A few years ago, I was in Las Vegas attending a conference. I was engaged in a great conversation with someone who seemed to be saying all the right things about his products and services and then he handed me his business card. I barely took a look at it and walked away from him and his company forever. He wasn’t a professional with a successful business. He was a pitch man who said the right things early on. The perforated edge on his card told the whole story. He slammed out some cheap cards on his laser printer, giving himself a company logo and title while throwing his professionalism out the window.
Make an impression on your customers and force your competition to take notice or get out of the way.
Business cards are one of those areas in marketing where you can get creative and develop something wonderful, memorable and professional or you can pretend that it doesn’t matter and risk blowing that first impression. I’ve seen the cheapest and most boring of cards and I’ve also seen cards that must have cost several dollars for a single card. Spending big bucks on your cards isn’t the requirement, a great design and a quality, appropriate card is.
So how much should you spend on your cards? You can get 1000 cards for $50 that are absolutely wonderful, shipped to you from some far away city, with high gloss UV coatings on thick stock that feels impressive and looks great. You can spend a few hundred dollars with local printers that also do a wonderful job and offer all kinds of different paper stock and options for you to consider. You can also spend huge dollars on really fancy and unique cards that include things like custom shapes, unique materials like metal, plastic and wood, metallic inks, embossing and almost a million alternatives in between. Price really isn’t the issue. If you want inexpensive cards that look great, you can find them. If you would prefer to create something spectacular I would only suggest that you work together with some professionals that understand design and production and how the two things can be combined to deliver a very similar product with very different costs.
Have you seen the OVOU business cards – I have one!
Marketing is one of those things in business that many people either ignore or they end up wasting a whole lot of money. Cheaping out on your business cards or spending way too much on directory advertising are just two mistakes at either ends of the spectrum. Business cards are like everything else in the world of marketing. Take some time and do it right. Look for the pros and hire them to help you with the intention of giving you the best product for the least money. You can always find ways to cut costs and be proud of how much you saved. The trick is to do that while giving yourself a better product. Hurting your brand or your professionalism can certainly cost you more than a box of cards no matter what the price. Do a search for cool business card designs and see how many exciting cards have been created for some very creative businesses.
