Archive for July, 2011

Anatomy of an Effective Business Card

The elements of a business card consist of 1) the style – horizontal or vertical, 2) color – black-and-white cards or color business cards, 3) printing materials – printed on papers, plastic cards or magnetic cards. The most important part of business cards, however, are the information elements of a business card. After all, business cards convey the message you want to pass to your prospects, customers or clients. Effective business cards make a huge difference in your daily interaction with prospects, customers or clients. Many business deals actually begin with the exchange of business cards. Effective business cards send a clear message to your customers about who you are and what your business does. But not all business cards are created equal. When you greet your customers with business cards, you want to impress them with messages that highlight the uniqueness and value of your products or services. If they don’t use your services or buy your products today, you want to encourage them to come back in the future.

Information about the Person
There’re two types of business cards in terms of the purpose – the business cards that present a business and the cards that present an individual. The first type of business cards will just list company name, service, contact phone number and fax number. They’re often placed at the service desk for customers to pick up. The second type of business cards is the one we really refer to as business cards. They present both an individual and a business. The cards will list the person’s name, job title, and a brief description of the job title if official job title isn’t intuitive to laymen. Even if the job title is trivial, a tag line will emphasize your expertise and services and distinguish you and your business from others. A web designer may use a tag line – “build your virtual office”. An Internet marketing expert may say “Convert your visitors to sales”.

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Does Your Business Card Get Noticed?

Having a professional business card helps to portray your image and make you stand out from the crowd. When you meet somebody, you have less than 10 seconds to make the right first impression, so along with your elevator pitch, make sure that people will remember you.

Your business card is your first marketing tool. But are you using it in the most effective way?

Many small business owners spend hours and hours trying to find the best way of marketing their businesses. But when it comes to their business cards they don’t follow the same rules. Most people just include their basic contact information and don’t realize how this little piece of paper can say a lot about their businesses.

When you place an ad in a newspaper or a magazine, don’t you try to write the most effective text to attract clients so that people call you or buy your products or services? So why not pay the same attention when designing your business card.

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Design Your Business Cards So They Help You Continue “Selling” To Your Prospects After You Leave

Why Are YOU “Really” In Business?

I wanted to be an editor or a journalist, I wasn’t really interested in being an entrepreneur, but I soon found I had to become an entrepreneur in order to keep my magazine going” – Richard Branson

If you are a true entrepreneur, you will know that to succeed, it helps that you enter a line of business that you naturally enjoy, and would gladly do even if you did not get paid(as tends to happen during start up). The truth however is that you are(I hope) in business to make money in a manner that is profitable – which will in turn enable you stay in THAT business you enjoy, for the long term. To achieve the foregoing purpose, you will need to do cost-effective and results-focused business marketing. One very important – but I believe grossly underutilised tool – for doing that is the Business Card.

I discuss in this article how you as a business owner, can better design your own business cards, to significantly improve your ability to market yourself to those who really need your services and/or products.

Marketing is about creating an impression – a positive impression – in the mind of your intended customer – that YOU or YOUR BUSINESS are more capable of meeting his/her perceived need or want than any others. The more successful you are in creating this impression about yourself/business in the mind of your target audience, the greater the chances that they will choose you over others who may offer the same products and/or services you do. This in effect means, you will be better able to achieve your major business goal of making MORE money, MORE profitably.

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