How Interactive Business Cards Can Boost Your Business

Your business card can be your most effective selling tool. Since its inception in the early 17th century as a 'trade card', the job of a business card has been to make your business stand out from the competition and inform your customers about the products or services you offer.

The struggle to be unique and creative has led to a dizzying variety of business cards in the last decade, from those printed on thin sheets of metal, plastic (like credit cards), or magnets to high quality papers with unusual textures, cuts, or complex origami-like folds. Only in the last few years has a truly media-savvy incarnation of the business card been seen: the shaped CD business card.

The CD business card may look like a traditional business card in terms of its basic shape and information, but it packs the punch of an all-out multimedia presentation, complete with product catalogs, video infomercials, website links, and all the bells and whistles you could ask for. Compared to the name, phone number, and website URL of a traditional business card, there's no contest when it comes to selling power.

CD business cards can come in a variety of shapes, including rectangle, rounded corners, and the circular mini CD. Some companies offer custom shaped CDs as well. No matter their shape, the CD business cards can play in tray-loading CD-ROMs (found in personal computers and laptops), and many are programmed with AutoRun features to make it as easy as possible for your potential customer to sit back and enjoy the show.

While handing out a CD-ROM business card to your prospective clients at trade shows, sales meetings, and through direct mail are good ways to distribute your information and build your brand, if the information on them isn't relevant to the client or interesting enough, chances are your hard work and careful planning will end up in the trash. Fortunately, there are several creative ways you can use your CD-ROM business cards that you may not have considered:

1. Send dynamic annual reports to stock holders

2. Include printable coupons for products or services

3. Train your staff through video demonstrations, games, quizzes, and other interactive media

4. Highlight a single new product

5. Distribute a completely "offline" version of your entire corporate website

6. Send out a portfolio with examples of projects completed for other clients and customer testimonials

7. Provide virtual tours of facilities or real estate

8. Distribute extensive product catalogues with dynamic and interactive features

9. Educate employees or clients on their insurance policies, retirement plans, etc.

10. Create a corporate CD-newsletter for employees, stockholders, and/or clients

These uses are just the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps they will suggest other practical uses for CD-ROM business cards more ideally suited to your business or organization. The marketing potential of business card CDs is limited only by your creativity.