Why use business cards in this electronic age when it appears that everyone, from toddlers through to grannies, has an electronic device in their hands or pressed to their ears. Here are seven reasons why you ought to still bother to get business cards printed for your small business and hand them out.
1) Digital devices, including smart phones, are everywhere, but it does not necessarily make it any easier or quicker to give someone your company contact information. You could email the data to them but that requires obtaining an individual’s email address and entering the data.
How is that quicker than simply handing someone a business card?
It is true that some electronic devices, such as Android mobiles or iPhones, allow information to be beamed from one telephone to another, but only from one compatible phone to another. The odds of all your prospective customers having the exact same type of phone are very distant making business cards once more the better choice.
2) Some people don’t own digital devices, which means handing out a business card is so much better! How can they manage to fight through every day? But I personally can vouch for the fact that there are still lots of people who still do not have a smartphone (or if they do don’t always carry it around with them). I even know of a few who have computers in their homes but do not use them on a regular basis. If you would like to sell items to a few of these folks, business cards might help.
3) Business cards don’t have any downtime, and are never inaccessible due to dead spots or Internet outages. You may use them in a remote fishing camp or in an industry conference in the mid-city resort, or even in scenarios where mobile phones and other electronic devices may have to be turned off, like on airplanes or in hospitals.
4) Business cards offer legitimacy to your small company. People want to take care of businesses that they believe are trustworthy. When confronted with companies that don’t have well-known names or long-established reputation, which they haven’t addressed before, they judge a company on its look (and what other folks say about it). Having acceptable looking business cards is one way that you cue people that you’re running a real company and will do right by them.
5) Business cards offer promotional opportunities, for example business stationary. Clearly, you market your small business when you hand out a business card; you are trusting that the person you’re giving it to will use the information on the card to get in touch with you. But why stop there?
Turning your business card into a brochure enables you to inform the potential client or client why she ought to call you, also, all on a single card. Or take it a step further and turn your business card into a promotional item or by using a special business card design that will act as a visible daily reminder of your company.
6) Business cards are needed to make deals in certain situations and/or cultures.
The ritual exchange of business cards is essential to establishing business relationships in several countries. In Hong Kong, for example, if you’re given a business card and do not provide one in return, you can essentially close up company then and there. In Japan, too, the quality and state of your business card speaks much about how you would like to conduct yourself and company.
7) A whole lot of business networking occurs virtually nowadays. However, while virtual or online media has expanded business people’s networking circles, it has not superseded the face-to-face media that has long been the reliable way of creating business relationships, discovering business opportunities, and increasing earnings; and business cards play an important role in these functions.
