Inside Small Business | Small Business & Home Business Marketing

Are you Ashamed to Hand out Your Business Card?

By Jonathan Munk, Marketing Manager, Logoworks by HP

Have you ever come to the end of a business introduction, knowing you must produce a business card, and ashamedly hold out a flimsy, generic eyesore with your contact information? Or worse yet, you ask your just-introduced associate to jot down your phone number and email on a piece of scrap paper because you don’t have a business card? You may feebly attempt to excuse your lack of professional cards, but what impression does this leave?

As a business owner, you know the importance of making a good first impression, and you only have one chance to do it right. Even though your business card will play a small role in meeting a new potential customer, partner, supplier or employee, that role is an important one. Your business card is the only tangible item people walk away with after meeting you. The design, feel and layout of your card say a lot about the culture of your company, its organization and your level of professionalism. It also reveals to others how serious you are about your company. Did you invest in marketing materials or simply get free, generic business cards somewhere?

Let’s review a few keys to having a professional, influential business card.

1. Include your company logo
You might be surprised how many business cards come across my desk that don’t have a proper logo design on them. Many include the company name with no logo, while some simply exclude the company name altogether. When I receive a card like this, it’s an immediate red flag that the company may not be well-established, may lack marketing direction or that the business is some kind of slipshod production. Sure, we all have to start somewhere, but making a professional first impression with good business cards is not very expensive and is worth its weight in gold.

2. Say no to clipart or generic templates
How would it feel to hand out a business card only to have someone say, “Oh, does ‘so-and-so’ work for you? He has the same card as you.”, and you have to come up with some reason as to why you share the same style of business card as someone else. If you follow number one above you won’t run into this problem, but generally speaking, it’s a good idea to stay away from templates that don’t match the look and feel of your business.

Furthermore, un-customized clipart is an absolute no-no. It’s better to have a business card with a lot of white space than to use clipart, for a few reasons. First, most clipart won’t look very good with your logo. Second, it adds clutter, detracting from the primary role of your business card, which is simply to pass along your contact information. Third, clipart generally looks amateurish and unprofessional. You would never see an executive from a large company handing out cards with an illustrated stick figure. Why would you?

Professional, custom designed business cards are the most sure way to get a unique, great looking business card you won’t be ashamed to hand out (Shameless plug: Logoworks is having a special right now on business card design and printing. You can get started for just $99).

3. Don’t skimp on printing
No matter how great your business cards look, if you don’t get them printed the right way, on the right paper, and for the right price, you will probably be unhappy with the result. Find a printer that knows the business and have them provide some quotes with various printing processes, paper weights and materials. Printing business cards is generally very affordable. Just realize if you simply go to with the cheapest printing you can find, you may pay for it in the ink and paper quality down the road.

4. Be careful about going over the top
While impressive and fun to look at, over-the-top business cards may not as effective as traditional cards. Cards that stray too far from the mainstream could get thrown away quicker than a regular one. For example, if your card has an unorthodox shape or is printed on extremely thick paper, it might get tossed because people have no place to store it.

One man I met handed out a walnut with his website printed on the shell as his business card. He owned a printing company and the idea behind his business card was to show that he could print on anything. The ‘card’ was a great way to illustrate his business idea and it was very memorable, but the next time I needed a printer, I didn’t have a way to contact him. All I could remember was he was “the nut guy.” After all, there’s only so long you can keep a walnut sitting on your desk. It was interesting and fun, but completely unpractical.

You should also keep in mind that increased revenue you receive from having outlandish business card designs is often not worth the cost associated with the cards.

Handing out business cards should be an exciting opportunity, not one to be ashamed about. Take the time to do it right, and you will be surprised how much more confident you’ll feel handing them out and how much better they’ll be received.

Look at some outlandish business cards: DailyPoetics.Typepad.com

Logoworks Business card Blowout offer: $99 Design, $99 printing for business cards.

Jonathan writes Influentia, a blog on influence, marketing and small business.

           

Posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 2:05 pm and is filed under Branding, Design, Graphic Design, Marketing, Small Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.