Business Card Advisor

Welcome back friend

Today we have a guest writer revealing five simple business card design tips:

Investing in business cards is a necessary action for any small business. You should always have plenty of business cards on hand to hand out to anyone you meet who could be a prospective customer or associate. Still, the way that your business card is designed is just as important as how many you print. Here are some tips for making powerful business cards.

Make Your Company Stand Out

By this, I mean make your company name easily visible on the front of the card. Usually, people make their personal name and contact info the most prominent items, but that is not always a good idea. Try making your company name stand out more, and see what happens. Or, you can include a slogan or something that pulls the customer in, rather than using any name at all.

Use the Space Wisely

Although you certainly need to include contact information on your business cards, be careful not to overdo it. Usually, your number and email address will suffice. Including all of your numbers and your home address and your fax number will take up a lot of valuable space that could be better used in other ways. Keep your contact info to the bare minimum, and use the rest of the card for more important things. The extra space can be filled with information about your company that makes it stand out from its competitors.

Throw in Some Color

When you turn in your business card printing project to get produced, ask for your printer’s full color rates. Adding color to your business cards is a tremendous way to add some power to them. And, you may be pleasantly surprised at how affordable it can be to print full color business cards.

Double Your Return

Most business cards have nothing on the back of them. There is no reason why you shouldn’t use the back of your business cards to include more advertising information. Or, if you absolutely must include more contact info, use the back of the card. You can even add a special offer to this often forgotten space, or some background information about your company. The possibilities are endless!

Take the Time to do it Right

Do not rush when you are designing your business cards. In many cases, your business card will be the only way that a prospective customer will know about your company. Take the time to design your card effectively and strategically. These little cards can do wonders for your bottom line if they are designed properly and used correctly. Think of it this way: every minute spent designing your business cards could be an extra dollar in your bank account.

For comments and inquiries about the article visit: Business Card Printing

Charen Smith writes articles about Internet Marketing. She has an extensive knowledge and experience when it comes to business strategies, techniques and business solutions.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Charen_Smith

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Welcome back friend

You’ll recall Last time we looked at a good effective business card design. And I left you hanging with a question about how to improve that card. Today we’ll discuss some ideas on how to do this…

When thinking about business card design always go back to your business card design checklist article. So we didn’t see the back of this radio presenter card, but assuming there is nothing there now here are a few ideas of what we can add to this card to make it more effective:

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Hey friend

Just want to pass along this quick tip today. I’ve seen a number of people raving about a slew of new business card designs that are making the rounds on the net over the last week or so.

To be honest some of them are good and even very good and I’ll be showcasing some of those over the next few posts, but today I want to make sure you don’t fall into a growing-trend trap: being too creative with your business card design.

Here is what I mean…

Yes! You want to find a way to be remarkable and stand out in a crowd of business cards, but you still have to remember what and…

Who is your business card for?

We touched on this in my article on effective business card design using Rudyard Kipling’s famous Five W’s, and today we’ll expand on who your business card is for.

Take a look at this business card design and tell me who the card is for…
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Hello friend,

As with anything that could have more than three (3) steps, it definately helps if you have a checklist to use as a guide so you don’t forget something important in the process. And when designing business cards it really makes sense as you typically have a number of options and therefor directions your business card design could go.

In this article you’ll learn how to use Rudyard Kipling’s famous Five W’s (and One H) as the basis for a checklist to help you create a great business card for your business.

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
- Rudyard Kipling

Taking these six simple questions into consideration when designing your next business card will put you head-and-shoulders above 90% of your competition, so take your time and flesh out the answers, okay!

Here then are the six “serving men” adapted to business card design, of course:

- What do I want my business card to do?

- Why will someone choose my business over a competitor?

- When will people use my card?

- How will people benefit from my product or service?

- Where will people go to get my product or service?

- Who is my business card for?

Like I said earlier; six simple questions! But the answers can lead down a wonderful path of discovery to an incredibly effective business card.

