The way you communicate yourself, your contact information and your market are vital in your business card.
Clarity is vital to an effective business card. But clarity, although
necessary, is not sufficient to really set your card apart from the
rest. If clarity were the only consideration, then the most effective
business card imaginable would be a white rectangle that contains your
name, your business, and your contact information, and nothing else. If
you were handed a business card like this in the real world, you'd more
likely than not throw it out without even a second look. That card
contains everything a potential client would need to contact you,
yes--but why would they? What incentive have you given them?
This brings us to the point of designing an effective business card:
designing for communication. If your goal is to bring in new clients
and valuable contacts to help your business grow, then your business
card needs not only to make your contact information available, but
also to communicate to those potential clients and contacts exactly
what separates your business from your competition, and what special
skills, experience, or ideas you can bring to the table so that you can
benefit both yourself and your clients.
The best way to do this depends on just what your business is. One
general principle, though, is to work in terms of images whenever
possible, as opposed to text. A client's interest is then piqued: he or
she sees what you can do, and how well you can do it. The client then
has a much greater interest in contacting you, since he or she knows
that yours is a proven talent.
This strategy works equally well with artists of any kind: a painter
might include a picture of his or her best painting; a dancer might
include a photograph of one of his or her dance performances. Even
people whose business doesn't directly relate to the visual arts can
benefit from an image-centric strategy when designing a business card.
A musician might include a photo of a performance, or a photo of a room
filled with musical instruments: the perfect picture of someone who
knows what he or she is doing when it comes to music. A housecleaning
firm might include a photo of the business owner, or of typical
workers, which gives your potential clients some idea of what the
business is like: do the people look energetic? What sort of tools do
they use on the job? How professional do they look?
Of course, there are some professions--writers and lawyers come to
mind--who can't really communicate the nature of their business
effectively with a picture. In that case, it can be a good idea to
include some well-chosen text. For example, if your business has any
testimonials from previous clients, awards it's won for outstanding
service, or even a short description of typical business operations
(i.e. "Serving Midtown Des Moines From 1979", "Provider Of Outstanding
Legal Representation For Realtors And Other Businesspeople"). It's not
a good idea to go overboard with text--as the saying goes, a picture is
worth a thousand words, and clients are less likely to read all of the
text on your business card than they are to respond passively to a
striking image. But if you put the information there, concisely, then
it'll be read by the right people--and you'll start to see the effect
on your client pool, and on your revenue.
This article will help you be clearer in your communication on your business card so reference it multiple times when needed.
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