One of the most powerful, yet over looked weapons in your marketing arsenal is your business card. If designed properly this little 3 x 2.5 piece of paper will not only let people know how to contact you it will also tell them why they should contact you. In order to be effective and get you more business your Business card must stand out, and get noticed.

How a distinctive business card resulted in a $5,000 Sale

A friend of mine and his wife recently went furniture shopping. By the end of the day they had gone to 8 stores and had 8 Business cards. 7 of the Business Cards were your garden variety white cards with one or two color writing on them.

One card was a little different. The salesman, we will call him Bob, had decided to make his card stand out a little by putting his picture on it along with a couple of color pictures of his furniture. Bob's business card made an immediate impression.

The next day they flipped through the all the business cards that they had received the previous day. They immediately remembered Bob from his business card. They went to Bob's store and spent over $5,000! All because of a business card.

5 Tips to make your Business Card Stand out

1 - Use Full Color Printing

In the old days full color printing (4 color printing) was extremely expensive. You could pay over $200 /1000 for high quality full color cards. Prices have dropped and you can now get beautiful full color cards printed for about the same price as a plain two color card.

2 - Use a Tagline

A "tagline" is a one sentence benefit statement. Think of your Business card as a "Mini Billboard". Pretend that you are writing a classified ad for a newspaper. You only have a small amount of space to describe your product or service in an intriguing way ? what would you write to describe it? For example: A Realtor could say "Helping Build dreams one home at a time"

3 - Put a picture on it!

I highly recommend that you put a picture on your business card. Studies have shown that people are more likely to hold on to a Business card with a photo on it. It could be your picture, a picture of your product, or a combination of both. Picture cards get attention!

4 - Don't use Business Card "Templates"

There are websites you can go to online where you can choose from pre-made business card designs called templates. The problem with this is that the more people who use these templates the more you card starts to look like everybody else's. You want to have a business card that stands out from everybody else's, not one that gets lost in the crowd.

5 - Let a Professional Design It

Unless you are a professional graphic designer designing your own card is like performing root canal on yourself. Its going to take a lot of time and you may not be happy with the results. Leave the designing to the professionals and use you time doing what you do best ? selling your product or service!

Copyright ? Jack Bastide All rights Reserved

Jack Bastide specializes in helping you get more business! You can contact him via his web site http://www.JackBastide.com or call him at 800-59-JACKB Register to win a Free Business Card Makeover at http://www.BusinessCardMakeover.com For more free marketing tips and tools visit http://www.JacksWebTips.com