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Business Card Ideas: Anatomy of an Effective Business Card

The elements of a business card consist of 1) the style - horizontal or vertical, 2) color - black-and-white cards or color business cards, 3) printing materials - printed on papers, plastic cards or magnetic cards. The most important part of business cards, however, are the information elements of a business card. After all, business cards convey the message you want to pass to your prospects, customers or clients. Effective business cards make a huge difference in your daily interaction with prospects, customers or clients. Many business deals actually begin with the exchange of business cards. Effective business cards send a clear message to your customers about who you are and what your business does. But not all business cards are created equal. When you greet your customers with business cards, you want to impress them with messages that highlight the uniqueness and value of your products or services. If they don’t use your services or buy your products today, you want to encourage them to come back in the future.

Information about the Person There’re two types of business cards in terms of the purpose - the business cards that present a business and the cards that present an individual. The first type of business cards will just list company name, service, contact phone number and fax number. They‘re often placed at the service desk for customers to pick up. The second type of business cards is the one we really refer to as business cards. They present both an individual and a business. The cards will list the person‘s name, job title, and a brief description of the job title if official job title isn't intuitive to laymen. Even if the job title is trivial, a tag line will emphasize your expertise and services and distinguish you and your business from others. A web designer may use a tag line - "build your virtual office". An Internet marketing expert may say "Convert your visitors to sales".

Information about the Business Business information is the focal point for both types of business cards. The information about the business includes business name, brief description of the business, business contact phone number, fax number, physical address and website URL. More and more businesses have official websites for their businesses, but not every business prints the URL on the business cards. Some marketing experts actually believe that the purpose of the business cards is to remind customers to either call you or to visit your website for more information as needed. Website is where they find detailed information about your business.

Once we've identified the elements of an effective business card. The design of your business card is only limited by your imagination. You can do business card printing yourself using many different business card templates online or from business card printing software library for common business cards. You’ll need professional printing companies if you plan to have a magnetic card or plastic cards.