Business cards can be a very powerful traditional marketing tool - provided you think outside the box when designing the message on your business card.
A typical business card is boring. It has a graphic - usually the company logo - and the name, title and contact details for the person listed on the card on one side. And the other side is blank. A small number of cards might have a company slogan on the front of the card also.
Boring…
Imagine going to a real estate convention for a weekend and coming home with a bunch of cards all designed like this. You sort through them Monday night and find that you have eight appraisers, 12 lenders, 3 home inspectors and several other cards offering various other services that a real estate investor utilizes.
But they are just impersonal cards. Unless you happen to remember one person specifically or make a note on the back of the card, they all just jumble together in your mind and rolodex.
And everyone who you gave a card to has the same problem.
It is just one card amongst many that were collected during the convention.
Now, a convention is just one example of where you use business cards. They are obviously used in many more situations. And there is nothing wrong with a traditionally designed business card except it conveys no useful information other than your company name and your contact details.
Now admittedly that information can be quite important. Let’s face it. A business card without any contact information on it is pretty useless.
But a business card can be so much more. It can be a mini sales letter.
Just like business trainers teach about the elevator speech - a quick and to the point memorized speech you give people who ask what you or your company does - you need to treat your business card the same way.
As a minimum, you want to have a concise statement of what you are all about on the front of your business card. Just a little slogan that distills the core of your business. At the risk of being cliche, “we buy houses - any location - any condition - for cash” or a variation of that is a powerful slogan for the front of your business card provided that it is the correct distillation of what you do as a real estate investor.
Better still is to make use of that wasteland that is the back of your business card. It will cost a bit more to do two sided printing of your business cards but think of all that you can do with it.
- You can elaborate on what your business is about with some powerful, focused bullet points.
- You can give a testimonial from a satisfied client.
- You can advertise a free report they can get by going to your website (where you can capture their name, email and any other details you are interested in as the “price” for getting the report.)
- You can use a graphic that clearly depicts the core of your business (on the idea that a picture represents 1000 words.)
- You can put a coupon on the back offering a free service that you could offer to get your foot in the door.
There are of course many other ideas.
Just because the back of a business card is small and can’t fit too much information doesn’t make it useless.
That little space is really quite valuable and not using it is costing you business.
Do you doubt that small spaces are valuable? Just take a look at google. They built their entire business model on little three line ads. And they are worth billions.
So next time you get business cards made (like maybe right away) think long and hard how you can convert your blah business card to a powerful mini sales letter and grow your real estate business today.
2 Comments
Thanks for the great information. I have my specialty areas bulet pointed on the back of my card. I did this after I noticed that when I would give my card to a person they would immediately turn it over and look on the other side. So your suggestions are appropro.
In the past it seemed you have to have an embossed business card to be taken seriously. I think that today an attractively designed card incorporating your suggestions does not have to be embossed, but will give you the same credibility.
Thanks
Quality is always viewed favorable - and embossed definitely projects quality.
There is nothing worse than getting a business card from someone who printed it on the computer and it still has the marks on the side from the microperf paper they used.
Business cards - even the highest quality cards - are reasonably priced and they make a very strong statement about you and your business.
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