Out of the Box

The Business Card as a Marketing Tool

By Menachem Lubinsky on November 16 2007

Each day millions of people around the world exchange business cards. In some societies people offer their business cards as part of a socially acceptable greeting. In most cases, however, the business card is tantamount to making a statement: “I’d like to do business with you.”

One might have expected that with all of the high tech organizers that people carry with them nowadays (i.e. Palm Pilot) that business cards would have become passe by now, but the reality is that business cards remain a popular way of doing business. Believe it or not, even a business card needs to be thought out and should not be done in haste.

You might say that everything goes today in business cards. There are the very simple cards that are often used by professionals like lawyers. While it is nothing fancy, it is designed to project authority and professionalism. There are cards on colorful stock with raised type that are also supposed to convey stability and strength. Some cards have a multitude of colors while others even have photos of the person.

The business card is often underrated in its ranking of marketing vehicles and tools. It frequently remains the only remnants of an attempt to conduct business and therefore should be as succinct and clear as possible. I prefer cards that define what the business do. If your company is ABC Roofing and you also do siding, you should make sure that it is indicated somewhere lest you will be perceived as doing only roofing.

Some business cards are so full of contact information (i.e. 5 telephone numbers) that there is no room on the card to quickly describe what the company specializes in. Other cards use the wrong fonts for different parts of the card. If the address, for example, is not really important then it should not take up a good portion of the card. The name and title should not be smaller than the address. The company name should certainly not be buried.

I recently came across a business card that was actually a small brochure. It was folded over and used 3 of the 4 sides. There was in addition to the contact information, a list of services, a slogan and even a humorous quote from a poet. Unless you read business cards for a living that approach is certainly not the best way to market a business.

The business card is one of the key elements of a corporate image. It very often includes the company logo, which means that the card’s graphics must follow the corporate identity theme and colors. Some people pay very little attention to the production of the card, using quick turn-around services to produce cards that do not at all fit in with the company’s hard won corporate image. They may use different colors, typeface and even a different logo.

Some of the best business cards consist of the basic contact information, the corporate logo and slogan and perhaps a few bulleted phrases of the services offered by the company. The best cards that I see are those that I can look at weeks later and fully recall the connection and the context of the meeting. The worst cards are those that turn out to be a puzzle, like the card I looked at the other day that had three logos, two names, and 3 addresses, all on the face of one card.

Does color make a difference? Not for everyone. Color is a powerful way to make an impression, but if overdone it can actually give the reader the impression of being “cheap” and even “cheesy.” A card can actually be elegant by using a color for the type and even having the type raised. Sometimes a colored stock can help give the card some pizzazz.

In my role as a business consultant I am often asked whether to be “pushy,” which in this case would mean pushing a business card into the hands of everyone you meet. I have seen people hand out business cards to almost everyone they meet. In most cases, the card is often handed out after an inquiry, “do you have a business card?” I suggest to clients to go by their gut that there may be potential for additional contact or more business.

The business card can be a marketing activity that almost everyone can participate in, irrespective of budget. You can even put it in an envelope and mail to a target list of potential business prospects with an attached note that could include the following sentence: “I am attaching my business card in the hope that we can serve you with our special program of....”

As someone who attends many trade shows, I am the recipient of many business cards. I have gotten into the habit of making notes on the back of the cards about the person and business on the card, except if there is no room to write anything.

Out of the Box is a collection of strategic marketing articles that Lubicom has published on various topics, trends and ideas in the marketing world. The articles have been published in the Hamodia weekly newspaper circulated on three continents to a readership of well over 100,000.

The name, "Out of the Box" is a term used frequently in business nowadays to describe creative thinking that is not the norm. It is meant to help a business pull away from the pack or separate oneself from the competition. It is to some extent fraught with risk, simply because it is not the run of the mill thinking, but it is at the same time the key to reaching the next opportunity.