Your business card is not always your first impression with a prospective customer, but it is the most lasting connection you have. It may also be the way you get introduced to others, whether a satisfied client hands your business card to a friend or you include the business card with flyers you spread across the neighborhood. Yet you can make mistakes with your business card that undermine your marketing efforts. Here are a few tips on how to avoid making a mistake when designing a business card.
Choose the Right Graphics
Most business cards include a business logo, your picture or a stylized representation of the product or service you offer. The best images for a business card are not photo quality. Instead, they’re more abstract but immediately understood. The simpler images are easier to print and more forgiving if the printer is slightly off. For example, the wedding photographer can use a representation of a wedding dress or wedding rings instead of someone’s actual wedding photo. If the color or location is a little off, the card still looks good. And if the card is bent or damaged, it doesn’t alter the quality of the image very much. On the other hand, smudges from handling a photo quality business card can literally rub off on their subconscious, hurting your perceived quality through no fault of your own.
Use a Template
Anyone can design a business card in a word processor or digital editing software. However, these tools don’t always accurately translate your design to print. Images are not likely to come out with exactly the right colors, and text may not be lined up where you expect it. Yet text overlapping the graphics or flowing over the edge of the card will render it unreadable. The solution is to use a template when you design a business card.
The template will eliminate a lot of the guess work. For example, it will include all of the basic fields that should be filled in on a business card. It will come with the size restrictions that you yourself may not be aware of. It will show you when the URL you’re including will run off the page or interfere with another element on the business card.
Forgetting the Customer’s Perspective
One variation of this mistake is leaving out a value proposition. They may be holding onto your business card, but you need to make it clear why they want to call your phone number. What service do you provide? What problems can you solve for them? If possible, make it evident why they’d want to call you over the competition, whether it is because you’re locally owned, affordable or specialize in the service they want.
Another variation of this theme is failing to consider the customer’s perspective when evaluating the business card. If your business card completely lacks branding, you look like an entrepreneur just starting out, not part of a larger business. If the card has small or unreadable print, customers won’t contact you because they would typically prefer to throw out the card than pick up a magnifying glass to read it.