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Simply, Affordable, Quality Print & Design in Staffordshire and the UK
Free nationwide shipping on all orders!
Simply, Affordable, Quality Print & Design in Staffordshire and the UK
Business cards have been a staple of professional networking and branding for generations. Yet in an increasingly digital era of video calls, messaging apps, and professional networks like LinkedIn, you may wonder whether the traditional paper business card has become obsolete. Is the traditional business card still relevant?
But don’t relegate your business cards to the recycling bin just yet. Despite the expanding digital landscape, business cards are still important and deliver distinct advantages that online networking simply cannot replicate. From brand building to forging lasting connections, business cards continue to provide value.
Keep reading and learn our reasons why business cards are still relevant and impactful assets that smart professionals rely on in our digital world.
A business card still serves as a tangible extension of your brand and business to your potential customers. When designed thoughtfully with consistent branding, colours, fonts, and other elements, your business card becomes an extension of your company’s visual identity. Well-designed business cards can help provide a quality, lasting impression that promotes brand recognition.
Compare exchanging a generic digital business card with the exchange of a striking, custom-designed printed business card. The business card not only shares your information but makes a statement about your business and who you are as a professional. It shows you take pride in your work and have invested in presenting yourself well – a signal of credibility to new potential clients.
There are lots of ways you can make unique business cards but there is some vital information that we believe that business cards should have. We believe that business cards include a business logo and a contact name – as well as those all-important contact details allowing your target customers multiple ways to share their services or ideas.
Business cards are easy to design and with advancements in technology, there is now a wide range of options to make your design stand out! We offer a range of business card sizes and finishes allowing you to seize the golden opportunity to create that perfect impression!
If you are struggling to design your business card feel free to read our Guide to Design a Business Card
Having a business card is a great way in strengthening you customers perception of you and your company. It also provides them with your all important contact details to hand for when they need them.
Lets give you an example, your at an exhibition or seminar and you meet 2 people from different businesses both selling the same service. One person is truly awesome ticks all the right boxes has all the patter, and you have a great connection. However they scribble their contact details on a piece of paper. The second person again has a great offering and again you hit it off, also has a great patter, they hand you a business card. You enjoy the day and set off.
Flash forward a week or month and you need that service, you might remember the first person – we are not saying you wont! You might not however remember what you did with their contact details – the second however gave you a business card that you saved with all your others – it looks great too a nice design with some lovely foil details and feels the bomb!
Who you gonna call? No not the Ghostbusters, well not unless thats the service they were selling! Thats why we thing business cards are still important. Now pretend for a moment that you are the first person that you met at that seminar or meeting, perhaps although you didn’t have any printed Business Cards but you instead gave them a digital business card, yes thats a thing.
Not only could you appear unprofessional and unorganized, you may have very likely just lost a prime business opportunity.
How can you be sure that its not going to get lost with all the other digital stuff we send back and forth every day! Most of the worlds business interactions and transactions today are digital – whether it’s email, conference calls or even networking – the humble business cards are still important and have a vital part to play.
Digital contacts certainly make it easy to connect online, but business cards continue to be a key way to exchange contact information. Having a supply of your business cards readily available for networking events, sales meetings, trade shows, and chance encounters is invaluable for initiating real human connections.
The act of physically exchanging cards face-to-face starts building familiarity and trust that asking someone to connect online platforms such as LinkedIn may not. Digital contacts can feel impersonal compared to the handshake and mutually exchanged business cards that create a more memorable, personal first impression.
When attempting to win over a new client or get buy-in for a sales pitch, the tactile business card you hand someone can make more impact. It reinforces perceptions of professionalism and trust in your business. Customers must have trust and confidence in working with you, and a physical card provides an instant signal of legitimacy.
Just a random fact from Wikipedia about business cards before the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 7 billion business cards were printed around the world every year.
Once a connection has been initiated, a business card’s utility extends beyond that first exchange. As people throw business cards into a wallet or office drawer, folders, or stacks on their desks, the cards serve as helpful, ongoing references and physical reminders.
Unlike digital contacts that can easily be buried and forgotten in phones or computers, the tangible business card has longevity. Seeing the card later down the road helps spark the memory of your initial discussion and motivates follow-up. It may prompt someone to reach back out with additional questions, a partnership proposal, or to recommend you to others.
To a new business or modern business that needs business cards, they remain unparalleled tools for extending your visibility and top-of-mind presence with new connections over time.
We live in an increasingly digital business world, where in-person interactions and paper materials are receding. Yet this presents a new opportunity for the business card to stand out. Investing time and money into professional business card design, quality card stock, and business card printing makes an impression.
Opting for custom-printed cards shows that you are meticulous about presenting yourself in a polished, memorable way. Simply put, taking care to have business cards when many solely rely on digital contacts makes you look organized, thorough, and serious about your work.
The novel presence of business cards at networking events or client meetings helps you be remembered better than digitally-focused peers. Don’t assume everyone has moved on from print – use business cards to distinguish yourself.
Rather than treating it as a paper versus digital choice, professionals should utilize custom business cards as part of a balanced approach:
Use business cards to initiate first contact and forge an in-person connection or at an in-person event where you want to help people remember you. Then, follow up with connections digitally by sending a LinkedIn invite, adding them to your mailing list, or exchanging email signatures.
The physical business card kickstarts the networking process. Then digital communication sustains it over time. This balanced tactic ensures you maximize touchpoints and get the most mileage out of professional relationships.
So embrace business cards as complements, not replacements, for modern digital networking. The tangible and the digital each have advantages – use them synergistically to accomplish your goals.
We know of a lot of businesses that work almost entirely digital. They still use a humble business card to make a great first impression. How do they do this, you might ask? Well in today’s digital world, it’s quite easy. Many digital businesses use QR codes, easily scanned with digital devices such as iPhones and Android phones. These QR codes send the user to a unique app or web page!
Put simply using business cards in this way makes them a perfect marketing tool for any business – helping to drive sales and leads.
To maximize business cards’ impact:
With professional design, printing and presentation, your business cards will serve you well at in-person functions and business meetings. They remain worthwhile investments despite the digital age.
While online networking has boomed, there are still key advantages and impacts stemming from the traditional business card that digital alternatives have yet to replace. Business cards are still widely used for the unique role they serve in branding, relationship initiation, memory and reminder generation, and standing out from the digital crowd.
Rather than an either/or choice, use business cards strategically to complement today’s digital tools. They retain real value when utilized effectively. Well-designed, printed cards in your pocket make you look prepared, and serious and facilitate memorable first interactions that pay dividends down the road.
So keep business cards in your arsenal for events, sales calls, conferences and chance meetings. With face-to-face business activity, your investment in quality cards will continue facilitating fruitful new relationships.
