What Works and What Doesnt When It Comes to Business Cards

For small-sized businesses that do not have the budget to launch massive marketing campaigns, business cards are very often the first point of contact between them and their potential customers. Designing a business card that will leave a lasting impact on the client is what will give your small-sized business the competitive edge against gigantic conglomerates with their multi-million dollar advertising budgets.

3 Key Components of Effective Business Cards

So what exactly are the components of an effective business card? The three key essential elements of an effective business card include:

• Legibility
• Lack of Clutter
• A Reminder of Who You Are
  

All three components individually and together serve the purpose of instant recognition as well as long-term recognition. An effective business card that contains all three elements will instantly give the client a hint of who you are, what you do and where you can be contacted months or even years after he first laid eyes on it.

Why the 3 Key Components are Important in Business Cards

If it takes more than 2 seconds to glance at your business card and recognize what it deals it, that’s bad for you and your business. Let’s face it, no client wants to spend more than a few seconds trying to find your business name and your contact number among the plethora of unnecessary information that you have crammed into your business card. It’s far better to bin it and look for another service provider who is more easily “findable”.

Sure, in this day and age of social networking every individual has multiple contact addresses- we have multiple land-lines and multiple cell phones and even multiple email addresses and several social networking addresses. Including way too much information in a business card can be a huge mistake. Trying to find a phone number from among the jumble of numbers can leave your client feeling like he is looking for a needle in a haystack.

A client needs just two or maximum three means to contact you; a cell phone number, business fax number and an email address or website address would more than suffice. You need to stay focused on the fact that the contact information is only for the purpose of leading the customer to you for business purposes. Overdoing it can have the opposite effect. Making a separate set of cards may be a good idea if you are looking to increase your social network.

For a business card to be most effective, the company name, the logo and the tag-line should be prominent and clear. Don’t underestimate the importance of a short and catchy tag-line to accompany the name and the logo. One look at the card should tell the client what it is your business offers. Not only do the words and the picture need to pop out of that little rectangular piece of paper but they also need to carry some real meaning to the person reading them. If you have more than one business dealing with different products or services, make a separate set of business cards.

An effective business card is one in which the information is laid out in a stylized manner that clearly states who you are and what you do.

Article created on 11/17/2008

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