I had to blog about this absurdly cute item. Maybe because it is snowing and below zero in Chicago. It made me think why shouldn’t your business cards be cozy and warm? Nicole is a blog designer and weekend crocheter (that’s a person who crochets on the weekend).

Check ‘em out on her blog  Here or purchase one at her Etsy shop Here

Just think how cozy your cards will be.

Chicago artist Daniel Nolan is building a tower from business cards that is designed to be monument and creative expression of his experience with corporate culture. You can participate by sending your business card. Watch video for details of how to be included.

Okay so maybe there is the possibility of being too successful. There was a story at UPI.com and hearladsun.com about two men who were arrested in New York after police stumbled upon a business card they were using to promote their marijuana and cocaine drug dealing operation. Their card advertised 24 hour delivery.  Anyway I guess in some weird way this proves that business card advertising can be an effective way to get noticed. In case you missed the moral of this story, here it is: Probably not a good idea to use business cards to promote illegal activities.

It’s funny that I am blogging about  free business cards offered by Starbucks just a day after I blogged about a coffee fragranced scratch and sniff card. Must be something in the air. Also interesting that there is constant chatter about the future of business cards yet everyone seems continually interested in them.

Admittedly the Starbucks offer is a kind of spoof. They are not really intended for business use but rather offer the opportunity to print your name, phone number and email in conjunction with a title such as  Puppet Master, Bossman and CEO of Everything.

Undoubtedly this is a thinly veiled attempt to glean names and contact information, proving once again that nothing is really free. There may be no exchange of cash but you must give something of value which in this case is the all important contact info.

For the sake of my readers I bit and squawked like a goose. Giving up name, phone, email and even address so that I could have my cards sent to me. There is an option to get a file download and print them yourself but come 0n I want the full treatment. When they arrive I may blog again to let you know how they look and if I get a free cup of coffee or something too.

Check it out and get your own at http://www.starbuckscoffeeonthego.com/card/setup.php

I like to blog when I can about interesting business cards I see and interesting people I meet.  A few weeks ago my wife and I enjoyed an very nice gallery event at the art gallery of Nancie King Mertz  at 2036 N. Clark Street in Chicago. While there I picked up a few business cards of Nancie and her husband Ron. What I love is that they feature examples of Nancie’s beautiful artwork on one side of the card and utilize the back side of the card to share a good amount of information about her work and their gallery and frame service Art De Triumph.

For those of you who have read through my blog or my book “Turn Your Business Card Into Business” you know that I favor cards that use the space available as a kind of advertisement. I believe in the case of most entrpreneurs that you should consider your business card no different then you would a small magazine ad.  Additonally when your business involves a product or when your message can benefit from a graphic representation of what you do, you should include a photo or high quality graphic.

In the case of Nancie and Ron’s card the beautiful examples of her work depicting iconic Chicago scenes is a perfect souvenir of my visit to their gallery and perfect reminder of her work and what they offer.  So enjoy the cards but more importantly if you’re in the area stop by and see the work in person. According to the business card they open seven days a week. Now that’s handy information!

Business card printing is an art through which one must project the core business values and aesthetics of a company.

@Hillviewprint

I recently found a nice article at OPENforum written by Erica Swallow ( Twitter @ericaswallow )  pertaining to the inclusion of social media links on your business card. This is a comprehensive article with a number of really good examples, so after you read my summary go ahead and check out the whole thing for yourself at http://bit.ly/aGRACQ .

Erica notes that more and more people are including social media links such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Yotube and others on their business cards. After all in web 3 point oh we want to meet people where they are not force them to meet us at the place of our choosing. In other words simply directing people to your website might not be enough. Ask them to meet you where they like to hang out.

As I have said time and again your business card is simply a convenient way to communicate your contact information so include as many points of contacts as it makes sense to do. Do you have images to share? Maybe it makes sense to direct folks to your Flickr account. Showing videos? Maybe your YouTube channel is the place you want them to go.

Curious whether your business cards are driving traffic to your website? I have heard of some people using bit.ly tiny.url or unique domain names that identify the link as coming only from their business card – - interesting approach.

So don’t be anti-social invite your face-to-face contacts to meet you on the web wherever they are most comfortable. After all it is called “social networking”.

