We all know that one of the primary rules of freelance marketing is “always have business cards with you.” However, this can be harder than it sounds: first, you have to have a good location for the cards. The positive impression you’re trying to create is definitely ruined if you have to rummage through your bag for ten minutes to find where you put the cards, or if you extract a card that’s been folded and mutilated beyond all recognition. At networking events, I often struggle with the best place to put cards; loose in my pocket, they’re likely to get messy. In a holder in my wallet, they take too long to remove. Second, many freelancers have several styles of business cards. My business is fairly streamlined and I still have three kinds of business cards, which are tough to fit into my wallet-sized card holder.
Enter a suggestion from Portuguese and French to English translator Zoë Perry, who suggests solving all of these problems at once with miniature business cards from Moo and a mini-card holder that you can put in your pocket or on your keyring. I’m not easily sucked in by marketing swag, and I thought this was a really neat idea. Moo allows you to get multiple designs in one pack of mini-cards, and the card holder can accommodate 12 cards at once. At $25.00 for 100 mini-cards and a holder, this seems like a good marketing investment for 2011 (and this is not an affiliate deal!). This tiny card holder would be easy to carry in your pocket at a networking event, and with it on your keyring you could even network in the supermarket checkout line.
One thing: I just might have to wait to purchase these cards until Moo removes the cardstock accolade “We chose it for it’s [sic] thickness…” from their website. This is one of those errors I’m tired of seeing, especially from a media company! Moo, please fix this, because I really want a set of mini-cards and I can’t in good conscience support that misplaced apostrophe!
Readers, any other ideas for fun and useful new marketing tools for this year?
Corinne,
Despite Moo’s little hiccup, I’m one of their happy customers and ordered cards for ATA Denver. They were a HIT! I didn’t order the mini cards, but rather the regular size ones, with images from my web site. I had (and still have) about 5-7 images to choose from and got many compliments. It really made people remember me, plus it makes a great conversation piece if you pick different images.
I’ll show them to you next time I see you :)!
About marketing, I did get something very sweet in the shape of an early Valentine from our colleague Eve Bodeux. I thought it was very neat to get something that was unrelated to the the end-of-year rush 🙂
Best,
Cris
Cris, thanks for the tip on the full-size cards, those are a great idea too and I would love to see them. And I agree, Eve’s Valentine’s Day cards were a fantastic idea because they stand out from the end of the year rush. International Translation Day (September) is another good time to do something out of the box!
I ordered Moo mini-cards and made little booklets out of them. I printed ten different translation tips on the cards and ended up with ten ten-page booklets for a 100-pack of cards. I bound them using a hole punch and either waxed cotton string (I used several strands to make a little tassel) or a very thin wire ring (like for a keyring only thinner). I also used the booklets as tags on little bags of personalized M’n’M candies (with our business name printed on the M’n’Ms). They make fun and unexpected little gifts I give my clients for no reason in particular (when stopping by their office or when attending a meeting). The Moo mini cards are so cute they make everyone smile 🙂
Sara, that is *such* a great idea, you are always full of innovative marketing ideas! And really that opens up a lot of possibilities for the Moo cards; you could do the 10 most commonly misspelled words in your language, 10 steps to getting the most for your translation dollar, and on and on. Brilliant! Just out of curiosity, how did the M and Ms turn out??
I was really disappointed in the quality of the printing on the M and M’s. From what other people have told me, they usually look a lot better than the ones I ordered. They are really expensive, too, so I don’t think I’ll do it again. There are probably cheaper and better-looking branded candy gifts out there…