Because most of our clients tend to be small businesses, they fall into the same trap that nearly all small businesses do; they operate without a marketing plan.  Now, many businesses experience some degree of success without a marketing plan, but keep in mind that 95% of all small businesses fail within the first 5 years.  The biggest reasons those fail include lack of operating capital, lack of experience or knowledge, and lack of a business or marketing plan.  I’m not here to sell you on virtues of a marketing plan.  However, I will tell you that it does more than help – it provides a road map for getting customers in the door.

You need to know how important these first little projects can actually be, and just how much they can do for you as part of a bigger plan, and how important it is to keep them up-to-date and USE them.  A business card isn’t just a necessary expense, and collateral media should never be relegated to the “after-thought” pile of things you do at the last minute.  Unfortunately, most small businesses wait until they are out of cards to order more, and the design is always last minute.  If this is NOT you, congratulations, you are a planner.  Now, did you do it right, and with the right goal in mind?

HOW TO USE BUSINESS CARDSI’m going to go backward in this article; from the end use backward to the planning stage.  The reason is that all your planning depends on how you’ll use the media, and what the end goal is for it.  The last thing you should think about is cost.  The first thing is the desired impression when the business card leaves your hand and is grasped by the potential or existing client. Who are you?

For some reason, after 20 years doing this kind of work, I’m still surprised when my clients insist that their fax number be prominently featured on their cards.  I ask, “How often will your potential customers need this information?” The client responds, “Well, we still use fax to some extent.”   What I find, however, is that in most cases, the client’s associates or vendors use fax, and that their customers almost never do.  If you are a B-to-C business, nearly none of your customers will have a fax machine.  If you are B-to-B, maybe half will use fax for anything close to a regular basis.  My suggestion? Put the fax number on the back in a group with seldom-used-but-important-information.Why am I ranting about fax numbers? Because it does absolutely nothing to tell your potential customer who you are.  A business card can contain this information, but it’s way down on the list of important information.

Your card should have a design that speaks to your profession, a layout that makes the information easy to find, and should lead your potential or existing client quickly to the most important pieces of information you can deliver on a 2 1/2 x 3 inch card. Use both sides, and double your marketing real estate.  It shouldn’t cost you more, and business cards are cheap, (at least they are from my company).The bottom line is that your card is usually the only leave-behind that most businesses ever hand their potential customers, if they leave something.  It should be a miniature brochure, if needed, and at the very least, should tell ANY viewer of the media who you are and what you do.”Who you are” isn’t your name.  Your name is incidental, unless it’s a prime piece of your brand because of fame or notoriety. 

“Who you are” is what you want people to think of when they think of your name.  It’s your desired reputation, delivery quality, attention to detail, customer service…. it’s your BRAND.When I leave a card behind, I know that my immediate marketing effort is over, and that the customer will initiate the next marketing moment by looking at the card again later.  That’s my mindset every time I design a card, and the primary thought process throughout the design stage.  Is the fax number part of the marketing effort?  Not unless I sell fax machines.  Is it sometimes necessary?  If it is, I’ll include it on the card, but not necessarily prominently, unless my cards are being used as a vehicle for contact information.

Images, Icons, Sizes and MaterialsThere are many times I suggest to a client that they use business cards that look like art, and just as many times that I try to sell them on simple but elegant cards.  Elegant shouldn’t mean “fancy” to you, but “unusually effective and simple.”  The layout and “feel” of the card should reflect your business attitude, or better yet, the “feel” you want your prospect to feel when they look at your card.  It would be just as inappropriate for your plumbing business to use a fancy script font on the card as it would be for a wedding planner to use grunge or distressed fonts on her cards.

With the advent of inexpensive full-color glossy printing, many businesses opt for the full-color glossy card right off the bat, when a nice black-ink-only on linen card would be best.  On the other hand, if your business can show itself better with full color gloss cards, go for it.  The bottom line is to do what works, rather than what looks good to you.  As I tell many clients, your personal tastes may not be the most effective way to market your business.  Business cards are a marketing effort, so keep these in mind at all times.

Some businesses are still into the late ’90s trend of creating odd-size business cards.  I mostly recommend against this, because the business card is about information convenience, and a small or oversize card is inconvenient.  Your skinny card may look cool at first, but as it slides around inside a wallet, is it getting frayed on the corners? Your oversize business card may draw attention at first, but did your prospect toss it aside when he found it wouldn’t fit in his wallet?Lastly, do you have a logo or icon for your business?  You don’t have to have a logo, but if your business name doesn’t tell what you do, you could be headed for trouble.

I have a box with nearly 1500 business cards I’ve collected over the years from various clients and associates.  I periodically go through it, and look for possible repeat business.  I keep running into cards for businesses I can’t readily identify. A perfect example of a card doomed to this fate was one presented to me by a client recently.  To protect their identity, we’ll call them Topline Transport.  The card had no tagline or identifying icons or images; just the name, 2 phone numbers and a fax number.  You might assume that they are a trucking company.  In fact, they are a limousine company.  Not just any limousine company, but a fairly upscale one at that!  The problem is that their card doesn’t do anything except provide a shortcut to information I could look up on Google or in a phone book.  This is an ineffective card.  My suggestion to the owner was have us design a logo for him.  I suggested a glyph-like representation of the front end of one of his Towncars, with the name below.  THIS would tell the story at a glance.  An alternative would be to provide some sort of tagline below the name: Topline Transport; Executive Car Service, or some such identifier.

