This may seem basic, but it’s far more than just ensuring that your Web address is on your business card. Because everybody has a Web address on their business card now. Too often, however, it blends in with the other contact information on the card. It doesn’t give people a reason to visit.

What if you could change that? What if you applied the same strategies you just implemented for your email signature, right on your business card as well? Are you using the back of your business card? If so, what for? Is it simply a picture of you, or your company logo? Or could it be better served with a call to action? What if the back of your business card offered one of the following:

1. Don’t just include your Web address. Include a link to your blog. Pick out some of your most popular and put a few samples. Don’t do massive print runs of your business cards so you can update them as you have new and interesting blog posts you’ve written or seen.
2. An invitation to subscribe to your email newsletter, with a link to the sign-up page
3. An offer for one of your new freebies, with a link to your Web site to redeem the offer

Simply listing a Web address on your business card is passive. Giving customers and prospects a reason to visit is active, and will generate far better response, traffic and business back to you!

At this point, real estate professionals sometimes ask us why we’re putting so much focus on Web sites and online information. The reason is simple – most people, both current and prospective customers, are more likely to take action online. They’re more likely to follow a knee-jerk reaction to click on a Web link, or visit a blog, than to make a phone call. They’re more likely to explore more information on their own, on their own time, as anonymously as possible, than identify themselves as more interested – at least in that moment.

Getting your customers and prospects to take an extra step online keeps them in control, but also gets them one step closer to a more intimate contact with you. The information they’re exploring – information you’ve already built to be directly relevant to them – will lead them closer to another transaction, or a new business relationship with you.

It will also significantly increase the “touches” you get with your customers. You may not be able to measure them all as phone calls, or walk-ins, but your business will be known far more exponentially by empowering customers and prospects with access to information, insights, content and giveaways right online.

Do you have a great business card? Scan it and send it to us or post a link to it or just send it to us in the mail. We’d love to share your creativity.