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There is great opportunity for people who can create, produce and deliver announcements and invitations for consumers and other businesses.

From party invitations and birth announcements, to new address cards and grand-opening invitations, there's money to be made in this creative business. You can offer hundreds of different custom or ready-made products that people need to let friends, family, prospects or customers know about an important event.

These custom invitations can be handcrafted or designed on a computer, or you can find a creative niche and create something out of the ordinary that gets the message across. Custom designed invitations and announcements do not have to be strictly produced on paper. Experiment in getting a unique message across. You might find a unique niche.

A business may come to you for their grand opening looking to create a buzz. Your job is to create a unique way of attracting and inviting the first customers. I once knew a guy who created custom invitations for car dealers. The car dealer would have specific promotions and his job was to create a flow of new customers with his campaign. One of his campaigns included sending out red tubes to prospective car buyers. Each tube had a key to a car and a short note inviting the person to come to the dealer. The trick was to see if the key fit in a car that the dealer was giving away.

You don’t have to work with businesses to be profitable. You can certainly concentrate on any angle or niche you want – including the consumer market. You might be pleasantly surprised with the size of this market. And the more creative you are, the more marketable and successful your business will be.

Valuable Skills/Requirements

Are you creative. A background in art and design is recommended but as I often mention, creativity is not strictly held to being able to create art. If you can think out of the box and come up with wonderfully creative ways to get the right message across, this business may be for you.

Finding ways to get the word out that is catchy and above the norm is fun and profitable.

Salesmanship, some marketing knowledge and networking ability are all good qualities to help you succeed. If you are planning on providing this service to businesses, you will need to explain your ideas and provide great creative concepts to the heads of marketing departments or often directly to the owner if it's a small business.

How much you can make

This can be a great part time income where you could make a few hundred dollars a week just by word of mouth. But if you expand your business full time, you can market your service on the Internet and build your own marketing campaign with your creative messages.

Some campaigns can bring you sales starting at a few hundred dollars for consumer invitations to anywhere in the 3000 range for a business campaign.