Advertising Your Website With Original Business Cards

From Another Blooming Designer. Business card as houseplant.

A website is part of your advertisement. It is a place where people can learn about your business, who you are, what you sell, what your specials of the month are, and any other information that can get them to use your services. 

But just because you have an online presence doesn't mean that people are automatically going to come to your website. Your website, which is an advertisement for your services, also needs it own publicity! Yes, we have to advertise our websites so that people can access them to see what our services are.

There are many unusual and original ways for you to get people to pay attention to your website based on a loose concept of business cards. Ordinary business cards are 3.5"x2" cards with a 15pt thickness, where you put your pertinent information. But now they have become much more imaginative and interesting. I have blogged about this, and written an article on it (please refer to my main website for information about my articles).

Below are some examples of business cards taken to another level. You can wear, hand out, send these "cards", or find any number of ways to get them out to your potential customers. You can put them at the counter in your store (and even sell some of them), you can leave them in other stores or community centers, you can get your kids to wear them around town (t-shirts would be a good one), and the rest is up to your imagination!

Here are some imaginative examples:

- Stickers and fridge magnets

- Small pins

- Matches

- Holiday ornaments 

- Small toys

- Functional things like pens, pencils, key chains, coasters

- Fun shapes and objects

- Games such as playing cards

- Mimic your store - if yours is a bakery, make some shapes that resemble breads or pies

- Make something crafty - like a hand-sewn sachet

- And more...

You can read more at this site. The great thing is that once you start using your imagination, all kinds of ideas start popping up.

Promoting Your Website

In my article, How to Make the Most of Your Website, I have a section called:

How serious are you about promoting your work?

Here is a list of my recommendations.

The most important being:

Use every setting possible to publicize your website.

* Post on online sites

Find other websites to link to yours (and link theirs to yours)
Post your website on blogs and online groups
Start your own blog, and link to other like-minded blogs
Leave messages with comments and your services (subtly) on online boards
Send out your website on E-news letters
Find commercial websites that can advertise your site (usually for a small fee)

* Sign off everything with your website

On your business card
On your brochures
On any article or piece of writing

* Tell people your website address

Try to make your website easy to remember. This could be through a short address, a meaningful address (i.e. it spells out your company name clearly) or other ways to make your contact remember your website.
Just saying your website address can trigger someone to look it up later

* Put your website in visible places

On t-shirts
On paintings or craft work
On cars
On carry-on bags
On other merchandise

* Make sure that search engines like google can easily find your website.

For more information on how to obtain the article: How to Make the Most of Your Website, please go to kidistdesigns.com, and follow the membership information.

Book Review: The Irresistible Offer

Mark Joyner has a series of books out with no nonsense strategies about how to sell you product.

The Irresistible Offer: How to Sell Your Product or Services in 3 Seconds or Less (TIO) of course starts with the premise that you have something to...offer. And not only that, that you have something to offer to some-one (some group) which is "thirsty" - his words - for your product or services.

In TIO, Joyner stresses the TOUCHSTONE, an integral part of your business idea which will give the irresistible offer to your clients.

The most interesting example he gives is the touchstone for Domino's Pizza: "Delivery in 30 minutes or money back" became a phenomenon. Whether people liked the pizza or not (although Joyner always stresses quality), people would order Domino's just to be guaranteed a hot pizza delivered in record time.

Joyner's next book, The Great Formula for Creating Maximum Profit with Minimal Effort takes off where TIO left, and this time his idea is how to continually sell the product once we have the TIO and the thristy crowd.

One ingenious idea, from some case studies he presented, is an e-book publisher who used a simple concept to get his clients continually interested: Volume I, Volume II, Volume III... You get the picture.

Both books are chock full of ideas. They are written in an easy, conversational way, and can enhance anyone's library.

The Importance of Branding

Your website is only one of your marketing tools. There should be other methods with which you're making your work known. The most obvious are business cards, letter heads and other printable material.

Yes, print is still important in this cyber world. Just like radio and video (remember that song?)

Anyway, one of the most important things you can do is to brand your company or your work. A logo or image that identifies you will be a sure way for people to remember who you are. This could be a color scheme, something that relates to the idea of your website, something that incorporates some of your work, etc...

If people can remember your name or your company's name, and some kind of visual assistance, you will be a step ahead of your competitors. This of course goes on all of your web, print and other material. You can even get creative and wear a t-shirt or sweat shirt with this information on them. A simple identity makes all the difference.

Think of the Gap. Just with three simple letters and two colors, one color for the background and one for the letters, we can see the store a mile away. My all time favorite is Nike. No words needed, and the symbol itself tells a whole story.