Business Cards Land

Is there anything more powerful than a business card when it comes to marketing materials? I think not! The business card remains the single-most powerful marketing tool that you can create! Here is a list of 5 reasons why your business  card is your most important marketing tool:

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Popularity: 19% [?]

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You’ve seen loyalty cards for “buy 10 get one free” offers; why not print one of your own?

The “loyalty card” is by no means a new idea, but it’s a really effective marketing technique for all small business owners. It’s cheap too – the price of a couple of sets of business cards is all it costs!

If your a coffee shop owner, then you’re probably well-aware of the benefits of creating loyalty cards to pick up repeat business. It’s such an easy, risk-free promotion. You create a business card that you can stamp everytime a customer buys a coffee – buy 10 cups and get a cup free! This same technique could also be applied to just about any other small retail business, i.e, local bakeries, frozen yoghurt stores, dry cleaners, fast food places, etc, anywhere that sells repeat business items.

This is how Gareth Blower who owns La Dolce Vita, an independently run coffee shop in Detroit, created his cards:

He designed a set business cards titled “loyalty card” – using his logo brand.  He added a little blurb about the offer (for every 10 cups of coffee the customer buys they receive a free one.) He also added a row of small block- spaces to his design, to create a place for the card to be stamped.

Gareth also purchased a stamper to mark off the coffee cups purchased. He sent me a link to the “stamper” that he uses on his customers cards.

Another really good idea is to make your business card into a coupon for a free consultation, a discount, or a free gift with a purchase. Make sure that you include an expiration date on them and  hand them out to all your customers. This technique would work particularly well for web-retailers who can add discount codes to the checkout section of their sites.

This small business furniture store created discount code business cards

Popularity: 62% [?]

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It’s Friday!  Sorry for that enthusiasm, but with precious little shopping days left until Christmas finally arrives, you’re gonna probably need just about every waking weekend hour you can snag.  Saying that, today we’re gonna let you know why you’re putting so much time, effort and thought into your business cards…the reasons why people actually keep them, and why you should make sure what they’re keeping, is WORTH keeping.

I know it’s easy to think that you don’t really need to think a great deal about what goes into your business cards, that a simple rectangle will do, filled with only the pertinent information.  That’s where you’re wrong.  People Do care, and here, thanks to a great article we found, are 8 reasons why people actually hang onto your business cards.

1. As a link to a potential customer or client.
2. As a link to a resource or a supplier.
3. As a link to a colleague.
4. For social, non-business reasons.
5. For referring business – it may be passed on to someone else.
6. To update information they already have.
7. Just in case.
8. Something likable, unusual or useful about the person or their card.

See, those little pieces of advertising have a lot more traction than most of you would have ever believed.  Hand it out to one person and it can make its way around to a lot more, for a lot more reasons.  Check out number 8…sometimes all it takes is something unusual about your card and it can be a reason for a stranger to latch on to your business card for good.

Popularity: 10% [?]

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You’re not just another pretty face.

Not just another car dealer.  Not just another insurance agent.  Not just another restaurant owner.  Not just another… well, you get the idea.

And your business card is NOT just another pretty card, or at least it shouldn’t be!

Tyler does a great job of coming up with pretty, amazing, and even outlandish business cards.  They’re fun to look at and they can give you some great ideas.  Standing out from your competitors is always smart.

But don’t forget that a business card is NOT about being pretty or clever.  It’s not about the looks at all.  Sure, having a business card that’s attractive is desirable, but it’s not really the point.

What really counts is that your business card is an effective marketing tool. It somehow or another conveys the impression that you’re worth remembering.  Being remembered because you have a cool card is great – but if that’s ALL they remember you for, you’ve missed something.

You want to be remembered for something much more fundamental than your “pretty” business card – you want people to remember you because they might want to do business with you!

Use the advice on this website to help you get the fundamentals in place – and THEN order “pretty” business cards at OvernightPrints.com!

Popularity: 3% [?]

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Simple or extravagant, cheap or expensive, no matter how you choose to go about your next batch of business cards, today we have just one tip:  This next batch, go the extra mile.  Yes, the “extra mile.”  Now, this probably needs a bit of explaining, and lucky for you we are happy to do so!  Going the extra mile, when it comes to your business cards, or anything in the world of business and marketing really, means doing that something special extra that elevates whatever you’re doing from ordinary to extraordinary.

Case in point, the business cards we found above.  Quite obviously the business card above belongs to a company that actually makes DVD and CD based business cards.  The amazingly cool thing about this card, and the cards they make, is they actually can hold 450mb of data on them!  The “Extra Mile” however is the simple fact that with those cards they decided to put them into a miniature jewel case just like a REAL DVD.  I know it’s simple, and it’s most likely unnecessary, but nevertheless that extra mile adds SO much to this business card setup and more than that, it shows that when it comes to their business, the company is willing to go that extra length to make sure they do the best job possible!

Whatever your company may be, whatever industry or niche of business you find yourself in, remember this simple tip:  Go the extra mile on the little things and your clients, both potential and current, will know that when it comes to the BIG things, you’ll have no trouble going that extra length.  No trouble at all.

Popularity: 8% [?]

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How many business cards have you seen in the last few years, and be honest here, that are the standard horizontal business cards.  That traditional rectangle look has been around for years and years but don’t you think that every now and again it’s appropriate to completely blow that idea out of the water and go the opposite direction…literally?

That’s right, we’re talking about switching things up and literally doing the opposite of the traditional horizontal rectangular business card…tilt it on it’s side and go vertical!  That’s right, check out the business cards above that belong to Erick Uresti and they show just how simple it can be to create a business card that looks completely original, just by changing it’s orientation.  Look how the vertical design coupled with the string of vertical text makes the card look larger, cooler and more inventive.

