Your business card is a miniature representation of you and your brand. As well as including your logo, name, house fonts and colours, it has quite a tough job to do for a small piece of paper.
- Remember what your business card is for. Usually, you hand it to someone when you meet them, hoping they will contact you in future. So, the objective is to encourage someone to remember you and make it easy for them to get in touch. The other objective might be to drive traffic to your website where they can find out more.
- If YOU are what you sell, then it’s wise to include a photo of yourself. If someone comes away from the meeting with a handful of cards, it helps them to remember who you are.
- Given that you want people to contact you, make sure your contact details are easy to read. This means good colour contrast, good choice of font, and good point size.
- Don’t waste the back of the card; it doesn’t cost much extra to print both sides. You can use the back to list bullet points showing what you offer, print your slogan, quote a testimonial, allow space to write appointment details, include a QR code or trade/industry/professional logos, cover legalese, or just print a striking photo that represents your brand.
- Full colour printing is proven to attract more attention than single colour black-and-white. With digital printing, the cost is often the same.
- These days, it’s probably okay to include your mobile number even without a landline number; it’s no longer seen as risky. Make sure the spacing in your phone number is correct. For London numbers, the area code is 020 then four digits (starting with 8, 7 or 3) then four digits. For mobile numbers, the spacing is five digits (starting with 07) then six digits. It’s OK to play with the spacing if the numbers make a more memorable pattern that way. If people will call you from outside the UK, show your number as +44 (0)nn nnnn nnnn. There’s probably no need to mention a fax number any more.
- A postal address gives people reassurance that your business is established in real life (you’re not a fly-by-night) and they could knock on your door if they need to. You can use a mailbox address if you don’t want to share your home address.
- Your own email address looks more professional than Hotmail, Gmail, BTInternet, and other free services. It doesn’t cost much to buy your own domain and email hosting, so there’s no excuse not to.
- Include your social media usernames because that gives people the choice of how they want to contact you. Not everyone uses post, phone or email – some prefer Skype, Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
- The standard size for business card holders is approximately 88mm x 55mm. If your card is larger than this, it makes it hard for people to file and keep.
Can you think of any more?
