You are a startup and/or an entrepreneur. Money is tight and you are thinking about how to make the most of your marketing budget.
The business card should be your first step. It’s like a pair of pants; you never leave home without them, and just like pants, even though having them won’t mean you are the new mogul. Not having them WILL make your customers think you may be just a little strange.
Do yourself the favor of getting professional looking clean business cards. By all means, be original if that is something that you think describes you and your company. However, there are a few do’s and don’ts to consider.

1. Don’t use “cool” materials.

Plastic, metal, cloth, even the high gloss cardstock will definitely make a statement. However, you can’t write on them. And writing on your card is something that you will want to do at one time or another. This is something that I will guarantee you. If you have a good quality cardstock for your cards, writing an extra phone number, a personal note or something else on it will be easy. Try that one on a piece of Tartan Cloth.

2. Don’t get fancy with the text.Use clear and readable fonts, try to stick to one or max two font choices for the card. There is nothing worse than needing bright task lighting and a magnifier to find out what your phone number is. It might be a conversation topic, but it won’t help you get a sale when the customer tries to get in touch with you.

3. Avoid the photo background

The photo background can if used correctly be very effective. However, more often than not I get cards where the picture and text haven’t been placed with consideration to each other, making some parts of the text disappear in the background. Again, not the thing you want from a business card. It also normally means you get a glossy card – the ones you can’t write on.

4. Use the real estate

If you owned a lot in Manhattan, you would quickly find something to put on it. Just letting it sit empty wouldn’t make any sense to anyone. Incredibly, most people leave the back of their cards blank. This is prime real estate; you can put any number of things there to make you stand out. Anything from a company description, your mission or vision statement, a motivational saying or quote, the potential is endless.
One of my favorites for startup businesses is to put a “coupon” on the back of the card. This not only makes you stand out, but it makes your prospects more likely to actually call you.

5. Get help

Almost all of us know someone with artistic talent, and professional graphic designers are not that uncommon either. Maybe you know one that you can get help from. Maybe they will want you to pay them but you’ll get a reduced rate, maybe they will give you a boost for free.
If nothing else, ask as many people as possible what they think of the card before you order it. Do your own marketing research before you spend the money. You might not be seeing what the rest of the world sees.
As a perfect example, I was recently working with a startup company that did their own design work. The logo looked great in full size, but when scaled down to fit on a business card, one part of it stood out to look like a certain part of the male anatomy. If they were selling Viagra, this could have been a fun trick. For a web design company it might not have been the best.

6. Pick your poison

There are plenty of places online that will print good looking business cards for free (charging only shipping and handling is common. They are definitely a viable option. They will create much better quality cards than your home printer can normally spit out, and is an extremely strong cost/benefit solution.

If you have a little more available in your budget and want more design options, it may actually be a better investment to get a designed card and print them at a local printer. This however normally involves design fees as well as much higher printing costs.

Regardless of how you do it, not having a business card would be your worst mistake.