Avoid these mistakes that could ruin your branding efforts.
By John Williams | October 24, 2007
This article can be found online here.

Nothing is more important to making a good first branding impression than your business card. In addition to the information included, a card’s look and feel also sends a strong message about your business. That’s why I’m perplexed by the many poorly designed business cards I see these days. Just because you can log on to various websites, “design” and print cards for free, doesn’t mean you should.

The cardinal rule to creating a good business card is to ensure that it reflects your company’s image. From a branding perspective, this means it should match the look and feel of your logo. Yes, you want your card to be unique. Yes, you want people to remember you by it. But if you break the cardinal rule in pursuit of uniqueness, all people will remember seeing is an unusual business card. They won’t remember your brand or its attributes.

So in the interest of sparing you a potential branding misstep, here are the top five blunders I’ve seen new companies make when creating their business cards:

• Choosing low-quality paper stock. Inexpensive paper stock may save you money, but it often leaves you with a card that feels cheap. Touch is an important sense and plays a role in memory recall. How you appeal to this sense depends on your company’s image. For example, B2B companies wanting to convey reliability should use a substantial, mid-weight stock.

• Using a design template that does not match the logo. Assuming you want a business card to be taken seriously and help brand your company, you need a design that works with your logo. In other words, be extremely careful with template-based designs. If the templates weren’t developed specifically to match your logo–and most aren’t–they probably won’t. Many entrepreneurs fall in love with an over-designed template that distracts from their logo, or one that features an unrelated photograph. Photographs work well in marketing brochures, but if they appear on a business card, they will distract from your logo.

• Adding too much color to the card. When you want to get someone’s attention, do you scream? Probably not, if you want to avoid scaring them. So why scare potential customers with a super-bright, rainbow-colored card? Color is your biggest asset in branding your company. Research indicates that color is the most important factor in memory recall. Tie your business to one or two specific colors; this color should also appear in your logo.

• Making the card too unique. You want your card to stand out, certainly, but not so much that its difference makes people uncomfortable. Complex dye-cuts, extremely oversized cards, and odd card stocks (like metal) should be used only by companies engaged in highly customized or creative endeavors. Custom embossing, rounded corners, or varnishes are better touches for most companies. While it’s tempting to create an oversized card, keep in mind that many people still use Rolodexes or tuck cards into their wallets–both difficult to do with unusually sized cards. Function overrides form.

• Making the logo gigantic. In general, the bigger the company, the smaller its logo appears on business cards. If you want to look like a Fortune 500, size your logo appropriately. Instead of enlarging your logo for emphasis, employ white space to bring attention to it.

If you’re looking to make a lasting impression, don’t cheapen your first impression. Build a better business card and you’ll build a better business.

John Williams is president and founder of LogoYes.com, the world’s first and largest DIY logo website. In his 25 years in advertising, he has created brand standards for Fortune 100 companies like Mitsubishi and won numerous international awards for his design work.

What’s the hardest thing about starting a business? For many new business owners, the answer is “finding customers.” Having a great product or service that you are sure many people will need isn’t good enough. Customers won’t find you or your Web site just because you have started selling a product or service. Indeed, most business owners have to go on regular and frequent fishing trips to find customers and keep new business coming in their doors. But how do you do that? Here are several suggestions to get you started.

Develop a plan
Consider who would make the ideal customer. If you sell to businesses, consider what department is most likely to buy your products or services, and what individual (what level of responsibility) would be the one to determine the specific purchase requirements. (Make some calls if you don’t know!) Then consider how that individual would normally find products or services like yours. What circles do they travel in? Who are they likely to listen to or where do they look when they want to buy a product or service. Find a way to put your information, or yourself, in their path.

Realize there is no one path to success
Sales often happen because prospective customers hear about your products and services in several different ways and from several different sources. The more often they hear about you, the more likely they are to consider what you have to offer when they are ready to buy.

Work your local newspapers
Daily and weekly newspapers are an incredible source of contact information and leads to potential customers. Watch for names of people who have been promoted, who have won awards, who have opened new businesses, or who in any way may be potential customers. Send those people personalized mailings letting them know the benefits of what you sell. Try to attend meetings they will be at, as well. When you meet them or send mail, let them know you read about them and congratulate them on their success or mention how interesting the article about them was.

Watch for events that may bring your potential market together
Contact the organizers of the event and offer to give away your product or service as a prize during the event in exchange for having the group promote you in their promotions.

Attend meetings and seminars that your prospects might attend
If you’ve been doing that and haven’t made contacts that could lead to sales, look in the newspapers to see what other organizations hold events that might attract your target market and attend some of those meetings.

Follow up after meetings
Contact the people you’ve met to see if they may be prospects. If they say they don’t need your services now, ask when a good time to call them back would be, or if they have business associates who could use what you sell now.

Give a little to get a lot
Give away free samples of your product and ask the recipients to tell their friends if they are pleased. Or, if you are a consultant, give away some free advice. This could be in the form of a newsletter that contains news or tips and hints, or it could be a free consultation during which you provide just enough information to help the client scope out their project and know that you have the ability to handle it.
Work your personal network
Ask your friends if they know of people who can use your services, or people who may know others who could use your services. If your pricing structure will allow it, offer friends and business associates a finders’ fee for referrals that turn into jobs.

Study your competition
Advertise where they do. Promote yourself where your competition promotes themselves.

Use multiple small ads instead of one big one
If most people in your type of business advertise to bring in customers, you should do the same. But don’t plan on making a big splash with one large ad. Plan smaller ads to run over a long time in the same publications that your competitors advertise in. The repetition will build name recognition. If you advertise in the yellow pages, consider taking out ads in multiple category headings. If you provide office support services, you might want to advertise under the Word Processing and the Typing headings.

Ask for feedback when prospects don’t buy
Did they find a product that better served their needs? Did they decide they don’t need the product at all? Did they just postpone their buying decision? Did they find it difficult to place an order on your Web site? Use what you learn to make needed changes and watch your sales start to grow.

Larry Ellis
SBDC Rural Program Manager
& Business Advisor

A lot of the services we offer at the Del Mar College Small Business Development Center SBDC tend to cater to start-ups and those businesses in the early development stage.  I will have you know that we can also help established businesses, and have seriously been trying to implement new seminars and services to serve the second-stage business.  We are actually hosting a pretty cool seminar next month (November 30) just for existing businesses.  This workshop won’t be free, but it is definitely going to be a great value.  We are gonna fly in Curt Clinkinbeard, the author of HYPERGROW Your Business, to present the all-day workshop which promises to be a really intense session that will focus on new marketing methods for your business.  Click here to learn more about the workshop. 

 
When: November 30, 2006 9:00AM-4:00PM
Where: 3209 S. Staples
Cost: $195 (Save an additional $50 if you register before November 7, 2006!)
Call (361) 698-1021 or click here to reserve your seat now!

I was skimming through the latest Inc magazine last night, and saw an M&M’s advertisement that I thought was pretty neat.  You can have these little chocolate treats customized with your logo and business name.  Personalized M&M’s can help you make a big impression with your clients and employees.  I know I’d pay more attention to a tasty bag of personalized M&M’s than I would another promotional pen or cap. 

So, maybe M&M’s don’t do much for you…here are some other sweet options you might find interesting:

1. Personalized Fortune Cookies
2. Customized Giant-sized Hershey’s Bar
3. Cookie Bouquets
4. Gift baskets with Personalized Ribbon

Thought I’d share a pretty cool offer I came across.  Vistaprint is offering free marketing materials to try their services.  I’ve never had the opportunity to use their services before, so I can’t vouch for the quality…but I’m definitely going to give them a shot.  This is a neat chance to create some marketing materials on the cheap if you haven’t already got business cards and such.  I don’t believe shipping costs are included, but check out what you can get:

• Note Pads  1 Reg. $7.99 Now FREE 
• Premium Business Cards  250 Reg. $19.99 Now FREE 
• Rubber Stamp  1 Stamp FREE 
• Return Address Labels  140 Reg. $7.99 Now FREE  
• Business Card Magnets  25 Reg. $12.99 Now FREE 
• Postcards 100 Reg. $24.99 Now FREE 

Act Now! Offers expire September 30, 2006.
Shipping and processing, product upgrades and photo/logo uploads not included unless otherwise specified.

Got any upcoming events you’d like to share?  Well, I thought I’d share a few places you can post online here in Corpus Christi.

 KrisTV.com allows you post any upcoming events on their community calendar.  No charge.

Caller.com also has an events calendar. The daily events get published in paper.  No charge.

 CorpusChristiDaily.com will allow you to post an event.  No charge.

 CCTexasOnline.com has an events calendar, and classifieds section.  No charge.

 Craiglist.com Corpus Christi has finally found it’s way onto Craigslist!  Post your events and classifieds for free!

*If you know of any other places to share your events, please let me know (dmunoz @ delmar.edu).

So, what exactly am I talking about?  Well, apparently Google has been hard at work creating new features to reach more local merchants. 

You can now post coupons for your business at no cost by visiting Google’s Business Center.  Internet users can’t search specifically for coupons, instead, if they conduct a search for “restaurants Corpus Christi,”  the results would bring up a listing of restaurants (including those who have posted coupons).  The coupons will only come using the “Google Maps” search box, a general search on Google.com won’t bring up your coupons (but free is free).

Google is also testing out a new beta Calendar program.  I have actually had a chance to use this feature, and it is pretty cool.  This is a neat way to organize all of your company’s upcoming events.  Check out the SBDC calendar as an example.  Your customers can subscribe to it also, so that they can keep up to date with everything going on with your business.

What does your email address say about your business? 

In my experience in working with local small businesses, I have noticed that many local businesses still haven’t gone online, and many entrepreneurs are still using email addresses like gomezplumbing@yahoo.com or chucksflowers125@hotmail.com. 

This September AOL is offering a free service that will provide business owners the opportunity to create a personalized email domain. The service, which will be called AOL My eAddress, will allow users to set up and register a customized e-mail address using .com or .net domains, and add up to 100 additional identities onto their personal domain at no charge. 

I really think this is a neat opportunity for a business to really look professional on the cheap.  Learn more about AOL My eAddress.