How To Make Your Business Card An Effective Marketing Tool

By Eric Ruth

Take out your business card.

Really – pull one out right now and look at it.

I’d be willing to bet that it is SORELY lacking as a marketing tool for your business.

Does your business card contain the following elements:

Fancy logo
Business name
Your name, address and phone number
Trite, self-serving, or generalized slogan like “I build better bodies” or “One-on-one personal training”
Web site URL or email address

If that’s all the information you have on your business card, it’s what I call: name, rank and serial number – and it’s almost a totally useless marketing tool.

There’s no compelling reason for the recipient to treat it any differently than they do the other business cards they receive. And therefore, there’s a 99% probability that it will be completely ineffective.

You may as well have given the person a dime of your money right out of your pocket. That’s probably about what the card costs you – and the recipient will get more use out of your dime than he or she will get out of your business card.

That’s the hard truth, my friend.

What happens when you get a business card from someone else?

Do you stuff it in your wallet or purse and then forget about it? Or do you stick it in your already overflowing rolodex at home or office and then forget about it? Isn’t it true that you rarely DO anything with other peoples’ business cards unless you are in IMMEDIATE need of the particular service or product they offer?

What makes you think your business card is not treated the same way?

You may hand out thousands of business cards every year (if you’re a smart marketer, you do), but, at best, they are getting “filed” away into a rolodex and forgotten. And at worst, they are getting trashed at the first opportunity…

UNLESS you accidentally (luckily) give your card to someone who is in immediate need of your services, felt instant rapport with you when they received your card, and is lacking in desire to investigate alternative solutions to their health and fitness problems.

That’s a lot of stuff that has to go “right” in order for your business card to have the result you want it to have: bringing you business.

So what can you do to make your business card a really effective MARKETING TOOL?

Here’s how to POWER-UP the performance of your business card:

One of the most critical marketing jobs you have is the building of your prospect database. So it’s essential that you have a “system” for acquiring contact information from EVERYONE you meet (you must tirelessly and consistently self-promote, so I hope you are telling everyone you meet what you do, giving them your card, and then asking them for their business card or writing down their contact info so you can enter it into your database and begin the process of marketing to them).

But even then, this person is nothing more than a “suspect” in that you suspect they may be in need of your services. The way to move them further down your marketing funnel and increase their value to you, is to get them to actively pursue YOU by making a compelling OFFER to them of valuable information or services and then consistently encouraging them to avail themselves of what you are offering.

One of the best ways to do this on your business card is to offer something of value for FREE. Simply advertise (on your card) a FREE REPORT. For example, if you specialize in golf fitness:

Free Report Reveals 3 Simple Exercises Guaranteed To Add 25 Yards To Your Drive! Access this special report immediately at www.golf-fitness.com

Your “suspects” are compelled to visit your website where they will find the report prominently advertised. To download it, you have them complete a form providing their contact information. At this point, your “suspect” now becomes a “prospect” because they’ve demonstrated interest in what you offer by requesting additional information.

The entire POSITIONING has changed, as they have voluntarily come to YOU for the specialized information they want!

There are three different ways you can set this up on your website:

You can do what we do with with many of our programs on our website which is to pre-sell the report and then provide a form for the person to enter his email address so the report can be emailed to them. The best way to do this is to have the report set up on an autoresponder so it is delivered instantaneously (this is powerful because people want what they want NOW).

You can provide the report in ebook format – again, requiring the person to enter his name, email address and possibly even full mailing address, in order to access the ebook.

Or you can have the report on a “member only” page of your site that requires the person to enter his name and email address in order to access the “member only” page.

What if you don’t have a website?

No problem. On your business card, instead of directing the individual to your web site, you simply tell them to send an email to your email address. Then you send them the report either in ebook format or html email or regular text email. If it’s a long report, you can break it up into two or more email messages delivered one a day.

The report establishes your credibility and provides powerful, useable information to the prospect. You obviously know they have an interest in increasing their driving distance, and it just so happens you can personally train them to do that, so of course you will offer your services at the end of the report and continue to market to them with a mix of solid information and specific offers for your products and services, until they buy or die.

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