Prepare Business Card Content

Content is part of every media production. On this page we'd like to walk you through preparing content specifically for your business card. The goal is to have all content ready for use in the first design step. On the previous page you could read the introduction of our guide on how to make a business card.

Before you start preparing content for your business card, we recommend that you set up a project folder in your file system. With this folder you can store all project related files in one place. And for fast access to this folder, you can use the "Pin to Quick access" function on Windows, or "Add to favorites" on Mac and Linux.

Types of Content

In this guide we distinguish between essential content and optional content. We first look at all essential content and then move on to optional content. What do we mean by essential content? We think of it as the content that provides the basic functionality for your business card. To further distinguish content, we'd like to introduce two content categories: "contact information content" and "brand related content".

Essential contact information content is data such as your name. You can use a spreadsheet file to collect and store contact information data in tabular form. This would get even more convenient if you were to collect data for more than one person.

The following table lists contact information data along with an example and possibly a note with further information. The field names would be the column headings in your spreadsheet file.

When you are finished with preparing essential contact information content, you can move on to essential brand related content.

Brand related content is content such as your logo. Your logo is your most important brand related content item. Ideally, you have a vector file version of your logo. Vector graphics offer better image quality if you need to resize the image to fit your project canvas. Locate the version of your logo you want to use in your business card and put it into the project folder, or a sub-folder called images.

A tagline is another brand related content item people often use in their business card. The text is put next to the logo to explain what the brand does or what its purpose is. Since it consists of text you can store it with an editor in a text file.

Our last essential brand related content item is your brand's fonts if you have any. You could install non-standard fonts on your system to have them available while you design, but you don't have to. You can put them in your project folder and tell your graphic design software where to find them. If you have the choice, choose the .otf [OpenTypeFont] file format version of fonts for your print projects. Generally, this font format offers the best quality.

Optional Content

At this point we covered all essential content you need for your business card! Many businesses just use essential content for their business cards. Other businesses add optional content to their business cards to make them more valuable. One motivation for this is to stand out among competitors. Another motivation has to do with timing. When you speak to potential customers it is often the case that it's not the right time for them to solve a certain problem. Therefore, the aspiration is to hand out a business card that is worth keeping for a longer period of time. In this period of time the business card can remind the potential customer about solving his or her problem and, when ready to do so, remind about you and your brand.

We are now going to present three optional content related tasks before we present several optional content ideas. Your first task regarding optional content is to decide whether you want to use optional content or not. Good content needs time and resources to plan, prepare and produce. So, if you are on a tight schedule and/or budget, you might not want to use optional content for this project. But you could plan to use optional content for future versions of your business card.

If you do decide to use optional content for your business card, your next task is to choose which optional content to use. There are many possibilities but on the other hand you don't want to use too much content for your design. Too much content doesn't fit into the small space of a business card and too much content makes a design unattractive.

What's left as a third task is to make/prepare your optional content.

Optional Content Ideas

From tasks we switch to ideas. In the following paragraphs we list optional content ideas for your inspiration. Of course, you might as well come up with a great idea yourself. Please understand that we can only provide brief descriptions of optional content in this guide.

We'd like to start with presenting optional content ideas by categories we introduced earlier. And we'd like to start with optional contact information content.

It is common to label different means of contact as "Phone:" or "Email:", but instead of using text labels, you could be using icons. Icons are rather small graphic images classifying content next to them. Apart from making a design more attractive, they have some more advantages. They allow faster information processing, they require less space to communicate the same amount of information and they are language independent. [Later on you can discover why we didn't use icons in our design.]

Another example for optional contact information content is a photo of yourself. A photo adds personal touch and can create a stronger emotional connection with potential customers. Using a personal photo could be a good strategy in industries where potential customers see more value in who they work with rather than what you offer.

Our last example of optional contact information content is a QR code [Quick Response code]. QR codes are images that are readable by smartphone camera apps, which can use the encoded information to offer predefined actions. For example, call a phone number or add a new contact with the contained contact information. The advantage of QR codes is that information doesn't have to be typed in anymore. They are used to bridge the analog and digital world. They also add a modern touch [to your brand].
But there are also concerns whether using a QR code in a business card is a good strategy. Does putting a QR code on a business card accelerate its disposal? Is one reason to keep a business card our laziness to process its information immediately? Does putting a QR code on a business card therefore decrease its potential to generate attention? To generate attention, the moment a potential customer is ready to solve a problem?
In case you do want to use and generate a QR code with contact information, we found a webpage that offers QR code creation free of charge: https://goqr.me/#t=vcard.

After we covered optional contact information content ideas, we now move on to optional brand related content ideas.

Some people use brand photography, possibly arranged as a collage, for the design of their business card. A photo can show the characteristics of your brand, or your work respectively. A photo can establish an emotional bond with your brand if it contains an emotional message that resonates with the viewer.

Another optional brand related content item is a slogan. A short phrase or sentence with which you communicate your brand's USP, or a shared motto/belief of what leads to success/happiness. A slogan is another tool to differentiate your brand in the market place. A slogan can be used instead of or in addition to a tagline.

