Give Them Something To Remember You By

Business cards serve a very specific and obvious purpose. You’re going to get business card printing so that you can give people something so that they’ll be able to contact you later on.

Here is the question that I have: does your custom business card only give people information to contact you, or does it help people remember who you are?

Anyone who has been dealing with the world of business for any length of time is likely to have built up a rather impressive collection of business cards from other companies. I have my folders filled with business cards, my computer database loaded with names and phone numbers, along with an overflowing Rolodex.

Every so often I have to go through all of my business cards and throw away the ones I just don’t have room for. Guess which ones get dumped first? All of those cards that are so basic I’m not entirely sure who gave them to me anymore.

Yes, they have a person’s name on them along with a company name and logo. Sure, I can read that, but there are a lot of people and a lot of companies out there. Sometimes the logo is enough to jog my memory, but even then, I’ve seen many logos in my lifetime, and some of them have a habit of blending together.

The issue here is how often people fail to add anything to their card that make them particularly memorable. What’s the point of contact information if I’m not sure who it is that I’m going to contact?

The companies that get remembered are the ones that give me a means of remembering. These are the cards with large pictures on them, the ones made with something other than paper, or the ones with unique quotes or other features.

These people decided to do more with their business card printing than just give people a name and phone number. These are the companies who realized that if you want someone to contact you, you need to help them remember where they got that card.

After each convention or trade show I’ve usually talked to a very large number of people, and more than I’m able to remember. Sure the conversation that got the card handed to me might’ve been interesting, but it was probably only one in a list of interesting conversations.

Really this is a matter of helping a person out. Throw me a bone and give me a better way of remembering who you are than just your name. Give me anything unique, anything to jog my memory. I’m sure many of these cards I’m throwing away belonged to perfectly fine people running great companies, I just can’t remember who they are.

All it takes is the smallest drop of creativity to transform a business card into something people can’t forget.