Following a recent office move it occurred to me that we need to update some of our office stationery. Our business cards, letterheads, compliment slips have out of date contact information on. Hang on though, we’ve been in business for nine years and never printed any letterhead. We produce pretty much everything electronically so actually we just need to update some templates. That’s easy enough.
Business cards however are a different matter entirely. Maybe they are an old fashioned idea? Is it an unnecessary cost? Do people actually keep business cards these days or just throw them in a drawer, or worse still do they save your number in their mobile and then just throw them away.
All of your hard work trying to design something special reflects your brand and that looks like good quality just ends up discarded.
Maybe I’m a bit old school but I still feel the need to give a client or a candidate something so that they have all of my contact details in one place. Who knows, maybe they will pass it on to someone else who needs our services. I still have business cards of people who I met years ago, many of whom I am still in touch with. Those cards sometimes serve as a useful prompt to stay in touch.
Alas, I think that the next generation will scratch their heads and wonder why “in the olden days” people went to meetings armed with a small piece of cardboard with their name printed on it. What a strange idea it will seem to them. The people that they want to keep in touch with will be saved as some binary code in a digital device of some form, be it their phone, laptop, tablet or something as yet unconceived by any of us.
So here I am, trying to bridge the gap between cardboard and the digital world with a QR code on our new business cards. At least this way I hope that if someone wants to leave our business cards in their drawer, handbag, wallet or pocket, or use it to stop their kitchen table from wobbling, they will scan it first and be able to save our contact details straight to their phone.
Am I on my own here? I would genuinely welcome people’s thoughts on whether this is a totally outdated concept or if I am just overthinking the little piece of cardboard that I never leave home without.
Either way, if you don’t have my contact details and you want to get in touch, you can scan my QR Code here and add me to your directory:
