When You SHOULDN’T Order Business Cards For Your Handmade Business

You only sell online

The most common situation in which you really don’t need business cards is if you only sell online. In this situation you won’t be interacting in person with any customer or retail partner or anything like that. 

So there’s really no need for you to have a business card. The only reason you would use a business card in this case is in your packaging for the unboxing experience, right? And truthfully, you’re better off using something that doesn’t look like a business card in your packaging such as a flyer or postcard — something a bit bigger than a business card that you could use specifically as a packaging insert.

Using a flyer or postcard lets you print a message that is specifically dedicated to someone unboxing a package. It can be a thank you note, an incentive for the next purchase like a coupon code, something like that – and will also contain your business information.

So as you can see it’s not worth having a business card just for your packaging, there are better options.

4 Common Business Card Mistakes You Should Avoid

Now if you have read the above scenarios and you ARE going to print business cards, I want to take a minute to warn you about 4 common business card mistakes that I see handmade sellers make quite often.

1. Putting your Etsy shop URL on the card instead of your website

If you’ve read my article about deciding if you should sell on Etsy vs. have your own website, you know that there are some handmade sellers who choose to only sell on Etsy – which is absolutely OK.

But even if you only have an Etsy shop, I would still recommend that you buy a website domain (i.e. www.myshopname.com), register it, and use your shop URL for your business card.

Why?

Because even if you don’t have a website yet – or you don’t plan to have one – doing this creates a URL that’s yours. Then, if you don’t have a website currently, you can just create a redirect for your website URL that takes anyone who types it to your Etsy shop.

There are many advantages to doing this:

• • Putting a shop URL on your business card is SO MUCH MORE PROFESSIONAL than something that says Myshop.Etsy.com” or Myshop.shop.com or whatever you may use.
    
    This is about creating a good impression with potential customers: a proper URL will make your business seem more established, professional, and legit. 
• • You can also use your business domain for your email (something like lucy@bearandfoxshop.com), which also is very professional and impressive looking!

• • If one day you decide you want to develop your own website, all previous customers are already using that domain to get to your shop; all you have to do is remove the redirect — PLUS you don’t have to reprint a whole new batch of business cards!

2. Putting a row of social media icons on your business card

The next mistake I see handmade sellers make is putting all sorts of social media icons on their business cards.

So for example, let’s say that on your business card you have the name of the shop, and then below you have a row of social media icons – like Instagram, Facebook, etc. But you don’t print what the handles are or how to find them – because of course there isn’t room on the card – so it’s up to the customer to go to Facebook or Instagram and try and find you using your shop name.

This isn’t ideal, because many times it’s not that easy for the customer to find your shop and they end up frustrated and giving up – which means you might have just lost a customer. Ouch!

What I recommend doing is to pick your favorite social media platform where you’d prefer people come and find you and put that icon – along with the actual handle or URL for your shop’s page on that social media platform – on your business card. 

Some of you will be bigger on Facebook and more present there, others will be bigger and more present on Instagram, so pick your strongest social media and put that one on your business card.

Then on your website (if you have one) you can put links to all your different social media sites there, which will be more user-friendly for customers since all they will have to do is click on the social media icon that they want to visit.

3. Printing your business cards in large batches

The next mistake I see happen quite frequently is printing your business cards in really large batches.

Let me explain why this can be a problem.

Often when you get started with your shop, in the first couple of years you might pivot a little bit and start selling differently. Some of you will change your name, some of you will feel like you need to do a rebrand. 

And what happens is many makers get to that point where they realize the name change or rebrand is needed, but they wait to do it until they run out of the business cards that they’ve already printed. 

It’s harder than you would think to just chuck those 800 cards you have left and print new ones, human nature is to delay a needed change until you use up the cards! Which may seem crazy to read but it’s so easy to think that way when you’ve invested your hard earned money in all those business cards!

And so essentially those makers end up losing even more time and money because they’re just trying to get all the cards used up.

So even though printing in small batches might cost you a little bit more than if you were to print 1000, in the long run it’s much more effective to spend a tiny bit more on a small batch when you’re just getting started, or if there’s a chance that you might change things a little in the coming years.

4. Business Cards Aren’t a Substitute For Branding

Whether you decide that you do or do not need business cards, every business owner needs to remember that business cards and flyers aren’t going to create your brand identity or solve branding issues.

Regardless of if you use business cards or not, you first need to take the time to get clarity on what your brand is and who your ideal customers are.

Because your business cards aren’t going to create your brand, or make you sales, they simply contain your contact information and your logo. Your brand is more than the logo and information on your business cards, it’s more of a personality.

Let me give you a quick example.

If I’m at a dinner table with a friend and I like her earrings and say “Hey those earrings are really cute!”, what is she going to tell me about the shop where she bought them from? 

She might say “Thanks, they are from this cute shop called XYZ that has the most elegant and minimalist earrings! Everything they sell you can easily wear everyday, it’s very easy to pair up with whatever outfit you pick, I am loving it!” -or- “Thanks, I found this shop called XYZ and it has the most unique clay earrings with bold colors and super funky patterns, I just love them!”

These are things that you can’t put on a business card – they are a brand image that is created in the customer’s head when they see your products and shop at your store.

My friend will never say “Oh they’re from a cute shop with a blue logo and red font!”— right? Those things aren’t what create a brand identity, it’s so much more than that.

So don’t confuse creating business cards with creating your visual brand.

Remember that your brand identity means that my friend will have a visual idea of what your brand represents – such as elegant, minimalist or bold or funky.

And business cards can only reinforce your brand – they can’t create it.

Make Sure You Have Brand Clarity

So in the end, yes, business cards can be really useful at times, but they’re definitely not for everybody in every business and every shop . . . and I don’t want you to feel less legit or less professional if you don’t have business cards printed for your business. 

Trust me, if you decide to skip this you have my total green light! Instead focus on what makes a brand for real: 

• • brand clarity (who is your brand / personality / how do people talk about your shop over dinner?) + 
  • ideal customers (who are they?)

I actually have an eight step branding process for your handmade business that I recommend you go and read next to be sure you haven’t missed anything in this very important process.

Thanks for reading, and until next time, aurevoir!