Real Estate Agents

Effective Business Card Design Secrets To Win more Prospects!

Every professional needs a professionally designed business cards. The term professionally designed however, does not have to mean a company logo, and company name across the top. Now, if you are a Real Estate Agent, then you may need to check with your broker to see how much flexibility you have with your card design, in general Real Estate agencies and franchises try to sell their agents to market the agency’s name and logo. Real Estate Investors can be more creative, However they tend to follow the same general business card principles used by everyone else.

A typical Real Estate Agent business card usually contains the following:

1. Company Logo
2. Company Name
3. Agent Photo
4. Agent Name
5. Slogan
6. Address, and contact information

How to maximize visibility using the front of your business card to win more prospects

Like everything else in your marketing, business cards should sell your services to whoever get their hands on one. Statistically speaking, over 65% of prospects sign with the first Real Estate Agent they talk to. Good number of them rely on referrals. So it is critical that your business card be memorable a month, six months, or a year from now.

There are different elements to the business card design, the colors, the look of the card, and who is it designed to receive it. One of the elements I like in the commonly used Agent business cards is the agent photo. This helps establish some comfort level with the prospect because now they can associate a face with the agent, but most importantly, people remember faces more so than names.

Colors wise, I like flashy colors. I like to use black font on yellow stock paper, red font on yellow, yellow font on red, and combinations of colors that research showed to grab attention. While this may sounds outrageous to some, the idea is to be remembered, not win a professional design, eye appealing contest. If you take out five or six business cards from your pocket, or from your desk drawer, which card would stand out to you? My business card does an amazing job at it and so should yours.

The next important part is the content. Your card is not a billboard to advertise your name, or company name. It is a marketing tool that’s job is to convince a prospect to contact you first if they ever need a service like yours. This is not accomplished by displaying your company’s name or your name across the top of the business card. Once they are convinced that this is the service they need, they can see your name, your company name, and contact information. Make the title something catchy, something that communicate what you do best. This is your business card’s headline.

You can add a slogan if you like, that is optional. Although, I know some companies that require it. If you include a slogan, then it must tell your prospect something of value. What is your unique selling proposition (USP)? Telling them that you are a professional, or a cute phrase is a waste of space. Your slogan is your sub headline. It should re-enforce your headline, or it should not be on the business card.

The rest of the front of the business card should be dedicated to list couple of services you specialize in if you do not plan on using the back of the card in addition to your contact information, or just your contact information. As far as the contact information goes, it depends on who you are giving the card to but the list should be one of the following:

1. Your name
2. Your business address (never your home)
3.  Direct phone number that you answer all the time, does not have to be your office number
4. Fax number
5. Website
6. Email

It is not important to list all of them however. Would the type of prospects you give business cards to really need all this information? My investing business card for example contains my headline, which takes 1/3 of my business card front, my phone number takes another 1/3, and my name and company name in the last 1/3. you see, I want my prospects to know what I do, and I want them to contact me via phone only so I never give them any other information. My second set of business cards however, do have all of my information, these I only give to professionals I deal with such as banks, mortgage brokers, title companies, other agents and investors.

So decide which way you want your prospects to contact you. Do they really care about your fax number? does your website designed to convert them into clients if they visit it or is it another version of your business card? do you check your email regularly?

One final note on the front of the card. Do get the glossy kind. Local printers do charge more for them, but they are extremely affordable online. I can tell you, it makes all the difference in the world. Your business card will definitely stand out more, and it will last longer.

How to maximize the use of the back of the business card

There is always a debate on what to put on the back of the business cards. Some of the options are:

1. A calendar
2. Leave it blank to write comments on it
3. Some spiritual, inspirational, or cute quote
4. List of services you do

A calendar is by far the less practical approach because your business cards’ life span is too short. you can hand them out at the end of the previous year, and the beginning of the current year but they become useless quickly. Besides, how many of your prospects will keep them just for the calendar?

Laving the back of the card blank to write on is a good idea. Just make sure the printshop will keep the matte finish on the back of the business cards and only gloss the front. This gives you the flexibility to write down a comment, an offer, another phone number, or anything you like. But for me, this is again a waste of business card space. In reality, you will hardly write on them.

Putting some quote on the business card is by far the worst thing you can do. Not everyone may share your beliefs, or agree with what you put, and it has no value what so ever to your business card marketing approach.

The last one is by far my favorite. You can list, or write small paragraph that enforces your marketing message. It could be used to provide them  more information about your services that a headline could not communicate. I believe this is The way to go, and I encourage you to do t.

You should have as many business cards as you need to market yourself

As you can see, your options are wide open. you may specialize in more than one niche. You may network with other professionals more so than you hand out business cards to prospects. The right answer should be to get as many business cards as your business needs. Get professional looking ones to hand out to other professionals. Get some that are designed for different niches. Get some that has blank back, or different list of services.

There is no law that says you should have one and only one business card, or you should have up to two. The only drawback would be the cost, but even that is insignificant compared to the potential. you can order 250 of each, or 5000 of each. it is your call. My advice however is to order small quantities first in case you need to tweak the business card and improve on its content.

Whatever you do though, don’t use cheap looking business cards or ones that you get for free in exchange for the printshop putting their logo on your card. We are Real Estate Professionals, so we need to communicate to our prospects and other professionals that we can afford at least a business card.

I have included under my Resources page links to some of the printshops I recommend. Some offer online designer where you can design your business cards on the fly.

Happy Marketing!

 

© 2008 Fadi Zeidan’s Articles.