Today I have only 2 business cards left after free business owner network last month. Designer asked me to provide him with content for new ones.

While front of the card is more or less clear (basic person / company information), back of the card is always a challenge. All my previous cards had blank backside and I think it is waste of paper.

So I did my little research going through 500+ cards I have collected over past 2 years and sorted them by back idea.

Quick tip: When designing cards, keep in mind to leave space for receiver to put notes on. They would like to remind themselves where they met you and how can they benefit from you. Glossy cards that you can’t write on is a bad solution.

Colorful background or Irrelevant photos

If you really want to spend money on printing bacground black, at least put logo on it or link to your website.

Colorful background and logo and/or slogon

This is very powerful solution if you want to remind people of your brand. Very often you can put there link or other contact information in small print below logo.

Bullet points

Be careful with bullet points as there isn’t much place at the back of the card. If you want to put 10 bullet points – don’t! Nobody will be able to read it. Three to five bullet points are the best.

Tag clouds

Pretty good as it tells people what can you do and highlights things you want them to notice.

Client names

I actually don’t know why people put their clients on the back of the cards. If they are popular – I don’t believe person really worked with all of them. If they are unpopular – I won’t even know them. I think tag cloud is much more beneficial than client names.

Request for action

If you are in medical, training or service business, then making next appointment, scheduling meeting or writing down next training session is a good selling point.

Product photo & slogon

If you selling product then photo with slogon should do it. And don’t forget your contact information

Unique

The more unique is card, the more there is possibility that it won’t be thrown away later in the evening. Think about how to make people to keep your card. Some make it bigger or smaller so it won’t fit with other business cards. Some make it transparent or opening like book. Maybe there is something that you can do with your card because of your business that some others can’t?

For more successful networking read 9 Networking Success Tips.

Update: Designer created design of my business card. I love it. It can have 3 different backgrounds. I love first one, others love 3rd one. How do you think? See my Business card (PDF)