Points of Contact

Pull out your business card and have a look and see how many points of contact do you have on your card? One? Two? Three or more?

It seems that many feel that because they have an email address or a website, they no longer need to add any further contact information on their business cards. I believe this is the wrong way to think and you need to make it easy on your prospective clients.

As an avid networker I go out regularly to meet with other business people and what they put on their business cards always interests me. Sometimes it’s just a phone number. Sometimes just an email address. Sometimes just a website. Very rarely an address or a location.  One person I met today I queried about it and he’d forgotten to add his phone number and location when he got them printed in a hurry. oops! And in his field location is an important piece of information.

There are many different personalities out there and clients with different needs. Some want to visit your website and learn about you and your services before they make contact. BUT, that doesn’t mean they want to fill out a form, or even send an email. What if they have problems with typing, or with their ability to write and put sentences together? What if people prefer to speak with you on the phone? What if they want to find out if you’re local to them first (important if the line of work they want done requires face-to-face contact or passing on of work).

Don’t shut out some of your target market by making it harder for them to contact you. Make sure you provide the information they need to make it easy to contact you:  Phone number, suburb/location (or address), email address and website should be on your cards. Give them options and appeal to everyone, instead of just a proportion of your target market. Just because you favour one point of contact, doesn’t mean your clients do. And let’s face it. If clients are not computer or internet literate it’s all the more reason why they need your support services – give them a phone number! This is my current business card and on the back I have some information on the types of services I provide and my postal address.