Business Card Tips
5 Ways to Get Your Business Cards Noticed, and Remembered
- Use the same graphics, colors and typestyles as your other communications materials (letterhead, envelopes, brochures, website, etc.).
- Limit the number of fonts on your business cards to two.
- Make your logo appear in the upper left hand corner of the card. Eye movement studies show this to be the very first place the human eye travels when handed a new piece of paper.
- Print all information on your card is in a typeface that's large enough to be easily readable. Think 8 pt type or larger.
- When including your website address (URL) on your cards, consider highlighting it with a separate color, a larger type size or putting the address on the back of the card.
In Stand Out from the Crowd there's a whole chapter called Business Cards, Letterhead, and Envelopes: Tips to Get the Most Out of These Fundamental Tools.
The 5 Card Giveaway - Networking Tip
Here's a trick to really improve your networking: Every time you attend a networking event, put a certain number of business cards in your pocket. Not a handful, but a specific number of business cards that can realistically be given away during the function. For me, it's 5 business cards.
Then, do NOT leave the networking event until you have given out all of these cards. Too often, small business leaders wander aimlessly around a networking event without a goal in mind.
What my 5 Card Giveaway strategy does is:
- Provide a goal (I will give away 5 business cards)
- Provide an incentive for achieving the goal (I can leave)
Try this next time and see if you don't feel a great sense of accomplishment after giving away that 5th card.
The First Cardinal Sin of Marketing
Recently, I was invited to play golf in a new foursome. The course was gorgeous, we moved along at a nice clip, and everyone was having fun.
Then, after our round ended, one of the guys asked me to join him for a beer. So we walked into the bar and after a while, the two of us started talking business. He works in an industry that I have lots of experience in and he eventually asks me what I do. "I help growing companies with their marketing" I answered, and his eyes light up.
But when he asked for my card, I discovered that I had just passed out the last one at a networking event the night before. That's OK, I said to myself, I'll just get one from my briefcase. But then I realize I didn't bring my briefcase. To make a long story short, I was more than a little embarrassed to say to him "I'll have to email you", instead of handing him my card right then.
This, in my opinion, is the #1 Cardinal Sin of Marketing...running out of business cards. Why? Because when an interested party asks you for a card, they are "opting in". They WANT to start a relationship with you.
I should have followed my own advice, found in The Marketing Toolkit for Growing Businesses, which is to put a stash of 20 cards in your car's glove compartment. That way if you run out of cards in your wallet or purse, and forget to bring your briefcase, you're still covered.
Today, I stocked my glove compartment with 20 cards and I'm good to go. And the contact I met this weekend? We've since emailed. But I'm lucky; he and I spent 5 hours together, so he overlooked my small business marketing misstep. I may not be so lucky the next time.
Get Jay's Special Report How to Market Your Company During a Recession. Covering a wide variety of tips, tools and techniques you can use to boost sales during a recession.
Jay Lipe is the president of Emerge Marketing LLC, a firm that helps growing companies focus their marketing. He is the author of the books The Marketing Toolkit for Growing Businesses (Chammerson Press, 2002) and Stand Out from the Crowd: Secrets to Crafting a Winning Company Identity (Kaplan Publishing, Fall 2006). He is also a sought after speaker and seminar leader, and can be reached at 612.824.4833, through his Smart Marketing blog or through his website. Hear a podcast interview with Jay discussing Small Business Marketing.
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