Do’s & Don’t's (Part 1 – The Do’s)
Hi Gang,
There are lots of things to DO and things NOT to do, to make a better business card. This month, since I feel very positive, let’s focus on the DO’s. Here is a list of 10 things, not in any special order, that you can do to enhance your business card, to make your business card work harder for you and to turn your business card into a Marketing Tool.
1. DO use both sides. It’s just nuts to leave 50% of your business card real estate empty. There is certainly something you can do with the back of your card that makes good marketing sense. Tell your clients and potential clients WHAT you do, HOW what you do can benefit THEM and WHY they should do business with YOU. Use bullet points, not sentences or paragraphs.
2. DO use color. No white cards!!! What I have against white cards is that they all look alike. So, make your card distinctive and use lots of color. Make your card stand out from your competition and use photos. Make your card informative and tell them what THEY want to know.
3. DO use photos on your card. The old saying is that “Photos say a thousand words” and it is so true on a business card. They give a “feel” to the card. They say things that it would take a paragraph to say. And they make a card interesting to look at and read. Interesting cards don’t get thrown in the “round file” as easily.
4. DO decide what is important and what is not important to say and show. And only say and show what is important. If you don’t need it on the card, leave it off. I see too many cards with “stuff” on the card that ought not be there because they really don’t do anything to help from a Marketing standpoint.
5. DO decide what you want the card to accomplish. What are the objectives? What do you want the reader of the card to do? Visit your store location? Call a phone number? Go to your website? Once you decide on the objectives, you then can decide what should be said and shown to accomplish these objectives. Have your goals for the card clearly established.
6. DO make your card readable. If they can’t read it, what good is it? Make sure your font sizes are large enough for “old eyes” to read. Make sure your fonts are readable. Be careful of type faces that are condensed, script or italics, too fancy, have lots of thicks and thins and are printed over pictures or graphics. Be careful of light on light or dark on dark. Can you read it? If you can’t, then change it.
7. DO write your website and email address using both caps and lower case. Yes, I know, you don’t need to type it in that way, but it just makes things easier to read. Look at this. I’ll use my webside as an example. Which is easier to read? www.everyonewns.biz or www.EveryoneWins.biz?
8. DO use paper that has a good ”feel.” Be careful that the paper you use is not too thin (it feels bad) or too thick (the points of the corners are too sharp). Be careful not to have your cards seem “home-made.” Is that really the image you want? Home-made cards say I’m new, I’m thrifty (I didn’t want to say cheap) or I’m not concerned with what you think about my card. I don’t really think any of those negatives are what you want to convey. Look professional. It will put money in your pocket in the short and long run.
9. DO make sure they understand what you do. Many company names, like mine, don’t tell them what you do. Well, you gotta let ‘em know. So, think of a tag line, something that explains what you do and put that tag line under your company name. If you look at the cards on my website, you’ll see hundreds of examples of how we handled this situation.
10. DO contact us if any of these things are a problem. What we do is turn a business card into your best and least expensive Marketing Tool. We’ve probably designed more Marketing Tool Business Cards than almost anyone in the world. I say that with confidence because most designers design cards that are NOT Marketing Tools. Rather, they are simply business cards that offer contact information only.
Thanks for listening.
Bernie