Tips for Unleashing the Marketing Power of Your Business Cards

Mark Hale ‐ June 4, 2014

Business cards may be small, but their impact is huge. A business card plays an important part in making a lasting impression upon those you do business with.

When choosing a business card, don’t be cheap. (If you’re on a limited budget, try to save elsewhere.) Cheap business cards will make a cheap impression of your business. Experienced sales reps know how important it is to make a good impression on their prospects. They buy nice clothes, drive nice cars, and wine-and-dine prospects and clients—only to give them a 1¢ business card?! Why not consider a 10¢, 15¢, or 20¢ business card that would really “WOW” a customer and add to the overall good impression?

Need Pricing for Your Business Cards?

Here are some tips that will boost your business cards first impression:

Feature your company name prominently, with your name and title smaller. Using your company logo is important, because it will help people associate your name with the product you are selling.
Don’t take up too much space listing all the ways you can be contacted. It’s best to list your phone, fax, and email address. Personal cell phone numbers and beeper numbers should be given to the client verbally and when necessary.
Full color printing can add a dramatic impact to the look of your business card. If your budget doesn’t support full color, there are a lot of creative possibilities using two colors of ink combined with a third color of paper.
For an added element of flash design your business card with your logo foil stamped or embossed. A foil stamped business card stands out.
Don’t overlook the backside of your business card. It is a great place to add more sales and marketing information, your mission statement, a map and location, or photos of your products.
It’s worth the time! Business cards are one of the most important tools for business today. The time and effort you spend creating and printing excellent business cards will pay future dividends.
Go with a larger full color business card. A larger card gets noticed.
Make the business card useful to the end user. For example, if you operate a tire store, put a tire depth gauge on the back of the card. Or a beauty salon put a makeup color wheel on the back of the card. This makes the card more useful, creates a better impression and guarantees the card will be used.

Business cards are generally not very expensive. The advent of digital full color printing has brought the cost of nice business cards way down. The design and lay out or the card today is the most important. A well designed business card is easy to read and conveys a impression of professionalism. You can design the business card yourself, some people try to use business card templates provided by cheap on line printers and usually the card ends up looking cheap and does not portray the impression intended. It is usually worth the money to hire a professional to design your business card.