Nice Business Card. What do You Do?
By: Mike Lipshultz
Mike@biznetonline.com
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Nice Business Card. What do You Do? |
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The first step in remaking your business cards is to understand what makes a person want to know more about your business. Take a hard look at what you do. Now, can you say why a person would want to do business with you? Lets look at some examples.
A bails bondsman could use the line "When you need a friend, and your friends can’t know" . On reading this I know that like a good friend the bondsman is there for me. I also know I can count on his confidentiality.
A pool service person could use the line "Don’t get soaked", then talk about their fair pricing and service.
Hopefully you are getting the idea. To help you come up with a "catch" phrase try listing ideas or just "hot" words on a piece of paper. Take the best and go from there. Not sure of what to go with. Then make up some samples and ask for comments from the business people you network with.
In Carol’s case a visit to Apline’s Web site showed that this company was marketing a product targeted at anyone concerned about the quality of the air they breath. So we went with the line "The Solution To Indoor Air Pollution". To give feeling and emotion we added a dirty background to the card.
The next step was to design the actual card and make up our samples. In this case we used Microsoft’s Publisher. There are a number of low cost publishing programs out there. No business should be without at least one of them. If you do not have one. Get one. You will be amazed at how often you use it.
Anytime you are thinking about an advertising idea, you can make it up and get a feel of how it will look on paper. It only took about one hour to finish off Carol’s cards. As she wanted to use the back of the card to promote her free trail offer, we used the back of the card. In designing the back of the card, we remembered that the card is a marketing tool. In making a sale you need to over come the risk the consumer may feel in saying yes. So we made the back of the card into a risk free offer and a strong statement of confidence.
The next step is proofing the total card. The best way to proof a card is to show it to people that were not involved in creating it. Do not be afraid to ask your current clients what they think.
The last step is to have the cards professionally printed. Please do not print your business cards on your laser printer using those "laser ready" business card blanks. No matter how great your cards look, if printed on a laser printer, the card stock will be to thin. Anyone holding your cards will know you printed them. Don’t risk someone thinking you can’t afford $20.00 to print up some cards, or that you have not been in business long enough to have cards made. Cheap (thin) paper stock will cost you business. Come on! You can get cards printed for as low as $20.00 to $30.00, even using your original art.
Let us know what you think of Carol’s new cards.
carolscard@biznetonline.com
