Advertising Information

What Does Your Business Card Say?


Business cards are the most underutilized and misunderstood marketing tool in business. Many people spend the bucks for cards and don't make an effort to get them into the hands of those who can hire them or buy from them.

Everyday people throw away stacks of undelivered business cards. Money down the dumper.

Your goal is to design and use a memorable card and get so many delivered you have to re-order. Forget about those clever articles about what to do with stacks of leftover cards.

The only time you should have cards still in the box is when something on the card becomes outdated or obsolete.

If you designed your cards as a marketing tool and planned your distribution, tossing unused cards in the trash should become the exception rather than the rule. If one item on your card changes the cards are obsolete and should be pitched.

Car dealers are famous for finding ways to save money on business card expense. With the revolving door turnover of salespeople, many dealers stopped ordering individual cards for new hires. They print a master card with color dealer logo and phone numbers and leave a big space in the middle for the new salesperson's name to be penciled in. That way, when the would-be fast talking, glad handing flannel mouth doesn't work out, no new cards need be printed.

A swell image: handwritten business cards.

It would be interesting to run the numbers on how much money was saved at the printers versus how much business went somewhere where the salespeople appeared more professional. With car dealer margins, one sale would buy a lot of business cards.

Worse is using a business card with a black or blue marker blotting out a line of type and a new name,address or phone number written (or typed) above the black line. Ugh!

Some people painstakingly cut itty bitty strips of computer labels printed with the new information and stick them over the old just to save a few bucks. Calculate what your time is worth and the savings turn into an expense, not to mention what the "corrected" card does to future business.

Dig out that stack of business cards you have been collecting for years and flip through them, you will see at least one with a correction.

If you are in any business and venture outside your cubby-hole for any reason, you should carry business cards at all times. You should be able to "whip one out" without diggout out your wallet and digging thru pics of the kids, or plunging to the bottom of your purse past the hair spray.

You card says a lot about you. And you say even more about you when you offer your card.

Say it in business-like, professional style.

For more about buiness cards, get my article "What Does the BACK of Your Business Card Say?"

©2005 BIG Mike McDaniel All Rights Reserved Mike@BIGIdeasGroup.com BIG Mike is a Professional Speaker and Small Business Consultant with over 30 years experience, http://BIGIdeasGroup.com

eMail: BizCardBack@BigIdeasGroup.com

Subscribe to "BIG Mike's BIG Ideas" Newsletter subscribe-956603364@ezinedirector.net


MORE RESOURCES:

Los Angeles Times

Private Matters: Senate Hearing To Debate Web-Based Targeted Ads
CRN, NY - 9 hours ago
At the heart of the hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee titled Privacy Implications of Online Advertising are proposed tools used by ISPs to track ...
Broadband Indiscretions Forbes
NebuAd to come under spotlight at Senate hearing The Associated Press
Putting Web monitoring service NebuAd under the legal microscope Los Angeles Times
New York Times - ITworld.com
all 116 news articles


Slowing Economy Hits Online Advertising
Adweek, NY - 14 hours ago
Respondents indicated an expectation Internet advertising would grow slightly more than 16 percent in the next year. In its previous surveys, William Blair ...
William Blair & Company and CIMA Release Fifth Installment of ... Business Wire (press release)
all 13 news articles


Magna Cuts Ad Growth Forecast to 2%
Wall Street Journal - 3 hours ago
Mr. Coen's forecast came a day after media analyst Lee Westerfield cut his ad-spending forecast by a similar degree, saying US advertising was experiencing ...
Economic gloom leads to cuts in ad forecast Reuters
New-Media Ad Outlook Remains Buoyant Broadcasting & Cable
Ad Spending Forecast Lowered Again New York Times
Adweek - AdAge.com (subscription)
all 20 news articles


Fusion Advertising Wins Rudolph Foods Account
FOXBusiness - 15 hours ago
DALLAS, July 7, 2008 /PRNewswire via COMTEX/ ----Global snack giant Rudolph Foods today announced its selection of Fusion Advertising as agency of record ...


OnMobile Launches Ad RingBack Tones, Revolutionary Platform for ...
FOXBusiness - 15 hours ago
Arvind Rao, CEO and Co-founder of OnMobile said, "AdRBT is a disruptive evolution in mobile advertising and marketing which so far has been limited to SMS ...


Advertising isn't in keeping with medium's benefits
Economic Times, India - 7 hours ago
One of the striking phenomena of the advertising business during the past decade has been the emergence of the internet as an advertising medium. ...


'2010 will be the tipping point for digital advertising'
Sify, India - 4 hours ago
Excerpts: What prompted you to get into the online advertising space with Media2Win? I don't believe that traditional agencies in India have a clue about ...


Screen Rant

Digital Media Threatens Conventional Media Advertising
Screen Rant, UT - 2 hours ago
DiClemente added that DVR’s are also hurting the advertising revenue that the TV industry has become accustomed to. Of course, earlier I touched on the ...


News-Leader names new advertising director
News-Leader.com, MO - 12 hours ago
By Kathleen O'Dell • News-Leader • July 8, 2008 Marty Goodnight, a 32-year-old Kansas City Star advertising executive, has been named advertising director ...


How is advertising influenced by ethics?
CNN - 23 hours ago
By Pamela Divinsky, Vice President, Ethos, JWT (CNN) -- How do you balance ethical issues when designing seductive advertising campaigns for potentially ...

Advertising - Google News

home | site map
© 2006