Now let’s expand on these and come up with an effective business card…
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Hi and welcome back,

I’m sure I’m going against-the-grain here considering marketing strategist Guy Kawasaki just came out with a new card that goes against almost everything I’ve been teaching for the last three (3) years. And some other business and marketing folks online seem to be jumping on the band-wagon as well.

His new Ego card (it’s not a business card IMHO) certainly stands out!

The front is black with just his name in big bold white letters (like I said: an Ego card). While this will certainly get some attention (and it seems most of the people who comment on his site like it) it really doesn’t do anything as far as letting people know what he can offer them.

Let’s move on to the back of the card…

Still black with white lettering (so it is consistent). Here he has four things:

- Three website URL’s
- an email address.
- a cellphone number.

So the card does have some contact information.

Don’t get me wrong here, this is an attention getting card! I’m sure the card is effective at starting conversations during the initial contact just because it is so out of the ordinary, but (IMHO) this could be so much more powerful with just a couple of simple tweaks…

He wouldn’t even have to change the attention getting front of the card, but just by adding these two things to the back it would have much more value to the people who receive it: (more…)

Business cards! You’ve heard of them… You’ve seen them… You should have them… But are yours as effective as they can be? Are they effective at all? Maybe you’re making this huge business card design mistake that I would estimate probably 90% of all business people make…

What is it?

It can mean the difference between business cards that you pay for and business cards that finance your future. In this article you’ll learn the a huge mistake most business people make when designing their business cards.

And you can help me how?

Have you ever received a business card (or even worse, handed one out) where you saw a nice picture and some fancy lettering, but for the life of you couldn’t figure out what the heck the person does? I’m sure you have because this is a really big problem with almost anyone’s business cards from large corporations to smaller businesses and individual entrepreneurs and practically everyone in-between .

Here’s the thing…

When you hand a prospect your business card and they can’t immediately figure out what it is you do or what service you provide (like how you can help them), then you’re done!

Gong!

Thanks for playing!

It’s a huge mistake that I see all the time with business cards. People spend hours nit-picking about a fancy layout, funky colours, lettering and pictures, etc… When they really should be focusing on educating their prospects on how they can help them.

This really hits home when you see it in action in the business card scene from the slasher flick American Psycho, which I have posted on this site. Check it out and see if you can tell just what any of those business people do.

Welcome back.

After watching that did you have any idea what any of those guys do? Not likely because each card was exactly the same except for the previously mentioned eye-candy design. And they just have a name and title (Vice-President). So what exactly could any of them do for you?

You get it right?!

Okay Mark, what should I put on my business cards then, you ask?

Glad you asked, here’s the answer and some examples… (more…)

Hey friend
I was at the mall today and the place was full of new and used vehicle’s on display. A few of these new ones had business cards stuck in the window. So I grabbed one and looked at it…

Unfortunatly I wasn’t suprised to find that it was a very ineffective business card.

Sure it had some of the standard stuff like name, company name, address, cell phone
and email address (just a quick note about this, this person’s card has an email
address not related to their company, not a good sign! Doing this removes professional
credability).

Then there was also, just over halfway down, an effectively useless (IMHO) statement:

“Committed to Customer Satisfaction… Since 19??”

What exactly does this mean to me as a prospect? It’s just standard boiler-plate that
doesn’t really add anything. Because I’d venture to say that every business is
committed to customer satisfaction, if they weren’t they wouldn’t be in business too
long now would they? So it really did nothing for me as a prospect. Anyway back to the business ard…

So how could this person have made their business card more effective?

Glad you asked!

First and probably most important in this case is to… (more…)

Your business card is a little 2.5×3 piece of paper that could be worth a fortune to you friend, with the right design for your business that is. There really are some highly effective design strategies that most business people simply don’t know about, which can truly help make their business card the most effective it can be. In this article you’ll learn one very effective business card design secret which will help you attract more clients into your business.

When you learn and apply this simple secret in the design of your new business cards you’ll have a more effective business card than 99% of your competition, because….

It’s almost scary how many business people mess up one of the most important business card design considerations:

Making Them … (more…)