By Roberto Blake
Despite whatever you’ve heard from your favorite marketing guru, business cards are not DEAD in 2015, they won’t be dead in 2020 or 2025 for those of you clever people trying to “future proof” your marketing strategy. The primary argument is that “business cards are just a way to convey information, you can just plug those details into a phone and reach out to someone right away”. It’s a solid argument, except it ignores some very important things… context, creativity and consistency. I refer to these three points as “the creator triangle”, you can ignore them at your peril…
Video: Why Business Cards Matter in 2015 [Rant]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UMp0rBOAYs
The context that business cards are irrelevant in the digital age is a bad joke if I’m going to be blunt. Let’s say for example you are photographer shooting a conference or convention; does it really make sense for you to stop every time you need to interact with someone or they ask if they can reach out to you for the shots, to stand there and put your details in their phone, and fumble for yours while carrying your gear? If you’re doing that aren’t you missing the time you could be spending shooting or setting up for a shot? Even if you have an assistant that can do that, they can exchange 10-20 cards in the time it takes to swamp contact info between phones.
What if you’re a graphic designer? Doesn’t it make sense to have a business card that not only has your information but shows off your creativity in utilizing a very small space? This leads into my next point, Creativity. You can use a creative and clever business card to cut through the noise and make an impression. Being memorable counts and if you’re just one of one hundred people that put their name in someones phone during a networking event, how do they distinguish you from someone else. When you call or email them how do they know who you are? Am I saying you shouldn’t put their details in your phone and follow up right away? No. I’m saying: why not do that and also make an impression and standout and go deeper on that interaction?
Then of course there is consistency, which comes to two separate points. People have grown up with the consistent expectation that any serious professional has a quality business card. It is something we have seen our entire lives and is even part of pop culture at this point. This is particularly true of anyone over 35, even those who are tech savvy still spend most of their adult career giving and receiving business cards. Technology is not changing the deference and perception of someone having a business card vs not having one. A large personality or celebrity has the luxury of ignoring this because they don’t have to establish their legitimacy, so a business card may not be relevant to them. But for other people lacking their visibility it is still an important tool. Your business card is a proxy that represents you when you can’t be there to sell yourself.
Going deeper on consistency, it gives you the opportunity to display consistency when they go from your business card to your website and or social media profiles. Seeing the consistency between your branding assets will add to your credibility considerably.
Nothing I’ve talked about up till this point is something that technology has the capacity to address over the next 10 years. Dropping business cards just means removing one more marketing tool from your arsenal in order to be trendy or jump on the bandwagon of what someone who doesn’t actually need to put in as much effort as you to build new relationships (not to imply they are not still working hard at it). When you are a New York Times Bestseller or go on tour across the world, or show up on Network Television, you probably can do away with business cards. Until then, giving out 200 cards a week, with a possible 2% conversion rate probably isn’t going to hurt your marketing effort or bottom line..
Roberto Blake is a Graphic Designer who runs his own one man Design Studio, focusing on Brand Development and Advertising. Roberto has experience in design for print, web and multimedia and has worked on out of home campaigns including billboards featured in Times Square. He is a monthly contributor to Print Media Centr’s News From The Printerverse, and a frequent participant in#PrintChat on Twitter. He is also a contributor for publications such as Print Magazine and How Design and has had work featured in Advanced Photoshop Magazine. Roberto is extremely active in social media, producing multiple YouTube videos each week to assist designers and other creative professionals through advice and tutorials.
Connect with Roberto: robertoblake.com / @robertoblake / rblake@robertoblake.com
7 Responses
I really wish he didn’t plug a printer at the end of the video; I was going to share this on our Facebook page since it’s a great video, but as soon as he started talking about printers, I knew I couldn’t share it.
KirraA The reason I “plugged” a printer is simple (I get no monetary value from it BTW), one of the first things everyone ask when I hand them a card is “Where did you get your cards printed?” The second is “Isn’t that expensive?” The barrier to some people investing in quality marketing materials is they don’t know where to go, whether they will get quality results or what the cost/investment will be and whether they can afford it.
Many people refuse to be transparent and tell anyone where they are getting their resources, what it cost them or what their process is. By sharing this information I’m creating value for someone who is clueless and doesn’t know where to begin, and letting them know that I got a quality result, which might take some anxiety out of the process for them.
So, I’m not sure why you decided “I can’t share it, because he plugged a printer”, since all that does is limit your audience from getting information you clearly felt was value, and it denies them an opportunity to potentially save some money compared to their local pricing, or not be able to have one more option when they decide to invest in their print materials.
It makes little sense for me to “talk people into investing in printing business cards” and then not offer them an option to execute on that, and speak to the experience of the results I got. It’d be like doing it half way. In fact I offered them two options and qualified why I would choose them and pointed out that they can order free samples to see the results for themselves before making a decision.
robertoblake KirraA Just as an FYI, many of PMC’s visitor’s are printers, so mentioning one (that isn’t them) could propose a problem with them sharing certain content. I completely agree that for the design and buying community the information in the video is super helpful and pre-empts the “I can’t afford this” thinking. Kirra… if you are in the printing game, sharing this info with your connections and adding info about a BUSINESS CARD SPECIAL OFFER could be a nice strategy, and doesn’t deny anyone from the information, or you from sharing it and possibly growing your audience along the way!
DeborahCorn robertoblake KirraA If the reason is that you’re in the “Print Game” I could see that being an issue on some level, but on the other hand if you have something to offer me or even possibly my viewing audience it’d be great to know that and see it in the comments so that we can get some samples and compare. Much like Deborah pointed out.
But I also believe that even it promotes a “competitor” valuable content is valuable content. I share the information and videos of other designers on YouTube all the time, even with my clients, because I’m so confident in the relationship and value I’ve created for them, that I’m not concerned about them going elsewhere.
For example, even though I mention MOO in this video, GotPrint still shared it and liked it across their Social Media accounts, as did several other printing companies.
If any service provider, vendor or company creates value for my viewers, I’m happy to share the results they can deliver, so that people can make an informed choice.
robertoblake DeborahCorn I understand the reasoning behind sharing your resources, but as a printer myself, I am always looking for quality articles and videos to share with my followers on Facebook or to send via email, but the vast majority of quality content is written either by printers supporting their own business or have a link to VistaPrint or Moo.com at the end. I don’t want to send my customers away from my website, Facebook, or email to an article or video that directs them farther away from me.
That being said, your article and video are very good. Frankly, I was very excited to have something of quality to share with my followers. I may still do so, as Deborah said, if I can figure out a good way to preempt the redirection.
Thanks!
KirraA robertoblake DeborahCorn Completely understand! Feel free to reach out to me directly via email and I may be able to work with you on some content that would be great. Maybe you can get me some print samples to do a video review of and we can share that with our audiences. I’m always interested in partnering with people who can create value for my audience and give them more options!
robertoblake KirraA BONUS!!!!! That is so cool of you Roberto!!!