By Carolyn Howard-Johnson - Guest Blogger

I devote much of my time giving people tips on how to do things frugally. Business cards are perhaps one of the most frugal ways to promote your business and Reno’s website and book “Turn Your Business Card Into Business” are full of great low cost business networking ideas. Let me share a few of my own frugal marketing ideas for business cards directly from my book The Frugal Book Promoter (www.budurl.com/FrugalBkPromo) part of my HowToDoItFrugally series for retailers and writers.

I love business cards. the plain old, business-size cards that fit easily into wallets. The ones those little tech gadgets that attach to your computer will scan and add to any Outlook file in a flash, the ones that fit into either frugal or designer card carriers.

It’s not just that I love them because they’re frugal. It’s also because unlike the kind that fold, or the big ones, or the bookmarks or postcards that some people are using these days, the old-fashioned sort of business card tends to be kept. My husband keeps a stack of business cards for resources in an elastic band; he stows them in the drawer where he keeps all his pens and pencils and he never loses them. For him to keep them though, they must fit into his stack and contribute to the nice, dense little brick he is making of them. If they are too big or fat, they don’t make it into his unique little file system.

 I collect the business cards I’m given and enter them into Outlook when I get home. But if they’re odd-size, they may never get home with me. They’ll get lost in the bottom of my purse and stay there for a year. Because I’m a writer, I often get bookmarks in lieu of business cards. They’re nice. They’re useful. But they aren’t sure-fire marketers like cards. Those too clever for their own good bookmarks tend to get lost in the innards of books, never to be seen again.

Cards can also be used as mini advertisements if folks don’t get too tied up with what is acceptable in terms of design. But beautiful or just informational they 

• They mail flat.
• They’re keepable. Many people collect them.
• They’re inexpensive, (though I’ve never seen them truly free as VistaPrint often claims. They usually make up for their generosity with shipping costs.)
• They’re inexpensive enough that you can use several, each targeting the audience you want to reach. I have one for my HowToDoItFrugally books for retailers, one for the HowToDoItFrugally books for writers, one for my poetry and one for my fiction. I use them for other things, too, but more about that later. 

I believe in using business cards in unconventional ways. Here are some of the ways I’ve used them to promote:

• I make invitations for:
• My seminars.
• Each class I give at UCLA.
• My book launches.
• My radio and TV appearances.

Yep. I just hand them out and people have the dates, links—everything they need—to put on their calendars when they get home.

 This is how I use them:

• I pop them into the envelopes of bills (I still pay using USPS).
• I slide them into the books I mail to reviewers or as gifts
• I put them into the boxes of anything I ship.
• Occasionally I’ll even leave one or two in a ladies room. You never know who might be interested in what you are doing.
• I take them to writers’ conferences with me, tons of them. Writers in my audiences get one with handouts. One gets into every book that’s sold from the back of the room or from the bookstore the conferences set up.

 Conference and Tradeshow Idea: Let business cards help you organize tradeshows or conferences. Bring a seven-subject notebook, one section for each day or for each seminar you attend, etc. On each separator page tape a #10 envelope in which you can slip business cards, bookmarks, mini-notes to yourself, and small brochures. When you arrive home, part of your filing and sorting will be done. An envelope taped to the inside of your notebook cover should carry a batch of your own cards for easy access.

Here are some things I like to do with business cards:

• Use endorsements or blurbs liberally. They sell instead of merely informing.
• I use both sides. My preferred use for the back side is an offer for something free. People tend not to lose something that will get them something at no cost.
• When I am lucky enough to win an important prize, I sure enough mention it on my business card. Sometimes the organization that awards the prize provides logos that can be used on cards.
• I use them liberally in media kits, the kind with tiny diagonal slits in the fold-up pockets on the inside to accommodate a business card. If you’ve printed on both sides of your business card , show one side up in the slits on the left pocket, the other in the slits on the right.

 So, how do you use your business cards? Reno and I would like to know. That’s what the comment box on this blog is for, so, c’mon! Share!

Send an e-mail to HoJoNews@aol.com with “subscribe Reno“ in the subject line to receive Carolyn’s complimentary newsletter Sharing with Writers, full of promotion tips, craft, and publishing news.

