I’m sure there have been times when you have given (or been given) a business card and had to scratch out the old phone number, scribble a new email address, or add your website address because you forgot to include it. I know – I’ve been there and it’s frustrating and a tad embarrassing to have to take a minute to update your information on your card.
Sometimes, we simply overlook something or forget to add something that we wanted. In these instances you then have to go reprint your business cards with the updated information, spend more of your money to have them printed, and sometimes (aaarrgghh) something changes on the brand new cards you just printed… and you’re off to the printer again. It can be a vicious process, but if you plan ahead – you can sidestep some of the major problems that arise.
To help any of you getting ready to print your first (or next) set of business cards, I’ve put together a quick checklist so you can be sure to include all of the ways someone can contact you if they need to and the information you might want on your business cards. I want to note that you should only include information or contact methods that you actually use and try to keep it simple as the goal of a business card is to give people a way to easily contact you.
The Essential Elements of a Business Card
Below are a list of the things that you may want to include on your business cards:
- Your logo
- Your name
- Your company
- Your title
- Tagline or slogan
- Physical address
- Website address
- Email address
- Phone number (local)
- Phone number (toll-free)
- Fax number
- Social Networks (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.)
- Brief description of what you offer, sell, or do
As you can see, there’s not a whole lot of information that you should (or can) include on your business card. It’s not meant to be a report or brochure and you shouldn’t include everything listed above. Your goal is to give a brief overview of your company and provide someone with the necessary information you would need if they needed to contact you.
Don’t overdo it and stuff every possible bit of information on your card – keep it clean, simple, and professional.
As a blogger, I wouldn’t bother with the phone number and physical address. Replace that with Twitter, Facebook and Skype.
Ahh, that’s a good one forgot to add Skype – even in my attempt to list all of the information you might want to put on your business card, I still missed a few things. Just goes to prove my point how easy it is to overlook things