Brand Building 101: Does Your Business Card Build Your Brand?

When we are at a networking event or meeting a client, it's almost guaranteed that we will exchange business cards. Very often, without realising it, we are assessing our colleague by their business card, and asking ourselves:

• Is the business card professionally designed
• Is the business card crumpled at the edges?
• How does the weight of the business card feel - substantive or flimsy?
• Does it look like the business card has been made on their PC - or worse still does it have a message at the bottom of the card to say where you too can access free cards?

1. once on receiving it
2. a second time when we put it in our pocket, folio or bag as we leave the meeting
3. and a third time as we make a decision to keep it, transfer the information into our data bank or bin it!

1. Ensure that you work with a professional designer to develop your business card. It's not whether you like the design, it's about whether it will represent your business effectively and professionally to your target audience
2. Ideally have your business card printed on 400g card and by a traditional lithographic printer. Yes it is more expensive than digital printing, but the quality is worth investing in and a litho print gives far greater definition to your corporate identity and the colour of your brand
3. Matt laminate your card on the reverse for extra stability and style. Don't laminate both sides as people will not be able to write on your card - we often note down things to remember about the person we met on their card
4. Use the valuable real estate on the back of your card to provide a call to action, for example, how to access your white paper or special report on your web site.

• What can you learn from other peoples business cards?
• How could you take those learnings and further enhance your business card?

Article Source: http://www.content.onlypunjab.com

Krishna De invites you to join her in conversation with experts from around the globe to discover how to build your brand and grow your professional services firm at www.bizgrowthlive.com/ You will also receive access to Biz Growth Express a weekly newsletter bringing you strategies, inspiration and tips to grow your professional services practice. Register today at: www.krishnade.com/ ©Krishna De, Oneocean Ltd 2006. All rights reserved Worldwide. Reprint Rights: You may reprint this article providing the article is printed in it’s entirety, you leave all of the links active, do not edit the article in anyway and include the copyright statement.

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