heartharmony.com.au

A few of my clients have been asking me what to put on their business cards.  You see,  you go into business and everyone tells you that you have to have one.  What I tell them is before you race off to your printing store or graphic designer, take a breath and ask yourself a few questions.

1. What do you need it for? Sounds simple, but will you mainly be giving it to people at networking events, to confirm appointments, in case they have a problem with one of your products or some other reason.  Many people find that they have a couple of different ways they hand out their cards. Fantastic! Get different cards for different purposes – there’s no rule that says you can only have one type of card.
2. What do you want people to do with it when they get it? This sounds bizarre, but do you want people to file it in their card file (then make sure it fits into card files and is not a strange “creative” shape), stick it on their fridge (perhaps a magnet is what you are looking for instead of a card), scan it using a business card reader (be careful of the fonts you use if you want your card to be clear in scanners) or what?
3. If you want to send people back to your website - make it worth their while to go there. Use the back of the card to include an enticing offer or giveaway.
4. If you use them for networking or at conferences – then maybe you need a photo instead of a logo on your card so people can put a face to a name.
5. What is the minimum contact information you can get away with? Many people try and cram an encyclopedia onto their cards. By the time you add in phone, mobile, fax, switch, email, website, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn etc etc – it is starting to get silly. Take pruning shears to your contact information and keep it to the essentials.
6. If your graphic designer insists 6 pt font is stylish and modern, belt them severely around the head with your bifocals. As people age we need bigger font so we can preserve our vanity and not have to bring out the magnifying glass to look at your card. Keep the essential details – your name and your main phone number – in a decent sized font.
7. Work out if your brand is cheap or you want to inspire a perception of quality. Cheap business cards look precisely that – cheap. You are your business card – what do you want it to say about who you are?

So that is my deadly seven. What do you think about business cards? What do you like, not like on cards that you have seen?

Ingrid Cliff

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Heart Harmony – Freelance Copywriter