This is the first in an upcoming series of articles about how to promote almost anything locally. By locally I mean in the real world, RL, meatspace, facetime, whatever you want to call it. Most people forget that opportunities exist in your local area to promote your site genuinely to people. Often, if a person learns about a concept, service, or website in real life, they have more trust and confidence in it than if they were to see it online, simply because of the personal factor.
Business cards are a great, cheap, set-and-forget way to promote whatever you want. Just about anything can fit: affiliate links, referrals, websites, company names, etc. You can hand out business cards to people you meet. Small stacks left at counters or with other brochure-type publications are often picked up by curious readers. Many libraries or local stores have bulletin boards that you can utilize for promotion. The cards themselves don’t take up a lot of room; 5-10 business cards can easily fit in a wallet for whenever you need them.
Verbal recommendations can be easily forgotten, and that’s what’s good good about using business cards: they give people a concrete reminder whenever they see the card.
One flaw of using business cards as promotion is the small amount of information that fits on them. If people don’t have any background information, curiosity isn’t always enough. That’s why it’s good to form a 1-2 minute pitch to give to acquaintances if you plan on handing them a card.
You can get business cards custom made for a huge range of prices, but the cheaper the better. Many online printing companies offer free custom business cards for new customers, all you do is pay shipping. Here are a few:
Card Connection offers 250 free full-color or raised print cards
VistaPrint offers 250 free full-color business cards
You can always print your own, but this takes ink and time, and may not be as effective as professionaly printed and cut cards.
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