Best Ideas For Getting The Most Out Of Your Business Cards
You’ve got your business up and running enough to where you feel like it’s time to start promoting it with business cards. You design a few and order some bundles for an upcoming trade show. Throughout the night, you see more and more of them going in the garbage than in people’s wallets.
It’s safe to say that you bombed this company outing. This problem can be fixed though. All you have to do is change up your card.
To help you make the most out of your business cards and leave a lasting impression on potential customers, check out this helpful design guide.
Include The Important Stuff
You want to give potential customers enough information where they know what your company is about but let them wander a little. You don't need to put the entire history about how you got started on your card.
The customer will be more likely to throw it away then read it. So, be a little selective about the information you put down.
You'll want a tagline, the name of your company, a phone number, email address, and perhaps a physical address. This should give them all that they need to know.
It Should be Legible
Your business card will be useless if the customer can't read what's on it. Crazy fonts can be fun but they aren't professional and they can be difficult to make out.
This being said, if you want to add a little bit of interest to your card, give them a logo that pops and keep the text as simple as you can. On top of not using fancy fonts, make sure that the text isn't too small and isn't distorted.
Stay Away from Full Coverage
So, you hand a customer your card and then start talking more about your business. The customer turns the card over so they can take a few important notes. If you leave plenty of white space then they can do this no problem.
If you have graphics and text on both sides then they can't do this and they won't have as much important information about your company to take home with them. Keep in mind that using white space isn't boring. In fact, it draws the viewers eye to everything on the card from your text to your graphics.
Get it Done Professionally
If you don't have the ability to print business cards professionally in your office, don't print them yourself. They can come across as cheap or unprofessional which isn't the impression you want to leave on a potential client.
You can get bundles of cards for not too much money so it's worth it to have them professionally done. They'll make a huge impact on the customer this way.
Design With Your Audience in Mind
You want your card to go with your target audience. For example, say you own two businesses that sort of go together, you could use the front of your card for one of the business and the back of the card for the other one. It's all going to the same audience so you're good.
If you're a writer by day and a garbage man by night, you'll need to get two separate cards because those don't relate to each other at all.
Be Careful With Special Finishing
You've got a lot of options available to you when it comes to special finishings. You could have rounded corners, foil accents, die cuts, you could punch holes into it and make it into a mini brochure of some kind.
The sky is the limit but you want to be careful.
If you're too flashy then your card and business may be remembered as being flashy rather than for the information you give the potential client. Also, if you were to do a black glossy finish you may frustrate customers more than anything. Again, some customers like to take notes and they can't do that on this type of finish.
Show Don't Tell
Why put a bunch of information about what you do on your card when you can simply show it.
For example, if you're a freelance photographer your business card could be a graphic of you with a camera followed by a tagline.
They will know what sort of service you supply without you having to include that in the text on the card. You can get creative as you want within some of the constraints we've listed above.
Consider a Call to Action
If you have space on your card to throw around you can do a little call to action that inspires the potential client to do something. This could be as simple as checking out your website.
You could also put a helpful tip on it that relates your business. This makes you look knowledgable in your field and the customer is sure to remember you for that.
Get the Most Out of Your Business Cards
If you don't put a lot of thought into how you're designing your business cards they may end up in the trash or in a potential customer's junk drawer rather than actually be used. You're only allowed a certain amount of space on your card so, try out some of these design ideas to make the most out of it.
Scratching your head trying to think of a business card design with no avail? We may be able to help you out with that. Get started with some of our free business card templates!