Whiteboard

During the build up to the re-launch of our sister company Communication First, a provider of creative solutions and marketing support to smaller SMEs and start ups, the marketing team spent a frustrating and tiring few hours going through hundreds of business cards to update the database.

Why frustrating and tiring? Well, having gone through this exercise, they began to wonder whether people really wanted to be contacted by potential customers. It is especially true for small companies and start ups. They really need to make an impact. Yet even the big boys make mistakes.

So, here are Communication First’s list of the top five things that people get wrong with their business cards

1              Non standard size cards – Some people think using a different size or shape card to the norm will make them stand out more. It does, but for all the wrong reasons! Yours will certainly be the first to get ditched if it doesn’t fit in standard card boxes, folders, someone’s pocket or any of the normal places that we generally choose to keep business cards.

2              Tiny type –  After trying to read some people’s cards, our team begin to doubt whether they actually wanted anyone to contact them. Have you ever tried reading your own card? Don’t let some local print shop tell you tiny type is the latest trend – it’s not and it does you no favours!  

3              No email address or website – You have just gone to all the trouble of handing over a business card with every conceivable telephone number on it but it has no email address on it and no website for anyone to find out more about you. Why? Both are critical in the modern world if you want to have a successful growing business. Pendry White is even busy putting on its Whiteboard and Twitter addresses as each of its business cards comes up for reprint.

4              Vague generic email addresses – Just as irritating as no email address is the almost meaningless info@, sales@, enquiries@ and the like – they are fine as a response mechanism on your website but come on guys … you have just given me a business card presumably so that I can contact you personally – so why hide behind something that tells me that I am going to get dumped in a general inbox that gets looked at once a week by an over-worked assistant?

5              Nothing to say what you do – This is one we hadn’t thought about too much ourselves. Just a simple one liner is very powerful as a reminder of who you are and what you do – this is particularly so if your company name doesn’t give a clue – “Kitchen Transformations” you can take a good guess at but “Jones & Jones” …?   Pendry White is ‘Reputation Marketing’ because that is what we do!

It is very easy to avoid any and all of these errors. Getting it right doesn’t need to cost you a lot of money but get it wrong and you are just wasting your earnings.

Obviously, Communication First thinks that it can help you avoid these pitfalls. Not only can it get your business cards right for you, but it can sometimes arrange special offers on complete stationery packs so that you are presenting a uniform, quality image to the world. 

It can also create a new company logo and a visual identity for the smaller company, design and produce new marketing materials (it will be doing this for Pendry White’s smaller more cost-conscious clients) or create a basic website that tells people what they need to know about you.

If you would like to know more about it and how it can help you, you can call us or cut out the middle man and go straight to gillkennedy@communicationfirst.co.uk – or check out the website at http://www.communicationfirst.co.uk/.