Wednesday 18 September 2013

Make It Easy

We all see dozens of business cards in our daily rounds. It is still a basic way of leaving contact details with someone you meet and is considered a courtesy in many instances. 
The purpose is to allow them to have a quick record of your phone number(s), your email address and other details of interest. Your web site is usual and possibly your social media contacts, twitter, facebook, etc. 
There is usually some thought on the design so that it follows some kind of theme along with the website, your logo and your branding generally. You may have a short list on the back of the card of your principal activities and services.
However important this is, it is secondary to the contact details. Surely you want your potential customers to be able to phone you and email you quickly and easily? 
Given that the major part of most businesses audience is adult and increasingly given to wearing glasses why would you use an obscure font or have the numbers so small that they cannot be read clearly? 

Some cards have numbers so coloured by difficult backgrounds that the numbers are hard to read. I have seen email addresses so small that the presence of the oft seen dot in the address is unclear. Personally I have reached the stage where I cannot read small print in poor light. I am lucky in that this is quite new to me at a relatively advanced age. Others need reading glasses some decades before I have done. 

To struggle to read the email I need to make contact is frustrating and off putting. It shows a lack of outside view when designing and approving the cards. It indicates an insular view to business that may apply all through. 
Just yesterday I caught out a major supermarket with the wrong phone contact number on their website page for a particular store. In that case it is an oversight and somebody's fault. In the case of a small business you should want your contacts to be clear. 
In short if they cannot be read it is your fault not your customers'. A small point but a vital one. 
Bob Shepherd Associates takes an external view of a client's business. The small points may add up!

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