Business Cards

Business cards are the first of the many tools you will use toward marketing yourself, as well as the business you own or are part of. How professionally designed your business card can directly reflect how serious and passionate you are about your business. In addition to promotion, business cards play an integral role in building up your professional contacts through networking.

Hiring a Graphic Designer

If you are able to afford the extra expense, a good graphic designer can easily be retained to create a professional design for you. In many cases, creating a memorable business card is the most effective way of creating connections. However, without the guidance of a professional, you run the risk of being remembered for a poor quality card.

Make Your Own Business Card Services

Online business card makers have many sample templates that can be used for cards. Using these services can save you money and time, but you run the risk of handing out bland, cookie-cutter cards which run the risk of not being remembered at all.

Design and Quality

Avoid designing a business card that contains clashing fonts or it will no longer be pleasing to look at. Ensuring that the eye wants to linger on your card encourages people to whom you give your cards to retain the information they are reading. To that end, Keep it simple:

• Contact Information: Place your name or the company’s in a larger font than the rest, below these you will need to include your job title, and basic contact info like email and work telephone.
• Social Media: Modern businesses need to use modern tools. If you do not already have a business profile on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, et al, it is time you made some. Having connections through these platforms allows others to not only contact you, but also remain in contact.
• Quality Stock: By giving people a high-quality card, you are entrusting them with a card that obviously did not come at bargain prices. Since the receiver is less likely to throw away the card without a second thought, they are more likely to contact you later.

Unorthodox Designs

On the high end of the cost spectrum, distributing business cards made of plastic, metal or other materials can really show how much you care about the person you have given the card too. These can also showcase the skills or use of your business. For example, barber shops have been known to distribute cards with teeth along the bottom that can be used as a comb. These types of cards may cost more. Turning your card into a novelty item, though, can get people to WANT to have your card in their wallet, and even show others the interesting card they received.

Once again, a good graphic designer can actually recoup the cost of their services from the extra business a creative, well-designed business card can generate. Should you choose to design your own, however, you can still come up with useful business cards with the proper amount of thought and effort.

SOURCE: www.sba.com