Your Number One Marketing Tool

For those of us who are  self-employed as artists, even if it's only part time, business
cards are our most important marketing tool. It's what gets you noticed - or not. It's really imperative to your business that your card not only stands out from the rest, but that it also advertises what you DO in a clear concise manner.

There are a number of ways to ensure that your business card stands out. In this
article I've taken some ideas from Writers digests' Illustrators guide as well
as from Guerilla Marketing and applied them to caricature.

First let's consider format.  Vertical format stands out simply because most
professionals use horozontal. And who says your card has to be stock sized
business cards? You can get 500 postcards custom printed for $63.00 here:
http://www.printplace.com/printing/cheap-postcard-printing.aspx. I recently met a professional who handed me a CLEAR business card. Wow, did that make an impression!
It's DIFFERENT that is key. How many boring business cards do YOU actually keep? I guarantee you, I k ept that clear one.

Another way to make your card stand out is Artwork. It goes without saying that you should use your own artowrk, and your very best at that, although it should be easily reducible to postage-stamp size and yet still retain its visual integrity.

The Artwork you use on your business card should be indicative of your style. If you do  illustrations or use alternate media as well as parties and those styles are vastly different,
consider creating two business cards with different artwork.

I highly recommend using a "selfie," (self caricature) for your logo. This helps
to "brand" you to your business name. The drawback is it will need to be updated
as your skills increase.
Using celebrities, even dead ones, can be tricky. For instance, using Elvis as a
logo could subject you to legal action by his estate, and there are plenty of other dead celebrities who are just as tricky to use..

If you've done a really great caricature of, say, brad Pitt, and you want to use
it as your logo,   you CAN do it, but the rules are a little tricky. Check out
this site first to learn about copyright law when using a celebrities image.   
http://library.findlaw.com/2003/Dec/1/133182.html.

So your very best, preferably color (unless you only do black and white) selfie
that is easily reducible is preferable. I used a black and white line drawing for my selfie for years. THis worked really well for me because I specialize in parties, and black and white is generally what I do.

Underneath your logo (or sometimes over it, you can get creative with the
design) is the Header. This is your business name. (read my article on naming your business for more info on this),. Your name alone can catch you a lot of attention, especially if it's funny, so choose carefully.
When placing your Header, make sure your font is
legible. Many fonts don't reduce well, and some printers (such as Staples) only
allow certain fonts.

Tag lines sometimes go underneath your Header. Tag lines are a good way to incorporate humor into your cards. Mine read "squirmy kids are my specialty" underneath the Headung of my business, Making Faces. Gets a lot of attention!
Next, make sure you include ALL of your contact info. Name, cell, email, blog, website and how to follow you on fb and twitter. great to get people following you who aren't artists, and let's face it, that's how to get sales.

The copy, or the advertising portion, of your card is the most important part.
This is what sells you. Sadly, many artists just place their name and
"illustrator" underneath. Or they don't even explain what they do. If you're doing this, you're missing out on using  business cards to your best advantage. If you do parties, SAY SO. My
cards read " perfect for parties, great as gifts." Others list their services. Figure out what makes you the most KA-CHING (parties? Illustrations? Murals? etc) and PUT IT ON YOUR CARD.

Finally, Consider using both sides of your business card. Printing isn't much
more expensive and you can put a coupon on the back for next time or a percentage off
parties. You can also use it to quote your speeds and rates.

Whatever design you choose, get them made and HAND THEM OUT TO EVERYONE. I'll be
posting some guerilla marketing ways to hand out cards in my next post. Til then, happy
designing!