When you visited a potential customer or just met someone that seems interested in your business in the past, you would give them your business card (some still do on this day of course). These cards contain information such as your phone number, e-mail and address. But, whilst being in the midst of 2020, we see a shift happening. Fewer and fewer people use business cards nowadays, and more people are switching to an online variant: a website.
Why is a website better?
There are many people that say handing out business cards is old fashioned. One of the reasons being is that most of the communication nowadays happens online anyway. Therefore, it feels unnecessary to hand out a business card. People nowadays much rather say something like “Check out our website!” or they just come across your website via Google. And, to be completely honest, a website has some big advantages over a business card.
For example, you can present your services & products and the advantages of your company much better and you can show how other people use your products or think about your business. We’ll go a little bit deeper into these subjects below.
Present the advantages of your product
The first, big advantage of a website over a business card is that it’s much easier to show what you as a company can do for the other person/company. Next to this, you can present the advantages of your product or service in comparison to your competitors.
Let’s say you are a supplier of gardening tools and you have your own brand. With the use of pictures, graphs and infographics you can clearly show the differences between your products and your competitors. This, of course, is something a ‘simple’ business card could never do.
International possibilities
Thinking about taking your business to the next level by exploring foreign countries? Your website can be very useful for this as well. Because it is all digital content, it can be very easily translated by a translation agency. With a translated website, it is very easy to switch between the different languages. This way you can speak to people from different countries through one platform.
There are a few technical things that have to be taken into account when translating a website for international purposes, but for an average web developer this shouldn’t be any problem. It’s just a matter of inserting a certain type of code to your website.
Deliver the message of your brand
Another big plus of using a website as your business card is that you can present your brand and it’s story/motives much better. With the use of media like pictures and video, you can really create something of your own and convince people that your brand is THE brand for them.
With just a business card, it’s hard to really come through with your intentions and motives. But with a website it’s relatively easy. Besides, as research has shown, people much rather look at types of media since this requires less effort to take in. This makes it substantially more effective than a ‘simple’ business card with some basic information.
Show customer reviews
Your website can also be that last push over the edge for someone to buy your product or reach out to you. Customer reviews can therefore be a very powerful tool of persuasion. Instead of trying to convince people how awesome and perfect your products/services are by telling them all of your advantages, you can also let your previous customers talk for you.
Ask customers to write a review or testimonial and place them, if possible, on your website with a name and picture. This way, people will know that the reviews are legit and can be trusted. By showing sincere reviews and testimonials on your website, you show your potential customers that you are trustworthy and people like your products.