7 Affordable Ways To Create Memorable Business Cards

[JakeThomas]

They say your business card is one of the tools that prospective clients will use when making a judgement on your business. Here are 7 simple, affordable and effective ways of helping your business card stand out!

1) Recycled

With the exponential rise of the green movement, a surprisingly affordable method of reducing your carbon footprint and trumpeting your environmental awareness is to have your business cards printed on recycled stock.

2) Die Cut

What better way to stand out from the crowd than have your business card cut to a customised shape? Whether it be a circle, triangle or even the shape of your logo, die cut business cards are an imaginative way of sticking in your customers mind.

3) Rounded Corners

Having one, two or all of the corners of your business card rounded can add a unique look and feel to your cards.

4) Magnets

What better way to entice your customers to hold on to your business card, than by giving it a purpose! With recent advances in technology, the cost of having a magnet on the back of your business card has dropped quite substantially.

5) Custom Size

Creating your business card with a custom size is an age old technique to stand out. It’s recommended to go smaller rather than larger however, this way ensuring your card can still fit in your prospects wallet.

6) Spot UV

Spot UV is a simple, yet effective way of highlighting a certain section of your card, by printing a glossy overprint.

7) Metalix

A simple, yet effective way of printing a silver metallic Pantone under the standard CMYK print. This way, giving your card a “metallic” shine.

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More articles relating to the printing industry can be found on my blog at www.emroy.com.au/blog

[Paul Baker]

I agree with Jake that you need to make your business card memorable, and he has listed some good ideas.

You do need to think about the purpose of your business card is to have them keep it and contact you at a later stage.

Make sure your business card also;

• Is easy to put in the wallet for later retrieval. Magnet cards can destroy bank cards if placed next to them.
• Matches the brand image your business has. Cheap paper infers that your business is cheap as well.
• Has a reason for them to keep your card
• is current and has no pen alterations. Eg crossed out phone numbers.

[MoverandShaker]

Those are some excellent tactics. I would have never really thought about using magnets or other promotional items for promoting my business. I've always just used business cards. They're helpful, yes, but you obviously want something that is really going to draw their attention!

[Hampers]

Our experience is that magnetic business cards are very effective in being placed on the office fridge so the business name is top of mind for the people behind the scenes.
It is remarkable but if you specifically ask for the magnet to be put on the fridge your clients will oblige.

Then when you ask "and How did you find out about our business"

"Saw it on the fridge at work.." Is no surprise at all.

[jeremy]

yep, magnets are great. we stick them on all the computers we have repaired or built and i stick them in invoice envelopes. people do keep them in prominent places too sometimes

[MindArc IT Consulting]

Another good thing to remember when designing business cards is to put your social networking sites on them - this can grow your network and build word of mouth (i.e. facebook, twitter)

[HWT]

We stick magnets on the computers we repair too

Imagine what would happen if they suddenly started making comptuer cases out of aluminium!

[eversuccesseful]

One thing that I have learnt is not to put any printing on the back as people tened to write on the card and pass it on
Plus dont over load it with to much info
People are lazy they dont like to read much
cheers Peter

[Jay Elliott]

Another technique i have seen used well is to make the card fold over so you end up having twice the space. In the example we used it had a cut out from front to back so it became interactive.

Anything you can do that causes the person to do something or take a closer look will help to make it more memorable.

I think what you do will also depend on your market and who you want to take the most notice of what you doing. eg if you are in any environmental business the recycled card would work well as you can then have a conversation as to why you went recycled.