Listen to our podcast version of this blog post on Anchor.fm - Click the play button below.
Our Back Story
While we ran a blog and podcast for our Visness Card digital business card business over the past couple years, this is our first post for Visible Digital Solutions.
Before we dive into first impressions, marketing and custom digital cards, please allow me to share with you in this blog, a bit about myself and how I got involved in the digital business card arena.
You see, I have always been involved in marketing something ever since graduating college many moons ago. A few years back I was helping a client with some marketing materials for a trade show. However, nobody could agree on what they wanted to feature with these handouts. I reminded them the trade show was next week and if a decision wasn’t made soon they would be without materials.
That night while working on some photos for one of my photography clients I had an idea. What if I created a type of photo album that featured all the company’s products and used a photo of the rep with their contact information as the top photo on the screen. After several hours of research, trial and error, I created a draft version and shared it with the sales reps the next day. They thought it was a great idea so they ran with it. Oh, I forgot to mention, I made the “card” in such a way that they could share it via email, text or social media and had a link to their website.
When the sales team returned from the trade show I asked how it went and they said the “app” I provided them worked great. That project was done and didn’t give it any thought for a few weeks.
Then, I saw a networking event on meetup.com that interested me. There were to be 50 vendors and several hundred attendees at the event. That little light in my head went off again for some reason and told me...hey why don’t you make one of the “card things” for yourself and use it at this event…..so I did.
EVERYONE I shared it with wanted to know where I got it and how could they get one!!!! I was shocked….on the ride home I thought hey maybe I have some sort of new product to offer my clients and networking friends. . . a side hustle/business.
At first I didn’t mind doing the cards (after all, I was making between $199 and $240 per card with a renewal rate of $120 per card), but as time went on there was one slight problem that I ran into… it was very tedious and time consuming to put together all the elements (seven to nine different pieces of software and processes) involved in the “card”.
I was basically “shoe horning” the card by piecing it together. After awhile I became frustrated and thought there has to be a better way.
So, once again “necessity was the mother of invention.” I looked for a better solution. A faster, more efficient and tailored platform just for digital cards, but could not find one anywhere. Yes, there are plug and play digital cards, but nothing that allowed full customization.
So I decided to create one myself. I spec’d out exactly what I needed to make the process simple and save me a boatload of time building the cards. I hired a development team and while they were coding the software I had an EPIPHANY - why not offer this software to other professionals who are already creating printed cards and marketing materials for their clients?
So that's when I decided to make this software and the strategy available to others, bringing us to today – and you. I’m glad you are here!
By the way, the software has reduced the number of programs and process required to build, manage, host and publish a card from seven+ to two with some awesome automation built right in……
You might be asking yourself, “why would my clients need a custom-designed digital business card”? There are several reasons, one being they create a great first impression! The other reasons I will cover in an upcoming blog post.
In future posts I will address all the facets involved with creating and providing custom digital business cards to your clients. We will review the features, benefits and how-to's so you will have a great understanding of this business opportunity.
Thank you for your time. Please share this post with other design and print pros you know and on social media. . . AND come back next Tuesday to see our next entry "What is a (Custom-Designed) Digital Business Card" (or if you are viewing this after October 22, 2019 check the post listings on this page).
Cheers,
Barry "Custom-Designed Digital Business Card" Donovan