What to Put on Your Personal Business Card? (Best Examples for 2019)

If you’re wondering what to put on a personal business card, this article is for you. Personal business cards are a terrific marketing tool for today's professionals.

You’d use your company’s business card when doing business on behalf of the company. Likewise, you need a personal contact card to promote your services if you’re an entrepreneur, a freelancer, looking for a new job, or looking for a side gig.  

Whereas a business card promotes a business and the services it provides, your personal card promotes you and helps you network in your niche. 

In this article we'll explore the benefits of having a personal business card. Then I'll share a collection of templates you can use to create your own personal business card along with an online business card maker.

Benefits of Having a Personal Business Card

Think of your personal cards as networking business cards. You should never leave home without them because you never know who you’ll meet and where you'll meet them. 

Some of the great benefits of using these networking personal cards are that you’ll:

1. Look Like a Pro

Having a personal contact card to hand out at networking events, social gatherings and other important events gives off an air of competence and professionalism and helps you establish relationships with people who can help you develop your career. 

2. Create a Positive First Impression

There’s nothing like a well-designed personalized business card to communicate your personality, work and style. With the right card you can create a positive and lasting impression. 

3. Promote Awareness of Your Brand

Networking business cards are a tiny form of advertising that create more awareness of your personal brand. They should therefore be distinct; help you stand out from the crowd. 

4. Turn Chance Encounters Into Networking Opportunities

Think of all the random encounters you have in your day to day life. If you take a you-never-know attitude and genuinely engage with the people you cross paths within the course of your day, you actually increase your opportunities to promote yourself and hand someone your beautifully designed personal card. 

5. Help People Remember You & the Services You Provide

A beautifully designed personalized business card is pocket and wallet friendly, tells people your name and what you do and makes them want to hang on to it. People who hang on to your card have a greater chance of actually using the personal card information on it to get in touch with you later. 

Personal Details to Include on Your Personal Business Card

So, now you know what a personal contact card is and what the benefits of having one is. You're probably wondering what to put on your personal business card. Well the key thing is to keep your personal card information simple. Here's what to put on your personal business card:

1. Your Name

This is obvious, but still needs to be mentioned. Your personal networking cards should contain the name you want clients to identify you by. This could be your given name or a name you’ve chosen for professional reasons.

2. Your Title or Area of Expertise 

Whether you’re a tattoo artist, an illustrator, a personal development coach or an accountant, your card should make clear what your specialty is. That is, what service you’re selling. 

3. Contact Details

You need to provide contact details so the prospective clients can reach you quickly and easily. Your contact details can be an email address you’ve created for business purposes and/or a phone number. You don’t need to include a physical address unless your services are location based, e.g. a photo studio.

4. Social Media

If you've got an Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or other social media account, definitely include your handle on your card. Remember though, even though this is a personal card, no one wants to see endless photos of your cat or lunch for the past year. So, only share accounts that give information that'll enhance your professional image and show off your skills. For example, if you’re a makeup artist, you could create an Instagram account that shows behind the scenes glimpses of you at work, before and after photos and short quotes from testimonials of satisfied clients. 

5. Website

If you've got a professional website that shows off your work or promotes your services, you should also include the web address on your card.

Here are a few optional categories you can add to your personal cards:

6. Photo/Illustrations

Don’t add photos to networking business cards just for the sake of it. If you add photos or illustrations, they should add visual clues and information about the services you provide.

7. Personal Logo 

If you had a logo created as part of your brand, then by all means add it to your personalized business cards to keep your materials consistent. Remember though you don’t need a logo for a personal card. So, if you don’t have one, that’s fine.

Personal Details to Exclude From Personal Business Cards

Just as it’s important to know what to put on a business card, it’s also important to know what you should avoid putting on your card. Here are some things to exclude from your personal business cards:

1. Typos and Misspelt Words

First and most obvious are any kind of mistakes like misspelt words, typos and grammatical mistakes. These signal carelessness and unprofessionalism and are off putting. 

2. Incorrect Information

Your personalized business cards help prospective clients get in touch with you. So, it stands to reason that if you’ve included incorrect contact information on your card, you’re defeating the purpose of having personalized business cards. 

3. Too Small Print

Don’t use type size smaller than 8 points. You want people to be able to read the information on your card without using a magnifying glass.  

4. Fussy or Cluttered Cards

When it comes to personal business card designs, the best rule of thumb is to keep things simple. The goal of the card is to provide a few pieces of information clearly and accessibly. Fussy designs or cards with too much information just get in the way of that. If you've got no idea how to approach personal business card design, then let templates do the heavy lifting for you. Here are some terrific examples of personal business cards templates that you can check out. 

