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Business Card Idea: Leaving A Business Card With More Impact

Using business cards for contact information is a proven and long standing business practice. The trouble with business cards is that everyone uses them, and they are easily lost, tossed, or set aside by customers. In recent times, companies have begun to invent electronic business cards that can be used on a CD drive, which is creative, but requires the need for a customer to want the information on their computer.

If there was a way to get the advantages of business cards, keep the information in front of customers, and provide more information than a business card can hold, your company would achieve a better chance to serve customers with your products and services, rather than the competition. An important part of accomplishing this goal is to provide customers with something valuable enough for them to use regularly, that goes beyond your basic company information. One way to do this is to provide your customers with a functional, simple, and useful software utility that they will use regularly for the value of the software content, and also remind them about your business services whenever they need what you have to offer.

All these marketing advantages are possible by selecting the right promotional software package to suit the needs of your core business customers. This type of utility is a relatively new concept which can come in various forms. One of the more effective formats I have used for my own business, leverages the use of electronic “sticky notes,” along with a note based, electronic reminder system. In almost every organization I have visited, there is always a group of people who use their computer terminal as a billboard for posting the little yellow sticky notes containing messages they have jotted down to remind them to do something later. Using this observation, I decided it would be interesting to see if people would use a piece of software that lets them put their quick notes in their computer, rather than on it.

To make the program more interesting, I also provided the ability to change the font and color of these notes, so a user could use color coding to prioritize their personal memos. The advantage here is having the same quick reminder system, in a more legible format that does not wind up getting lost when the cleaning crew comes by and bumps the terminal. When I packaged the utility in a simple interface that people could use without a lot of complicated instructions, I knew this would be something a lot of people would find very handy, and save a lot of money in buying those paper products that are a staple of every office. Almost as an after thought, we threw in some information about how to get support for the product, our business information, logos, websites, and some marketing information to turn the utility into an effective marketing “business card.” Personally, I have never been one to use sticky notes to any great degree, but have since found myself addicted to using this software on my own computer. If I can just figure out a way to create electronic paper clips, we might be able to make our office supply store a little less happy with our orders.