How Business Cards Have Changed

What does your business card do for you? Well, it might be time to change it a little. Business cards have been around for centuries and came into use around the 15th Century. One of the initial purposes of a business card was to promote trade. It is one of the reasons a business card is often called a trade card.

I can still remember my first set of business cards. The business card was simple and contained all the information required to reach me.

Unfortunately, by the standards of today, the information was NOT complete. The card did not have a fax number or an email address on it and many new methods of communication for today. All that the card included was my name, title, company name, address and telephone number. However, this was enough and in many cases, the card would be stapled to a 3x5 index card or rolodex and be filed away by my contacts. Sometimes the card would make it to a special wallet where It would remain there until it was needed to locate my contact information.

My first business card was simple, because there were only a few ways to reach me. Today, there are more ways to reach me than I want to admit. We live and work in a digital web of on-line, social networking opportunities in addition to the traditional means of communication. This means, we should consider adding our on-line and social network information to our business cards.

What was on my First Business Card in 1980:

Contact name

Title

Company name

Address

City, State, Zip code

Telephone number

What should be considered for businesses cards today:

Contact name

Title

Company name

Address

City, State, Zip code

Telephone number

Fax Number

Email address

Website address

State Contract Lic.

Text Message ID

Blog address

LinkedIn URL address

Face book URL address

Twitter URL address

and other appropriate social networking addresses that are primary methods of contacting you.

With all this new information, it is no wonder that two sided cards are becoming common. Now, I am not saying that you should put all your contact information on your cards. Doing that might be going over board. What I am suggesting is that you need to have a place where all your contact information is listed or available for prospects and customers to find you. Fortunately, many of the social networking tools are based on your email address. One thought is to add the logos of the social networks you belong to. Additionally, One place where you should put all your contact information is on your contact page of your website and your blog.