Printing membership cards

My recommendation is to have your marking or printing people develop an all-in-one welcome/renewal packet that uses a heavier paper, perhaps the kind with a plastic back. Make sure there's a section that is perforated, and use a Mail Merge design to print the relevant member information in the right spot. Don't bother with fancy printers or cards - they're expensive, not ecologically friendly, and your members will forget them or lose them half the time anyway!


I can't tell you how much trouble we had with the $5,000 printer we got in 2012. It literally burst into flames a few months ago when trying to reconnect it after Irma came through (no, there was no damage, just several days of sitting unplugged and unused and it felt neglected or something), but before that we had to get special software to be able to print at all. We used Cardpresso, which was difficult to learn and very finicky, and the system required special typewriter-style spools that were also expensive...and then actually getting the plastic cards into the mail meant extra postage costs that I would have preferred to have used on the packaging/packet vs the cards. Replacing the dead printer was the last thing I wanted to do...except we still needed something to fill in the gaps while a redesign happened, and besides it's not my responsibility anymore.


I really love the way my auto insurance just prints a couple insurance cards on the heavy paper with the plastic laminate strategically located in the card section. The cards are durable, not too bulky to fit in my wallet, and the whole thing can be easily reprinted if necessary. Another benefit of using this kind of card is that it should play more nicely with the Mail function in RE to keep track of whose card you have printed and when. Our system with plastic credit card style membership cards meant I could never use the Mail function except to create dummy sets, and that tended to be a lot of fiddly work on top of the other fiddly work.