colour printing usually portrays you as an established and trustworthy company. Whichever kind of printing you choose, you need the branding to be effective. It should be simple enough that people can remember it easily, and complex enough that people will take you seriously.

You can hire a business stationery printing company for your company’s stationery. Many companies offer services of not only printing, but also designing the stationery. You can either send them a design made by your company for printing or ask them to design a logo for you.

Ultimately, it is all about building the image of your business. Thus, the power and utility of business stationery should never be underestimated.

We were frustrated, my colleagues and I, as we wrestled with a new business idea. We thought it was a great idea but we couldn’t effectively describe, in business communication terms, what it would mean to users.

And, out of our discussions came the idea of writing a case study. If you’re not familiar with them, case studies are a staple of business communication. More specifically, they’re histories of specific business initiatives.

They’re like articles, but they put the reader into the shoes of a person making a difficult decision. Other professions also use case studies; you’ve probably heard of medical case studies, for example. Medical students get a set of facts about a patient, and perhaps some background or context, and then must diagnose the patient’s condition or disease.

Business case studies have proven popular at some university business schools (popular with the profs, at least). In some senses, the case study is the next best thing to being involved in a real case. And, an effective business communication tool, as I’ll explain here.

So, why would this be of interest to you? Well, if you have to persuade others to adopt your point of view, or buy your products, or vote for you, then you might find a case study useful.

In fact, you may be doing something like that already. Whenever you tell a story that’s designed to make a certain business communication point, you’re using a form of case study.

During my brief foray into life insurance sales, for example, I learned that emotion sells policies, and not logic. That’s why people in the business have a raft of stories about people who did or did not have protection when they died.

The point being made is that you should life insurance, and that you should have the right kind and the right amount. Now, if you sold life insurance, you would quickly find that no one listens when you explain the logic, but they will listen — and act — if you have your case studies (your anecdotes).

So, having gone through all that, is a case study just a fancy name for an anecdote or story? Yes, to a certain extent it is any tale used in business communication.

But, when you think of a case study, think of it as a more elaborate and more logically constructed story. Typically, a case study describes an organization or manager facing a choice or dilemma of some kind, and the reader gets a number of facts about the options. After that, you, the reader, are challenged to make the decision. Some real-life case studies include a follow-up report, so readers know which real-life decision was made, and how it worked out.

Getting back to the business idea with which we started, my colleagues and I did not proceed, and the case study exposition became a moot point. But, had we gone ahead, the case study likely would have been the cornerstone of our business communication efforts.

Finally, if you’d like to read some case studies, simply go to your favorite search engine and type in this phrase (with or without the quotation marks): “case study examples” or “case studies” .

In summary, case studies are a special type of business communication; they help us understand real-life decisions, and are a useful resource for persuasion and education. Add one or more to your business communication toolbox.