OK, I want the truth. Do you have a place you store business cards; a drawer, file or business card organizer? You do don’t you? When’s the last time you looked at them? Do you continue to pile business cards on the stack? If you went through the cards right now how many would you remember? Would you remember where you got the card, who gave it to you, and why you accepted? Yea, me too. Here’s my point. What do you think people do with your card?

Give them something to remember you by

The next time you’re at a networking event, conference, or presentation try giving a promotional product as your business card. Give them something that doesn’t fit in the drawer, file, or business card holder.

Something Useful – The staff from TKO Marketing Solutions not only gave me the idea for this post she suggested several products, for example, a monitor screen cloth printed with business information. I doubt it would be lost in a drawer, it would be used, seen, and remembered. How about a cell phone screen cleaner that adheres to the back of a phone—people would look at it every day. How about printing your contact info on a square aluminum bottle opener, post it notes, or a cheese grater? Betcha those wouldn’t get lost in the dead card file.

Something fun– There are millions of fun specialty products that could be used to replace business cards, For example, balloons—they may not last forever but they’d be remembered, and you could give them several. There are coasters, fortune cookies with your message inside, and my favorite– printed Lego people!

Something that’s state of the art – Have you heard of conductive ink? Print a card with conductive ink, lay it on a smartphone screen and voila all the information is transferred to the phone—pretty cool huh? You could hand out flash drives, power banks, stylus, and more.

Tie it to your business or an event—Do you own a bicycle shop? Give a bicycle tool with the shops information printed on it. Going to a toy convention? Make an action figure of you, your mascot, or company logo. Do you do home food delivery? Give away anti-slip jar openers. Let your imagination fly.

Supplement Your Business Card

We all need business cards. Nothing will replace them, but we can supplement them. When the time is right, business card alternatives can do a great job of keeping your name in the forefront and not stuffed in a drawer. If you’d like to learn more about business card alternatives, let us know.