5 Examples of Great Personal Business Card Designs (2019)

If you know your way around Adobe Photoshop and/or Illustrator, Envato Elements has plenty of terrific personal business cards examples that'll get you up and running with your own business card in no time. 

Here are just a few of the awesome business card templates you can find there: 

1. Twister Personal Business Card

Twister Personal Business Card is a simple and stylish template. The layered PSD files is simple to edit and can easily be customised to meet your needs.

2. Portman Personal Business Card Template

Portman Personal Business Card Template is a super cool personal business card template that's well suited to those working in the creative industries. The placeholder photos and text can all be easily change for your own. 

3. Elegant Business Card Template

 Elegant Business Card Template is a well-organised, fully editable PSD template. The template comes with full instructions and font file web links. 

4. Business Card

Business Card uses a simple modern layout and clean typography to create a portrait format business card that's highly versatile. Customise the fully editable files by updating the text with your own business card info.

5. Minimal Business Card Template

Use Minimal Business Card Template to create personal cards for photography, graphic design, events, PR, art, personal branding, decor, fashion, art, photography, lifestyle and much more. Just add your own text and drag and drop your preferred image to make the template yours.

6. Flat Minimal Business Card

Another great resource for personal contact cards ideas and templates is Envato Market where you can also find a wide range of easy to use Photoshop and Illustrator templates such as the Flat Minimal Business Card template pictured above.

How to Make Professional Business Cards at Home Quickly (Online)

If you don't know your way around Photoshop or Illustrator not to worry, we've got the perfect solution for you: the Placeit Business Card Maker. The Business Card Maker is a simple and hassle-free tool that'll help you design your personal business cards for networking quickly and easily. To find out more about how to use this online tool check out the article below.

• 
  Business Cards
  
  
  10 Quick Tips: How to Design Good Business Cards (With Guidelines for 2019)
  
  
  
  Nona Blackman

How & When to Use Your Personal Business Cards 

Here are some personal business card tips on how to get the most from them:

1. Keep Your Contact Cards Fresh and Clean

The easiest way to keep your personalized business cards in great shape is to store them in a protective case. You may want to have a few cases that you can store backup supplies in your car, in your desk drawer or other convenient places.

2. Always Have Your Personal Cards With You

Networking is vital if you want to get ahead in business. You can't network effectively if you never have your personal business cards with you. So, always make sure you've got a good supply of cards before you leave home and a backup supply as well.

3. Seek Opportunities to Exchange Business Cards 

Be proactive in looking for opportunities to share your personalized business cards. Networking takes time and energy. You need to put yourself out there if you want to broaden your client base. Obvious places to use your card are at one-on-one meetings with someone new, social events, trade conventions, mixers, etc.  Less obvious places might be at your child's school, when running errands or at and evening class. 

4. Hand Your Cards Out With Discretion

Just because you're always on the lookout for opportunities to share your card, doesn't mean that you should hand your cards out willy nilly. You're actually connecting with people to see if you might be able to do business together in some way. So, have a conversation and assess the potential for a relationship before you make your move. 

5. Exchange Cards at The End of a Conversation

Exchanging personalized business cards at the end of a conversation is usually more graceful than at the beginning. Having a conversation first gives you the opportunity to connect with the other person and gives you both time to determine if you want to exchange cards. At the very least, it protects you from ambushing unsuspecting recipients with your card. 

6. Make the Card Exchange Meaningful

Look the person you're giving your card to in the eye and smile. Hold your card at the top corners with the card facing the recipient so that your fingers aren't covering the details and it can be easily read.

Learn More About Business Cards

If you're interested in learning more about creating your own business cards check out this selection of other great articles on the subject. 

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  Business Cards
  
  
  24 Premium Business Card Templates (In Photoshop, Illustrator, & InDesign Formats)
  
  
  Sean Hodge


• 
  Business Cards
  
  
  10 Quick Tips: How to Design Good Business Cards (With Guidelines for 2019)
  
  
  
  Nona Blackman


• 
  Business Cards
  
  
  7 Tips on What Information to Put on Your Business Card
  
  
  Julia Melymbrose


• 
  Business Cards
  
  
  20+ Professional Business Card Designs (2019 Best Ideas & Examples)
  
  
  Nona Blackman

Create Your Very Own Personal Business Card Today

As you can see there are loads of great templates available to help you design your very own personal business cards. If you're proficient in Photoshop or Illustrator, try one of the amazing templates at Envato Elements or Envato Market. And if you're looking for a simpler and more intuitive tool for creating networking cards, why not try the Placeit Business Card Maker? 

I hope these personal business card tips and examples have made you excited about all the possible ways you can create your very own personal cards. 

Why not select your favourite template and create your own personal contact card today? We’d love to see which one you choose.