Making money in business card display advertising.

Articles About Business Card Display Advertising Articles & Design

Business Opportunity in Business Cards
by Cesar Crespo

He was having problems with a shower and remembered that he saw the business card of a local plumber pinned to the announcement board in his local supermarket. Since the supermarket was nearby he returned to the store to find the plumber's card and write down the details. After shuffling through all the cards he shook his head ?C the plumber's card was no longer on the board.

"Excuse me do you have a pen I could borrow?" a lady behind him asked. "I just need to take down a number from the board."

??I was the person looking for the plumber and although I did not realise it at the time this was how I first would became involved in business card advertising .?? While standing in front of that announcement board I could not help but notice how many people it attracted in spite of how disorganized and sloppy it looked. I also thought that the businesses which pin their cards there would never know if five minutes later their card was removed covered up or fell off. I later would coin this ??Pin and Pray?? advertising.

??I knew there had to be a more effective way to capitalize on this advertising scenario and realised that a potential business opportunity was staring me in the face.??

My train of thought was this. Since so many people are attracted to visiting and pinning their cards on these announcement boards why not add a bit of professionalism to the medium. Provide trades people, professionals and service companies a service which displays and distributes their cards in popular locations and restock the cards for them.

Excited I searched for a business card display supplier. Sure enough I found two suppliers and ordered one from each. The first unit was more of a business card holder , did not lock and nothing would have prevented someone from removing all the cards of a paying advertiser and replacing them with their own. The other display, although it locked, was not very well constructed and took up too much wall space.

So there I was at ??Business Card Junction?? with one short road leading to giving up on the business idea and the long road which required developing a business card advertising display from scratch which incorporated features not available in off the shelf models.

Looking back I can say that the development and manufacturing process had a very steep (and subsequently expensive) learning curve. Fortunately, I had two things in my favor which were first, an incredibly understanding wife and the other I will call reckless determination to convert a business opportunity into a business reality. Nearly two years later the first Free Card Business Card Displays and Dispensers rolled off the manufacturing line.

One of the things most people first notice about the Free Card Display is their eye catching look and design . Advertising is about getting noticed and these displays definitely stand out. The second thing is that unlike other boards it size enables it to fit even in places with limited wall space. The size also allows you to take the display with you when making a presentation to a potential advertiser as there is no substitute to a physical demonstration.

The rest of the features are the ones which you may have guessed were necessary for example the displays lock, have a large card holding capacity and the displays not only display business cards they also dispense them.

We currently have 39 Free Card Displays which we operate ourselves distributing over 35,000 business cards for our advertisers every month. Each business card display can hold the business card adverting of up to sixteen different clients, who pay us for displaying their cards and the restocking service.

As interest in business card advertising has grown like minded entrepreneurs from many different countries have contacted us saying they had seen our displays and thought that they too saw a business opportunity in starting the business where they lived. Free Card currently has a complete turnkey business start up package for these people which includes Free Card Displays, start up information (contracts, marketing material, scripts, etc) to start your own business without the steep learning curve.

One of the things which I enjoy the most is receiving emails from people with photos showing how they have customized their Free Card Display in some far away country. This is truly an international business opportunity because no matter where in the world you go people have business cards and they all want to place them in he hands of people interested in their product or service.

"Should anyone want to take a look at the Free Card Display and Dispenser or find out more about the business they can visit www.freecard.com and complete the online form to receive more information concerning this business opportunity ".

Author: Cesar Crespo, Director Free Card