We’ve all been there. You’re at a conference and you’re talking to someone who could be a potential client or business partner. They hand you their business card, and you:
(A) Forgot your business cards at home (again)
(B) Awkwardly hand them your business card, which isn’t as cool as theirs.
(C) Proudly hand them your business card, which they then put into their back pocket with twenty other cards they have collected throughout the day.
Business cards are a dime a dozen in the world of networking and conferences. Unless you make a lasting impression on every person you hand your card to, it’s unlikely that your card will end up in a pile of similar, albeit well designed, cards. Unless you personally follow up with everyone person you exchanged cards with, it’s likely that they won’t remember what card belongs to who.
But we’re not here to talk about how to get your card to stand out from the pile. And we’re not here to talk about your followup strategy or the followup strategy of every person who you met with.
I’M HERE TO TALK ABOUT A NEW STAPLE IN THE WORLD OF CALLING CARDS: PROMOTIONAL STICKERS.
You might say, “You want me to put all my contact information on a sticker? Isn’t that tacky?” Or, “What are you talking about? Stickers have been around forever.” Or, “What even is a promotional sticker?”.
HERE’S SOME PROMOTIONAL STICKER TRICKS:
- Produce stickers with illustrations related to your brand, and make sure to put your name, website, or social media handle somewhere on the sticker.
- If illustrations aren’t your thing, having a well-designed logo or phrase on a sticker is likely to get plastered somewhere just out of a designer’s love for good typography.
- If the sticker relates strongly enough to your brand, when it gets stuck, it becomes (at least semi) permanent advertising for your brand. It doesn’t get shoved into the back of a desk drawer with the one hundred and fifty other business cards never to be heard from again.
- When it comes to design or design brands, stickers are a hot commodity. We use stickers to personalize our MacBooks and Moleskines in a world where every designer virtually has the same item.
The cost may be higher, but so will your return on investment. A popular choice for high-quality sticker production includes StickerMule. If you want an illustrated sticker for your brand, there are many designers (including myself), who would love to be a part of your project.
