Is your networking up to scratch?

Take a look at your networking material, whether it’s your business card, leaflets, brochures or whatever, and consider these few pointers:

• What kind of material (card, paper, plastic) is it made of? Does it look cheap or expensive? Does it reflect the quality you want to portray?

• What colours have you used? Are they appropriate to your product/service? Don’t use your favourite colours if they are not suitable to your business. Also, be aware of how legible they are, eg red or yellow on a white background (does it disappear?), pale text on a dark background (may be trendy, but how easy is it to read?), combination of opposite colours (jumpy or what?).

• How unique is your card? If you got it off the internet, do you run the risk of meeting someone else at a networking event with the same design? Alternatively, if you designed it yourself, is it instantly recognisable as being produced by a home printer? Is it bland, ordinary, uninteresting, boring? Could it catch a prospective customer’s eye?

• Does it say what’s in the tin? How many times have you taken a business card home and you can’t fathom or remember what the company is about? If your business name doesn’t reflect the nature of your product/service, do you have a strapline or description to help the recipient? Does your logo also help in recognition?

Now for the action - if you (or somebody else you know) are not providing positive responses to these questions, and you would like to have marketing material that is professional, attractive and effective, then - go ask Alice!

Facing up to networking

Has anybody thought about putting a small portrait of themselves on their business card? Three reasons why came to mind: 1) so the recipient of your card wouldn’t have to rack their brains to remember what face was associated with this card after a networking meeting, 2) if you were arranging a meeting to, say, discuss a particular project or tout your new product, the other party would know who to look out for across a large hotel foyer or busy coffee shop, preventing the red carnation scenario, and 3) if someone wants to telephone or email you, having your image in front of them can help making that initial contact all that much easier…

Does anybody else have another reason for having your face smiling forth from your networking material?

Conceptual Considerations

More ideas gained through networking! Discussing what you do with all those business cards and leaflets you pick up at these events, my friend suggested promotional literature that is already hole-punched for storing in files, and the information could be designed around the holes. Also, why not have a tag on the side that sticks out further than the rest of the paperwork which contains recognisable details for instantly accessibility. Trouble is, this could be more expensive to produce; I will let you know my thoughts on this later after some try-outs.