For entrepreneurs the business card is the 2nd impression at attracting and creating new business and can lead you to establishing potential working relationships to be able to close the deal. With this reason it makes sense to maximize the chances of making that impression a memorable one for future opportunities.
Here are three simple and easy ways to make your business card a memorable one. Some of the basic and essential information your business card must have is how your potential client will contact you for your products and services questions.
Information like phone number, email address, website or physical address is the very start to remembering who you are without this your chances of being remembered are lowered and the impression you make will not be a positive one.
Some of the basics are font size, font in order to be legible should be 12 points or higher for clear and readable information a classic font like Century Gothic, Impact and Rockwell are just a few you can use to make your business card pop.
1. Highlight your Services or Products.
Tell me what you do or what your products can make my life easier in just a few words. This is the question your potential business client will be asking themselves when they first take your card. How can you help me? Do I need your product or service at this moment or perhaps in the near future? And are you a pleasant person to have a working partnership with?
You want to eliminate guessing by clearly highlighting or stating your services and expertise on the back of the card. I like to use the front of the card for my name, logo, title and contact information.
You can use the back of the card to list your services, products or unique selling proposition or tag line. Once you have the your contact, product or service information sorted out pick 3 to 5 services that bring in the most profit to your business or that you specialize and or are known for.
If you have a product that is best shown with an image, pick 2 to 3 at the most to avoid confusion and distraction and label them. Since a standard business card is 2.3 x 3.5 inch space you want to avoid having an overwhelming amount of services, products and images on your card, this only conveys to your potential customer/ client a lack of focus and mixed thoughts about your business. Clarity and focus is what we want to deliver in our message and our service so that we are remembered at the next networking event.
2. Build Trust in Your Brand
Since we live in a world of social media and profiles we tend to trust those who are seen as authorities and are out in the open sharing their thoughts and ideas. Your business card is the first gateway your potential prospect will come across to step forward and begin an working relationship with you and your business. One of the best ways to do this is to add a nice looking picture of yourself on your business card, this works great for both service and product based business.
As humans we tend to judge others based on appearances and as much as we want to be fair and say that your image does not matter we we want to do business with people we know, like and trust.
Having a nice looking picture separates you and puts you closer in entering the circle of trust. Also having your picture conveys a certain level of confidence which tells your prospect you are willing to be out in the forefront and take responsibility in business matters.
Your image and conversation will stand out in a sea of collected business cards with just names and numbers, by having your picture on your business card this can establishes a feeling in your prospects mind of knowing who you are and trusting that you are willing to put yourself out there to be remembered.
The image you select is very important in order to convey your personality, we recommend having this picture taken by a professional and dressing up for the part. However if you are a do it yourself type you can always set up a tripod and snap away, just make sure you are well lit and close up to where you are the center of attention.
A foreground, middle ground and background give the picture depth and adds some flavor to your shot making it look appealing in composition instead of a flat drivers licence type picture.
3. Revise & Refine
A business card should always be evolving like your actual business so we recommend printing 1000 business cards at a time to pass them out in a fair amount of time while keeping in mind those changes you want to make for the next round of printing.
We come across entrepreneurs that have a an important networking and are in a rush to print business cards with a short amount of lead time. This usually leads to important information like contact number being left out products and addresses only to realize that the cards wont serve you much without this information.
Its important to work with an experienced graphic designer that can guide you in including all of the important information you might of forgotten but it is ultimately your responsibility to have all this down before committing to printing.
Another grate and easy way to go about designing your business card is to buy a ready made template from sites like graphicriver.com where you can find hundreds of business card template that are customizable and cost effective.
Your Awesome Tagline Look at the biggest companies in the world and you’ll find something in common, they all have a tag line that describes a benefit, solution or their values. Brainstorm ideas that best describe your business what you offer and what solutions you provide for your customers and like a puzzle begin to interchange words until you have something that is short and sweet to remember.