What will All This Cost Me?If you can’t find a good printer that can print your cards for less than $80 per 1000 cards using full-color on gloss or linen, call me, and I’ll do them, but you really shouldn’t spend more than that.  Design, however, is a completely different story.  You’ll find many designers, especially the ones in the commercial field working with ad agencies, that charge based on the income of the client.  Others have an hourly fee, and still others charge a flat fee for design.  Personally, I charge for time sometimes, and have a pre-negotiated total at other times.  It all depends on the client, and the client’s desired outcome vs. time and money budget.  A design desired quickly with complex color schemes and psychographic analysis built in will cost quite a bit more than one I can deliver in a few weeks with nothing but a logotype and a tagline.

Design can run anywhere from $50 to $50,000-plus.  Your best bet is to determine what you want to spend, and ask around for the reputations of designers that people trust.   It is highly likely that the designers with the best reputations will exceed your monetary budget, so look around for excellent designers that don’t have high public profiles if you’re on a tight budget.

Now What?So, you’ve got your design, and you’ve got your cards printed.  What next?  I joke with my clients that of they’re not giving out at least a thousand per year, they’re not using their cards properly.  This is only partly a joke.  I give out an average of 5-10 cards per week, and if I found a thousand NEW people to give them to each year, I’d have at least 4 new potential clients every day looking at my business information.

NOW think about your business card design.  The idea of 4 new potential clients looking at my information each day makes me think a bit more intently about what’s on my cards!  So, give them away, don’t hold on to them like collector’s items; they’re cheap, but can be as valuable as gold ONLY if you give them away.

-David McClave is the author of “Manage Your Skill Set,” and is asked to speak publicly throughout the region on various topics related to marketing, media production, and sales.  He is the president of Case42 Creative Media in Spokane, WA.

PR: wait…  I: wait…  L: wait…  LD: wait…  I: wait… wait…  Rank: wait…  Traffic: wait…  Price: wait…  C: wait…

Twice, as an experienced filmmaker, I’ve been faced with a similar situation; once as the Foley/ADR/scoring guy for a film where the audio tracks didn’t get recorded by the synch guy, and once in one of those 48-hour film competitions, where we strayed so far from the existing script that we might as well have not had one.  Both times, I promised myself I’d never do it again. Well, years later, as an event videographer and documentary filmmaker, I find myself being required to do it all again.  But THIS time, with experience as an event videographer, I’ve discovered some great techniques to keep from going completely insane.

KEEPING FREE FROM INSANITY

1. If you can have a script supervisor on board during the shoots, DO IT! For those of you who don’t know the best way to do this, here’s what we do in our production house, for both tape-based and file-based shoots:
   1. GENERIC TECHNIQUES:
      1. USE A SLATE!  ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS use a slate if you can, even for event and documentary shoots.
         1. Your slate should be on camera for at least 5 seconds, and will aid immeasurably when scanning footage of any type later.
         2. Your slate should have shot number or scene, take number, and anything else that might be variable, like lens used, lighting, time of day, etc.
      2. Keep track SOMEWHERE of reel, tape, file number, etc., along with a description of what you’re shooting.  Even if you’re only keeping track of time code ranges with one-word descriptions, it’s better than nothing.
      3. Use a Script Log of your own design, or use the one I’ve attached to this article.  It will eliminate headaches before they start!
   2. FOR TAPE- or REEL-BASED shoots:
      1. Number all your reels BEFORE you start shooting.  When I’m doing shoots with mini-DV or film, I make this part of my pack-up checklist.
      2. Have the script supervisor, if available, note timecode and reel for EVERY push of the record button, along with a brief description of what’s being shot.  Don’t get too wordy here, or you’ll have a hand cramp that leaves you sayng, “never again for less than $500 per hour!”
      3. Develop a code for various types of shots.  For example, initials for characters that appear in each shot, a primitive sun or lightbulb for type of lighting, or a house icon or tree icon for location, perhaps. This will aid in quickly organizing shots later.
      4. If you have a script of ANY sort, make sure to note the shot and take for every segment.
   3. FOR FILE-BASED shoots:
      1. We do a number of shoots that are non-tape-based, recording directly to hard drive, where the footage will be either ingested later, or is “direct to edit.” If your DTE recorder has the ability to connect to a computer where you can have a script supervisor take notes directly attached to the footage as it’s being shot, DO IT! It took many edit sessions where I said, “Why didn’t I take advantage of this feature earlier?” before I started making it a habit!
      2. USE YOUR SCRIPT SUPERVISOR!  If you are acting as S.S., then take a break once in a while to note what you’ve shot.  Again, even if it’s just a file number range with a brief description, do it!

In the end, all of this may sound like common sense, but you’d be surprised just how many professionals fail to do it!  My suggestion is to make the preparation to track shoots part of your checklist, and make the tracking a habit that you never fail to follow.

Continuity_log.pdf