better business blog

Tips and stories to add value to you and your organisation

How Hard Is Your Business Card Working?

18 November 2013

In 1876 on a wet Monday Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, on Tuesday he realised he had just given himself a problem so on Wednesday he had his business cards reprinted to proudly read:

Alexander G Bell
Inventor
Telephone: 00000 000001

Good old Sandy, he revolutionised the business card and now we can take a fresh look at ours and see how hard it is working for us, because people do read cards and keep them. They are miniature sales brochures and information packs rolled into one.

Broadly speaking there are two types of card; informative and descriptive. Informative ones simply aim to tell people what our job is and how to get in touch with us. Descriptive ones add product and service information and attempt to define our unique selling point (USP) to differentiate our business from competitors.

Given that cards cost money to print we need to make sure they are working hard for us, so that we get a good return on our investment. Here are a few check questions to make sure your card is earning its keep:

1. Does it contain all your contact details, such as Twitter, Facebook, Skype, Google+ and LinkedIn?
2. Is there a useful tag-line that describes your business, or what makes you worth hiring?
3. Have both sides been used…the reverse is a great place for listing products and services?
4. Does the design reflect your business brand, perhaps modern and refined, or more old fashioned and reliable?
5. Have you used good quality card, instead of cheaper thin paper?
6. Has the card been professionally typeset or is it an amateur effort?
7. Are there helpful logos on the card, to highlight awards won or professional bodies you’re part of?
8. Does the card encourage someone to spark a useful business conversation with you?

This week take a fresh look at your business card and have fun finding one way you could improve it. Our cards are the first piece of work a potential client gets from us, so it pays to do a great job!

Next week: Three interesting books to consider