The Coronavirus will surely leave it’s mark on the business world. But maybe in its hostile takeover, COVID-19 will dispose of one of the most meaningless marketing tools yet, the business card.
If the advisor to the president would like us to cease handshaking forever, he certainly would be in favor of demolishing the germ-infested little cards we hand to everyone we meet.
After all, what is it that this little card actually accomplishes?
Business cards ultimately have four purposes:
- Delivers your name alongside company brand
- Shares your contact information
- Serves as a name tag during meetings and;
- Offers the perfect place to dispose of Wrigley’s Doublemint gum in a bind
Business cards have an incredible ability to wander into trash cans (even when recycling is available) or hide tightly-huddled together by a rubber band in your junk drawer never to be seen again.
Business cards are outdated. That’s right, I said it.
Navigating a world without business cards
Luckily for all of us, the end of business cards has been looming for years, and with its inevitable demise, developers have been creating digital solutions to help accomplish what the business card does with better efficiency.
Drop it like its hot
One possible option is proximity dropping. Countless services offer contact sharing through proximity, like square. Users can select to share their information, and receivers can decide whether to accept or delete right on their phones. The information is sorted and viewers can easily search by industry, company or name.
Is there a better place for business contacts than your cell phone? I don’t think so. We trust our cell phone with all of our most valuable information. These trusted devices know how to store and sort information better than we do. And it’s saved on the cloud, so we can always access it.
We can’t predict which platform will end up on top, but CamCard has over 84,000 reviews in the Apple store at almost 5 stars. If you find yourself with idle hands during the Shelter in Place order, start to embrace the change and import your cards.
Once the trend takes off, it won’t be long before Apple and Android create (or buy) their own platforms for digital contact sharing.
Search. You’re doing it anyway.
In addition to digital business cards, we’ll likely continue to find contact information the Millennial way — Googling it.
Knowing that people will be using business cards less, websites will need to incorporate better ways of sharing contact information without falling into a spam trap. Through web forms and invisible captchas, consider giving your site visitors a way to reach out to employees directly through your website.
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So you’re saying the business card is done forever?
Sadly, no. Like it always does, the business card will rise again like a phoenix from the ashes of burnt letterpress cardstock and debossed gold foil. After all, it’s a marketing staple, right? But when it does, please make sure that your business card accomplishes goals 1-3 in a way that’s unique, or prepare to find it stuck to the bottom of your clients’ trash can.
