The Business Card as Brochure
Mary Schmidt put forward the question the other day “Do You Need a Brochure?” It certainly got me thinking.
At Vario, we personally use business cards which are glossy on both sides and on the back carry a list of our basic services. Jill Cole designed them, and I’ll admit that I originally thought they were problematic, as I couldn’t write notes on them. Recently I’ve had a lot of customers comment that they wanted to do cards just like ours though. Particularly, Roger Wykes noted that his current cards don’t do his business justice.
His problem is that R&R Rubbish and Remodelling doesn’t describe all the types of work he does. It certainly doesn’t mention that he has a seamless gutter machine, or that they do property maintenance for both commercial and residential properties, or that they’ve also got a crew on landscaping and mowing. In fact, he’s only recently added the “Remodelling” to the name, hence it doesn’t (yet) appear on his site.
Alton Brown of Food Network often says that the only single task tool he’ll have in his kitchen is the fire extinquisher (but hey, don’t they make good doorstops as well?). I propose that in marketing we should aim towards multi-tasking. Business cards should contain elements of brochures, and everything ought to serve more than one purpose.
How about it? Can you get more out of your business cards? Take one out, and have a good look. Is it an adequate representation of your business, perhaps the perverbial foot in the door that we so desperately seek?
Reading:
DotZen – The Business Card as Brochure (via Google Book Search…)
Marketing With Microsoft Partners – Does Your Business Card Make an Impact?
The Tall Poppy – Do You Have a Boring Business Card?
Creativebits – Cool Business Card Designs
Legal Andrew – Distinguish Your Business Card – Ideas for Businesses and Law Firms
6 thoughts on “The Business Card as Brochure”
I also have received many compliments regarding our business card design because it does have a list of all of our services on the back. What also makes it stand out from others is the orientation of the card is different than the standard design. It gets attention, which is very important in making us stand out from the competition. And, no, we don’t have a brochure… our business card says it all for us!
This is a great article. Thanks a bunch for the link!
Andrew
I have had many compliments on my cards through the years. I will admit it can take time (and an eye for design) but with a little effort in a minimal amount of space (the size of a business card) you should be able to get your primary impact points down.
I have also found that a great tool the last few years in getting your own personalized designs done is using one of the countless hundreds of online design companies. They are numerous… just search. I think I have experienced them all… the good, the bad, the horrible, and the exceptional. The tools these companies use are getting more sophisticated, cool stuff and I am no designer – I just know what works for me.
If you haven’t tried doing this yet I recommend trying a company I just used – http://www.1to1postcards.com – just using them as an example of how you can build your design online. You don’t have to commit to buy anything there; you don’t even have to sign up to try their tools… that are cool. They do good work, top quality – but then again so do several others. I just re-ordered the other day and they sent me a coupon code for 500 cards for $11.11 – bcsaver01.
Anyone doing cartoons on the back of their cards? I hear from others that works well as a grabber? I have thought about it and did some black and white pencil sketches – thought about scanning them and trying to upload using 1to1postcards tools, but not sure if I want to waste the space.
Wow, thanks for the link. In case you can’t tell, I wanted a change from my boring business cards and went looking for ideas. There are lots of inspiring cards out there so just go and look.