Thursday, January 7, 2010

Selling Tip 1: Business Cards That Stand Out!

Have you ever been at a craft show and every vendor there has business cards sitting at their booth for customers to pick up? Business cards are very important in the craft world.I have had many customers visit my booth at a show and not buy anything, but they take my card and purchase something days later from my etsy shop. You have to think if there are 100 vendors at a show customers are going to take cards from at least 20% or more of them, but when they get home they will probably only look 5% or less of them up online. The majority of cards people pick up at shows are lost or discarded. Due to this you have to make your card stand out!

When I was just starting out I booked a show at the last minute. I didn't have any business cards at all the day before the show. I was able to come up with a quick and very affordable solution. I went to my local craft store and bought 20 sheets for card stock for $.15 each. at home on my computer using photofiltre (a free photo editing program that can be downloaded safely from download.com) to type up my important info (ie. name of your business, your name,what you sell, your web address and email address.) I then added some fun clip art and then copied and pasted the design over and over again. I was able to get 9 cards onto 1 page.



After my design was printed I then cut the individual cards out using a pair of pinking shears. This created a cool zig zag pattern along the edges of the cards.

This is sorta how my cards looked when I was done:


Whats cool about this is your card stands out from all those other cards people picked out because it is different. When someone puts their hand in their pocket they feel something uneven and immediately pull it out to figure out what it is. They'll take one look at your card and remember the awesome booth they got it from!

If you don't want to spend the time making your own cards, you can try vistaprint.com or overnightprints.com, each offers 250 basic business cards for free, all you pay is S&H. I have order some of these myself as fill ins if I run out of my handmade cards.

So for $3 and a little bit of work I was able to make 180 business cards.

A Few More Affordable Tips Regarding Business Cards:


-If you need business card holders for your table try a dollar store. They some times carry business card holders. If they don't they carry small picture easels that work just as well and they are very decorative (This is what I use)

- You should carry business cards with you at all times. Nothing looks more unprofessional than pulling a wrinkled, crumpled business card from your pocket. You can get affordable simple business card holder for less than $3 on ebay or a little more if you want a cool design. It keeps your cards organized and it looks very sleek and professional!

Stay tuned for more tips coming soon and tell all your friends lol!

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