Add onto that the great watermark text behind the logo and the target shaped lines on the back and you have a card that no one, anywhere will forget.  I think my colleague Diana and I have said it a million times, but each time we say it, it gets a little more true: Sometimes the most impressive way to change things up is also the most simple.  By tilting that business card on its side you’re creating a brand new look, design and feel.  Can’t get any easier than that!

Think about it when you are designing your next batch of business cards.  Remember, simple = true.  Stay true.

Popularity: 7% [?]

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We’ve seen quite a few things be created out of business cards on this blog.  We’ve seen business card catapults, we’ve seen business cards disappear in magic tricks, we’ve seen business cards converted into 3D business cards, even pop-up books.  What we’ve never seen, however, is a business card creation of this magnitude, or this degree of, well, Awesome.

That’s right, looks like the folks over at PetrinaCase.com have actually taken someones business cards and created a full on, business card construction crane.  Basically, they take 20 business cards you provide them, any business cards, and they come up with a full-fledged 3D sculpture.  They say they can do anything, for any sport, but this is arguably the most impressive.  The sheer number of moving parts, the scale and just how intricate it is is mind-blowing.  All using business cards!

All this goes to show you is this:  If you have time, a bit of creativity and the time to be precise, you really can to some amazing things with your business cards, and marketing your business.  If you don’t have that time, energy, creativity or desire to be precise, you could always go to PetrinaCase.com with all of your OvernightPrints.com business cards and let them do the dirty work!

What are you waiting for, design those business cards today, save 20 of them, and get them over to the sculptors.  Imagine how good YOUR sculpture will look!

Popularity: 5% [?]

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Here’s a little fact you might not have known about me before today, I love Scrabble.  I love playing it online, offline with friends, strangers, I don’t care.  As long as I can play Scrabble with someone, I’m happy.  That said, when I stumbled upon these fine business cards today, to say I got a little excited is most likely the biggest understatement of the week.

That’s right, we just found some SCRABBLE inspired business cards.  By the looks of things, they belong to someone named Courtney Danforth, and word is they were created by a guy named Jonathan Danforth.  Here’s how they were made:

“Created by Jonathan Danforth, programmer and photographer for Courtney Danforth. These were constructed out of sugar maple wood, cut on the end grain, laser etched, and finished by hand.”

In a word:  Amazing.  Look at the craftsmanship, look at the authenticity.  I would hate to give even a single one of these away, but I know one thing is for sure, whenever you DID give one away, whoever got their hands on it would be showing it off to just about every human being within a 10 block radius.  That, my friends, is the power of a great business card.

Remember, for a business card to be great it doesn’t have to be cut out of maple wood and stamped to look like a Scrabble piece, it doesn’t have to cost you a fortune and it doesn’t have to be insanely unique.  All it has to be is represent YOU to your best ability and be something you’re proud to give away.

Head over to OverNightPrints.com right now and start designing YOUR best business card.  The sooner, the better.

Popularity: 6% [?]

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Hello and happy Monday!  On this site, we’ve mentioned time and time again that beautiful business cards, with exceptional design, are a shoe-in to get noticed more than their extremely plain counterparts.  As always, however, there is an exception to every rule and this is no different.  Sometimes, the uglier a business card and its design are, the more likely people are to stop, stare and yes, remember.

That’s exactly the case for this extremely strange, yet strangely interesting business card we stumbled on.  I’m not sure if it’s the slightly menacing stick figure on the front of the card, or the extremely loud colors that were chosen, or just how darkly scribbled in the contact information on the back happens to be, but something, something, draws our eyes to these cards and we just can’t stop looking.  In the event someone actually gave us this card, I can guarantee it’d be one that we’d keep in our cases and show just about everyone we knew.  That, my friends, is power.

So, knowing this, if you’re a proud employee of a company that thinks way outside the box, if you own your own business and want to be remembered but in a slightly different way, maybe when it comes to YOUR design, think Ugly instead of thinking Pretty.  Who knows, that decision might be exactly what it takes to launch your business cards, and your business along with it, to the next level.  After all, getting remembered is half the battle!

Have any ugly business cards you’ve stumbled across?  We’d love to see, discover and even highlight any and all that you may have found!  The uglier, the better!

Popularity: 9% [?]

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Monday we talked about how you don’t always have to get crazy or intensely creative when it comes to your business card, that sometimes the best bet is to just stay simple and let the power of your creative design on a normal business card do the talking.  Sometimes, however, if you really want to make an impact and you really want to stand out, you have no choice but to bring out your “big guns” and show off your “special” business cards.

That said, we don’t advise giving these out to just anyone, they should be used for special occasions or those big-time prospective clients that need a little extra incentive to be woo’d.  Here are two more designs that seriously impressed us. 

First up we have a business card design that would fit in perfectly for any and all companies that had anything to do with clothing, sewing, or even if you just wanted to give them a little something extra to remember you by.  The card itself looks like a tiny envelope and the outside of it holds all of your information.  Inside however, is a patch with your initials on it that they can keep.  What a genius idea and it guarantees you will be remembered.

Second, and this one really impresses us for anyone having anything to do with the coffee industry, we have the old coffee bag business card.  While the card itself, and your information, is held inside, the outside of the bag resembles that of an antique coffee bag that is used to hold coffee beans that are freshly gathered.  Open it up and they will learn all they need to know about you, and can even use the little bag in the future.  How genius.

So next time you’re trying to figure out a new design, let these be of some inspiration.  Remember, sometimes simple is best, but sometimes, getting wildly creative will help you stand out.  Way out.

Popularity: 6% [?]

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