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Blog contributor Carolyn Howard-Johnson,award winning author of The Frugal Book Promoter: How to Do What Your Publisher Won’t, and The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success. Her new booklet of word trippers is Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips for Writers: The Ultimate Frugal Booklet for Avoiding Word Trippers and Crafting Gatekeeper-Perfect Copy. Learn about them all at: http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com.

Today I met with the Arlington Heights “Connectors” in you guessed it Arlington Heights, IL, thanks to an invitation from my Blitztime buddy and SOC distributor Bob Prehn. What I know about connectors is, it was conceived of, I believe, by a woman named Fena who greeted me warmly when I arrived, though if she has another business I am not sure what it is as I did not get her business card. Same for the fellow name John who is the coordinator of this particular Arlington Heights Connectors group. I think I heard in the introductions that he is involved in financial services. Nice people. It is possible that another person named Tom might also be involved in the structure of the group but Tom only introduced himself as Tom so I am not sure what he does either so can’t give much of a shout out to him. I did gather from the conversations that the hope is to expand their “Connectors” brand regionally and beyond. So look for a Connectors Group coming soon near you.

To that end I encountered another networking buddy, financial advisor and Charter Member of our Business Card to Business Meetup Jeffery Harris who will soon be starting a Connectors Chapter in Oak Park, IL so if you are in that area keep an eye out for that networking opportunity. I also spotted my buddy Denise Netzel of Trend also a member of the Business Card to Business Meetup but we did not get a chance to speak.  

My new encounters included Ken Monroe of Display Signs and Designs who produces all manner of signage whether for Trade Shows, retail, indoor or outdoor signs, banners, large size, small size, one or one hundred. Whatever your sign needs Ken and Company will get ‘er done. Ken immediately invited me to call him today about the possibility of producing a short video featuring some examples of his work. After all it would be much easier if you could just take 30 seconds or a minute to look at what he does rather than trying to understand what he has to offer based on my typed narrative, after all a picture is worth a thousand words. You can quote me on that.

Speaking of the value of illustrated thought, I also met Ms. Elle Litwinetz provider of graphic design. Elle can help you with your branding package or the creation of any of your visual print or other graphic communication needs. A native of Maine she has washed ashore in the Midwest. I asked if she was familiar with Door County Wisconsin as people often equate the Peninsula’s nautical environs with that of Maine. Elle agreed that she had visited and that it was much like home. Those of you who are not familiar with this quaint get-a-way destination about 3.5 hours north of Chicago should take a look at www.doorcountynavigator.com where you can also enjoy a number of videos produced by me featuring the area and several of the area’s bed & breakfasts and resorts.

Since we are on a graphic theme today Hilary Schultz presented herself and her business card to me which features the intriguing words, Sort it – Scrap it – Click it – Slide it – Love it – Give it. Hillary represents Creative Memories which will as I understand it, arrange your visual material into a bound printed glossy paged book, that can be used to preserve memories and printed one-off as a keepsake or printed in quantity to be shared with a group such as your family, club, school, business or whatever. Nice idea!

The speaker of the day was Laurie Huspen President of  Valuable Resources, Co.  providing Human Resource Solutions for small and midsized companies who perhaps cannot afford a full time HR person of their own, or can benefit from some outside evaluation of their HR practices. Laurie who has a strong HR background tells a touching and compelling personal story in her presentation that illustrates why it is important to have a good PR strategy in your business. Not only to protect yourself, but also to actively demonstrate that you realize companies are made of real people; with real lives; and real concerns who are also, as her company name implies, Valuable Resources. Laurie is the author of Unveiled which documents her personal experiences as an employee with health issues from the perspective of a human resources professional. I will be suggesting that Laurie take a look at Engaging Speakers group that I blogged about earlier.

Thanks to those who took a moment to reach out and say hello and share a little of themselves with me today. Remember business cards are cheap. It is not about the ones that are thrown away – but about the ones that are kept. Meet someone today and seal the deal with a business card. I have met 42 new people in 23 days and blogged about them here.

Reno Lovison and Bruce Montgomery

This is an interview with Bruce Montgomery of Technology Access Televison discussing with Reno Lovison the relevance of business cards in today’s business environment. This is a 9 minute segment and is part one of a two part program. Enjoy and comment.