All About Branding Beyond Business Cards

beyond business cards timeless marketing tactics that still work offline advertising print ads

When you run a business, staying on your customers’ minds is a constant battle. The war for consumers’ attention — and, therefore, their business — is never-ending, and in this day and age, the battles are fought everywhere. Your customers may see your competitors on billboards or on flyers they find in their mailbox. They may spot your competitors online, too, either in ads or on the results page of a search engine like Google. 

In our modern world, you will need more than just a business card to hand to your customers. You will need a full marketing strategy that keeps your business on your customers’ minds

Put Your Name On It 

Business cards work, at least in theory, because they are a handy way for consumers to get your business’ name, address, and phone number. In practice, though, how likely are your customers to check your card again after they pocket it? As a reminder, the business card doesn’t do as much as it could. An effective business card can still be a nice thing, but you’ll need to go way beyond that if you want to stay on customers’ minds. 

Business cards have their limitations, but other signature items can do a lot. Take promotional pens, for example. They’re not necessarily designed (as business cards are) to help customers keep a conscious record of your business’ information — their task is to jog customer’s memories occasionally. And since everyone could use a pen, promotional pens do their jobs admirably. Wouldn’t it be nice to have your customers reminded of your business every time they cut a check? 

You can do much more than just pens, of course. From custom stationery to flying discs and other toys emblazoned with your company’s logo, you can customize so much more than just business cards. 

Finding Your Home Online 

These days, customers don’t often open the phone book. They rarely even window shop. Customers find businesses using search engines, and that’s why search engine optimization is so important. 

Search engine optimization is the practice of making your business’ web presence as appealing as possible to popular search engines like Google and Bing. To do that, you’ll need a great website and social media presence — but you’ll need more than that, too. You’ll need the help of experts in SEO, who will tweak your web presence to ensure that it is in line with the latest things we know about Google’s complicated and top-secret algorithm. 

Curb Appeal 

Your business needs to draw in people. Customers who drop by need to feel welcome, and the folks who are just walking or driving by should contemplate coming in. 

How can you make this happen for your business? You need to pay attention to your curb appeal. 

You have a lot of ways to boost your business’ curb appeal. It starts with basic maintenance, of course — your business or storefront should look its best, with clean windows, fresh paint, and some nice landscaping out front. From there, take a critical look at your signage. Is your signage bold, legible, and attractive? Does your signage make it clear what sort of business yours is? 

Consider sprucing up your window displays, too — and remember that, if you don’t have a window display, whatever is visible through your windows is your window display. Keep your business space clean, organized, and inviting, so that customers walking by will want to come in. 

Getting and keeping customers isn’t easy these days, but you can still do it with a mix of classic techniques and modern tech services. Business cards are just the beginning.


I hope you enjoyed this blog post about why business cards and other classic marketing tactics still work well even in the digital age.

Interested in more articles about classic marketing techniques?

Read Related Resources:

Timeless Marketing Tactics That Work Like A Charm

How To Get Help With Your Cards

More Bootstrap Business Blog Below 

Official Bootstrap Business Blog Newest Posts From Mike Schiemer Partners And News Outlets