For any business, establishing a stronger presence and brand identity is very important to separate it from its competitors while allowing the corporation to stand out uniquely with its own branding, communication and value. Putting it simple, a strong and long-lasting brand identity helps in raising brand awareness, keeping you in front of the audience all the time.
According to a survey conducted by the Content Marketing Institute, more or less 90% B2B marketers accepted the fact that brand awareness is one of their most important and primary goals. This is because greater the awareness, more will be the leads and conversion. In all this, where do the business cards fit?
For both; marketing your products and services plus building a brand presence, the best place to start incorporating all the necessary elements is a business card. Let’s start exploring all the essentials of brand identity and how to establish yours via business cards.
Combination of all essential elements that communicates your core brand value and services forms the brand identity. A perfect business card for branding incorporates brand colors, general contact and personal/corporate info and logo.
To set yourself apart from your primary competitors as well as businesses operating in the same industrial niche, a consistent brand identity is a must that fuels communication, accelerate marketing and is effective in engaging with customers.
Here’s what you should be incorporating to your business card for creating a stronger brand identity:
Every brand has its special colours that’s also a must-have on the business cards to help prospects in recognizing you among the rest. Take for instance McDonald’s; the first thing about colour scheme to pop in the mind is red and yellow whereas it’s red, white and black with KFC and so on. This is simply the unignorable power of colour whereas university research revealed that brand recognition gets more than 80% boost through colours, thus making it an integral part of the branding strategy using business cards or any other print and even digital medium.
We’ve always heard about incorporating logo or trademark of your business/brand somewhere on the business card. In-fact, some of the world’s greatest brands like Nike, Adidas, Starbucks and many other don’t even have to write their name on the business card as the logo clearly say it all. Having a logo on the business card reinforces the brand identity without taking too much space. A well-designed logo eventually becomes an iconic business symbol, representing core values and inspire optimism amongst the core customers.
Just like colors and various features of a business card that forms the brand identity, typography also contributes equally through selection of particular fonts or typing-style. Sometimes, brands play clever by only representing single alphabet, number or symbol in special typography which recognizes the brand.
Taglines, catchphrases or slogans communicate the core service or spirit of any brand, business; in just a few words so you need to play extra careful about what is being communicated. In the end, this tagline or slogan becomes another business or brand identification element while separating you from competitors.
Besides graphical ingredients like colour, typography so on, information that you put on the business card also equally contributes to branding. Most of the standard business cards are likely to have:
The sole purpose of designing and printing the business card is to share contact information that includes:
If the business card printing and design serve a specific purpose, to share information, you can easily have all these essentials covered even with basic design. For a card to be a true-performer however, you’d always need to go an extra mile. Have a look at all the additional features to level-up your business card for a lasting brand image.
Like logo, a high-definition, interactive image on the business card is a sure-fire way to increase its likability and make it recognizable. In the tech-driven, digital world; a traditional hand-drawn portrait or creative image on the business card can definitely do wonders.
Taking interactivity to another level is by incorporating a scannable QR code which further let recipients explore a brand or business. It also boosts engagement between customer and brands by driving qualified traffic to the official website, social media channels or other such digital mediums which is more than just a reminder and works amazing in generating a healthy revenue.
Having a discount or a promo code on the business card is excellent for engagement and encourage recipients in taking the desired action. You can definitely get more conversions this way while inviting many new prospects out there, just waiting to grab such an opportunity.
Nowadays, you’ve many different styles and shapes of a business card other than the typical rectangle and square. There’re circular shaped business cards, transparent, creatively cut and carved as well as premium quality embossing that gives it a unique yet luxury look altogether.
Even in the digital era, business cards are considered more than just paper pieces to bear personal or corporate details. Put the information shared above to your advantage and have your next business card designed to make a long-lasting and optimistic impression of the brands.