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Contact Information To Include On Your Business Card

The logo and graphic elements that you include on your business card are quite important, but having the right text and contact information on the card is equally important. Here are our tips about the elements to include:

Your name — Consider whether you want to include your middle name or initial, degrees or professional credentials that are unique to your field.

Title — Including a title on your card will help your potential clients to identify your position within your company. Including a title can also make your company seem larger. A reason to not include a title would be if you're a consultant, and want to market your solo nature as a benefit to your clients.

Address — Always include an address on your business card, even if you are operating a business out of your home. Including your address greatly increases your credibility and makes your business appear established. If you're concerned about privacy, a post office box is a great way to go. When signing up for a post office box, consider using a commercial mailbox vendor (such as the UPS Store) instead of a box at the United States Post Office. At a mailbox store, you are given a street address instead of the typical "P.O. Box". The store also accepts shipped packages from UPS, FedEx, and other carriers, so you won't need to give out your home address as a shipping address.

Phone number (and toll-free number) — Include your phone number and, if you do business long distance, consider including an 800 or toll-free number as well, as an amenity for your clients.

Cell phone number — This is an option to consider if you'd like to make your services available to your clients around the clock, or if your business often takes you on the road. If you'd like to keep your cell phone number private, you can do that tactfully by offering to make your cell phone number available to clients once they have signed up for your services—then your clients will feel special and know that you're taking good care of them.

Fax number — If you have a fax number you should include it on your card. If you rarely receive a fax, or if you don't know if faxes will be useful in your business, you can try using efax (www.efax.com). This is an online service that can provide you with a free fax number that will email all of your faxes to your email account. They also offer a paid service that is available as an upgrade if the number of faxed pages you receive per month exceeds their free offering. That enables you to upgrade if needed, without changing your fax number and reprinting your cards.

Email address — Your email address is an often-overlooked opportunity to brand your business. Instead of using a generic email address such as "yourname@aol.com" or "yourname@comcast.net", purchase your own branded domain name to use as your email—yourname@yourbusiness.com. It's inexpensive and easy to set up, especially if you use GoDaddy.com to register your name and set up the new email address to forward to your existing account. This makes your business look larger and more professional.

Website address — A website is a must in today's business world, even if it's a simple, one-page site that gives a few paragraphs of information about your business offerings and your contact information. A website offers potential clients an easy, no-pressure way to both learn more about your business, or to refer you to new clients. This is also another way to take advantage of the branded domain name that you set up to use for your email address—using it for your website URL will extend your business brand further.

Tagline — If you have a tagline, including it on your business card will contribute to your branding and memorability, and a graphic treatment of the tagline (font, color and any graphic effects used) can add visual interest to the card as well.

License Numbers — Include your license number if you are required to display them by your industry regulations (i.e., insurance or contractors), or if your being licensed is a benefit that you offer to your clients, or if it differentiates you from your competition.

Your Blog Address — If your blog is separate from your website, then you'll want to include its' address on your card.

Social Media Links — If Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or YouTube are a major part of your brand and marketing strategies, then include links to your profiles on your business card. You may need to use shortened URLs (like bit.ly) or customized URLS (buy a new domain name and forward it to your profile) to make the links short enough to fit well. The back of the card is a great place to put these links.

A Link To Your Free Offer — If you have an amazing free report, free teleclass or CD offer, include a link on your card so that people will know where to access that information.

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About the Author

Erin Ferree is a branding coach, design genius and strategic thinker. She's been told that her right-brain, left-brain combination of creativity and logic is hard to come by... and that it's what small business owners need to be successful. She loves connecting the dots between passion and profit, mixing strategy and inspiration and shaking things up.

She deeply enjoys working with entrepreneurs who want to help more people and look good doing it. Who want all of their branding and marketing to make sense and speak to their ideal clients. And who want an open, honest, inviting brand with integrity - instead of using icky, pushy, sleazy marketing tactics and trickery.

She's branded over 450 small businesses in the last 10 years. She's been published in so many books and periodicals that she stopped counting. She's shared stages with some awesome people - like Michele PW, Linda Hollander, Lisa Cherney, Sheri McConnell and Kelly O'neil.

She also enjoys hugging her corgi-dog Stanley, cooking and throwing parties so her friends can enjoy them.

Small business branding, brand coaching and logo design articles at http://www.brandstyledesign.com

BrandStyle Design is a division of elf design, inc. | phone (650) 358-9973

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