Our last optional brand related content item is a customer testimonial. A statement from a happy customer praising your brand. By using a customer testimonial, you can show potential customers proof for the quality and value of your services. For one, this increases the credibility of your claims because a third party confirms them. Secondly, a customer testimonial can trigger a potential customer's herd instinct. This increases the probability a potential customer wants to do business with you because people like to follow the actions of other people. To reduce risk. To belong. In fear of missing out.

Value-Added Content

So far we presented optional content from content categories already familiar to you. Now we'd like to talk about another content category: value-added content. Value-added content is useful pieces of information for your potential customers. It helps them with their problem or makes it more attractive doing business with you. Since value-added content is optional and useful/valuable, it can be perceived as a gift.

Value-added content can be industry specific. Therefore, we tried to group the following ideas by industry. But we also came up with [more or less] industry neutral ideas:

People like taking notes on business cards. So why not support them in doing so and provide a "Notes:" section?! Make this more inviting by putting writing lines next to this text label. This will probably be most appreciated at professional events like trade fairs. Can you provide more valuable content than your potential customer's personal notes?

Another industry neutral value-added content is an inspiring or funny quote. A meaningful statement worth sharing, attributed to a specific person. People like to put all sorts of cards with quotes in sight to maintain a positive mindset. At the same time, they can be reminded of you and your brand.

The next idea is to use your business card also as a loyalty card. A loyalty card is a tool and system to reward customers for repeat business. It usually states something like "Buy ten, get one free!". In practice, the customer gets a mark on his card for every purchase. Once the card has ten marks, the customer can claim the next purchase for free. This can keep customers from switching vendors in competitive markets.

Our last idea for [more or less] industry neutral value-added content is to include a coupon in your business card. A coupon is a discount offer which is subject to certain conditions, e.g. being a first time customer. With a coupon you can provide a monetary incentive to make a purchase without having to alter your general value proposition. Moreover, with a coupon you can track the success of a marketing campaign since a customer has to submit the coupon id to get the discount. Finally, a coupon can also increase the urgency to act if you add a time restricting condition to it.

We think the following two ideas are most suitable for shops and warehouse businesses.

The first one is putting a small map on your business card. A graphical representation of roads, buildings and points of interest. In contrast to maps in general, the one for your business card focuses on your neighborhood and/or your property. It helps a person get to the right location and find points of interest, such as parking opportunities or the logistics office entrance. With a small map you can save people from feeling disoriented.

The second one is including opening hours in your business card. Opening hours define the business partner oriented hours of operation during each workday of the week. They are basic information needed for scheduling. The more your opening hours deviate from average opening hours, the more important the information becomes. In addition to opening hours during the week, you could add information about the situation during special occasions or periods. You could even include a tip about what a business partner can do to get help outside the opening hours.

We think the next two ideas are most suitable for service businesses and shops.

An appointment reminder is a small form in which you can write the time and date of the next appointment with your customer. It is used to reduce the number of missed appointments which are simply forgotten. Missed appointments can be a problem for your business but for your customers, too. Therefore, an appointment reminder is gratefully accepted and makes a cheap solution for the anticipated benefit.

The second idea is using example calculations for your business card. The example calculations we are thinking of refer to example demand and/or example cost. They provide basic orientation for potential customers and can function as a conversation starter. The calculations lack detail but of course you are happy to do a detailed calculation in or after a personal meeting.

Example 1 [Outdoor Shop]:

How much battery capacity do you need?

Conditions: 12V battery, 2 days independence, max. 50% capacity use
Needed capacity = 670Wh / 12V * 2 / 0,5 = 223Ah

Example 2 [Realtor]:

Affordability of a 15-year mortgage of $100.000

Conditions: 5,5% interest rate, 3% initial repayment rate

=> Constant monthly payment: $708.33
=> Remaining balance after 15 years: $32,774
=> Complete repayment after 19.5 years.

Here are the last two value-added content ideas which we think are most suitable for travel businesses.

The first one is helpful vocabulary. By helpful vocabulary we mean basic words and expressions in a foreign language. It is used to help taking the first step for developing the ability to communicate in a foreign language. Even a few words can greatly change the experience of visiting a foreign country. And often it's surprising how versatile a few words can be and at the same time only take a minimum effort to learn.

Here's an example for English and Spanish:

The second one is putting a world map with time zones on your business card. This map would show a brief outline of the continents and vertical lines showing the different time zones. With this you can determine the time zone of any location and calculate the time difference between two locations. For example, the time difference between your home and your travel destination. Apart from putting the world into the hands of your potential customers :-), this helps avoid the effort of memorizing this information.

Conclusion

Let's now summarize this page. We discussed preparing the content for your business card in order to have it ready in the first design step. We covered essential content which is part of every business card and optional content which you may or may not choose to use. We listed optional content ideas for inspiration to find the ideal content composition for your business card and your customers.

If you have any comments or questions so far, please write us a message using our contact form. The next part of our guide is about business card manufacturing options.