“TURN YOUR BUSINESS CARD INTO YOUR BEST MARKETING TOOL”

What do your business cards actually DO for you?

Are they merely a contact information only card?

Or, are they a MARKETING TOOL?  Do they help you SELL?

To answer these questions, let’s look at the functions that your business cards can perform (if you choose) for you and your company.

Your business cards CAN perform the following functions.  They can…

• Present your name, company, phones, etc. – the information that your customers and potential customers need.  (All cards do this.)
• Become your best and least expensive MARKETING TOOL.
• Tell what you and your company do.  I can’t tell you haw many cards I see that have a non-descript company name with nothing that tells WHAT the company does.  Don’t make them guess.
• Present features & benefits.  Tell them WHAT you do, what you can do for THEM and WHY they should do business with YOU.
• SELL your products and services.  Selling is not a dirty word.
• Show photos of your products & services, your place of business, your people.  (The three P’s.)  Pictures are worth a thousand words.
• Be MEMORABLE.  Be COLORFUL.  People will remember your card because it is colorful and different from all the others they get.
• Differentiate you and your company from your competition.  Don’t be a “me too” company.  Look better than your competition.
• Create a positive image for you and your company.  Dynamic.  Exciting.  Distinctive.  Progressive.  Quality.
• Become a SALES TOOL, a mini-brochure, a marketing product.  Your business card is often the FIRST thing your potential customer sees.
• Be an “appointment card” with a place to write in “time and date.”

Pick what functions you want your business card to deliver.  But before you simply say that you want only what you’ve had for the past who-knows-how-many years, consider the following:

• The piece of paper that you give to customers and potential customers more than any other is your business card.
• We are in the “instant information age.”  What information does your business card now offer?  Your customers and potential customers want to see and know MORE - sales info, features, benefits, pictures of your products, your facilities, your people.
• Do you want your business to look like everyone else’s business?  If NOT, be distinctive.  Have a colorful, memorable, extremely unique and exciting business card.  Your potential customers will remember your business card.  And they’ll remember YOU.  Stand out from the competition. 

We design and print extremely unique FULL-COLOR Business Cards.  We turn business cards into Marketing Tools.

It’s all in the design.  We have great graphic designers who understand business cards.  Our designs are unique.  Each card is CUSTOM DESIGNED to achieve the objectives established with each account.  No templates.  No pick from choice 1, 2 or 3.  We use lots of photos.  People remember what they SEE in pictures.  It’s true that a picture is worth a thousand words. 

What makes you different from your competition?  What do you want to say?  What do you want to show?  What do you want your business card to do?  What functions do you want it to perform?  We’ll help you decide.  We’ll write the copy for your card and create the artwork.  We’ll gather the photographs.  We’ll work and re-work your business card until it is exactly how YOU want it.  You approve everything before we print.  We’ll sit with you and consider the issues below, and more. 

Do you want to see samples of extremely unique FULL-COLOR Business Cards?

Click here.

ISSUE #1:  1-SIDE vs. 2-SIDES.

My opinion is that a 1-side card is like running an ad in the newspaper and leaving the bottom half blank.  Would you ever do that?  Yet, people do it every day on their business cards.  You are paying for that second side.  You’re just not using it.  Use it to tell what you do, to offer features and benefits, to show pictures of your products, photos of jobs you’ve done.  Use it to SELL, SELL, SELL.

I hear people say that they can’t understand how and why a long-time customer didn’t know that they sold a certain product or offered a certain service.  Do you tell your customers what products and services you offer?  Are they attractively listed on your business card?  Don’t expect your customers to know what you don’t take the time and effort to tell them, in every way you can.  And one of those ways is on your business card.  And, by the way, we print FULL-COLOR on BOTH sides of your business card.  The cost of 2-side cards is not much more than a 1-side card

If you now use the back of your card is for making notes, consider carrying a note pad for that purpose.  Your business card space is too valuable for that.

ISSUE #2:  Comments I have heard:

“I want my card to have a professional look.”

A “professional look”, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.  Just because YOU think one way about your card, don’t assume that your customers and potential customers will, too.  A card that is created by professional graphic designers and professional printers, will most likely look “professional.”  However, “professional” doesn’t necessarily mean stark, plain, lacking in color and excitement and void of marketing functions.

“I don’t want my card too busy.”

A “busy” card can be a very functional card.  Busy may just mean that you are not used to having more than your name, company, etc. on it.  Be more concerned that your card is achieving your objectives, that it is memorable and creates an image.  Be more concerned that you are not perceived to be the same as your competition because your card lacks distinctiveness.

“I want a very plain card.”

A “plain card”, huh?  For a plain company?  With plain products or services?  Your card says what you are and who you are.  “Plain” is the wrong thing to strive for, in my book.  Nobody wants to do business with a plain-Jane company.  Rather, figure out what image you want to convey.  Plain? You sure?   How about creative?  Exciting?  Progressive?  Dynamic?  A company in step with today?  A company ahead of it’s time?  The choice is yours.  Your business card, and everything else you do, delivers your image.

“I had this card for all these years and it’s good enough.”

“Good enough” is never good enough!  Just because you’ve always been doing something the same way may be all the reason that it’s time to re-think and re-work it.  How many things in your business haven’t changed in the past 20 or so years?  Not very many.  Change is everywhere and it happens every day.  Maybe it’s time to look at what else your business card can do for you.

ISSUE #3:  Home-Made Cards (from your computer).

You have to be kidding.  Do you really think home-made cards create the image you want?  What do they say about you and your company?  Yes, I know that you created them yourself.  Your baby.  Your ideas.  Your “design”.  And they were cheap. Think in terms of your customers.  What do your customers think? Do your customers think home-made cards have the look and feel of QUALITY?  Of professionalism?  Do they give the impression that you are a solid, dynamic company?  Or, do home-made cards say “I’m new, I’m trying to save a buck and I cut corners wherever I can.”  Is that the kind of company that YOU want to do business with?  Is that the kind of company your customers want to do business with?  Look at it through your customers’ eyes.  Your image is at stake here.  And, perhaps, your survival.

ISSUE #4:  On-Line Template cards.

There are many on-line companies who would like to print your business cards.  The problem is that, for the most part, they all look alike.  They have that “template look.”  You pick the background design from the backgrounds they offer.  You pick the typeface from limited choices.  You pick the layout of what goes where, from a few options.  And the result is that you get a card which looks like all the other cards that chose that same background.  They lack distinctiveness and creativity.  Is this the image you want?  Again, your image is at stake.  Our cards are custom designed for YOU.

ISSUE #5:  To LOGO or not to LOGO.

Your marketing people will tell you that you need a logo.  Maybe you do; maybe you don’t.  But remember, the logo is for YOU.  Your customers could care less about your logo, or if you have one or not.  Don’t get hung up on a logo.  In most cases, you will not spend the money to establish your brand that the big boys spend.  It’s much more important to have your card accomplish your marketing objectives than to merely present your logo.  We incorporate logos into our designs all the time.  In many cases, the logo is just one element of the card and not necessarily the focus.

ISSUE #6:  Type is hard to read.

I’ve seen hundreds of cards that I just can’t read.  Talk about ineffective business cards that miss the mark.  Your customers and potential customers have to be able to read your business cards.  Make the type large enough for “old eyes” to read.  Get away from script typefaces and others that are hard to read.  Make it easy for potential customers to read what you have to say.  And, make sure that you emphasize what is important and downplay what is not.  To many businesses, the phone number is more important than the fax number.  Yet, look how many cards present these two in the same size type.

If you always do what you always did, Then you’ll always get what you always got.

 “If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.”    Jim Rohn 

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