Business cards are a staple of the corporate and professional world. The usefulness of a business card is showing all of your contact details in a single, convenient location. Hand one to someone you meet, and you’re more likely to continue the conversation later.
In the digital era, it’s essential to also use digital business cards to share all of your contact details in one convenient view. Digital business cards are easy to share and perfect to consolidate all of your accounts and contact details in a single view.
In this tutorial, you’ll see five apps that make it easy to build virtual business cards that are ready to share. Check out the tools below to see how to create a virtual business card that helps you connect with potential clients and collaborators.
We’ll also check out some of the best traditional, printed business card templates from Envato Elements and GraphicRiver. You’ll also see apps that make it a breeze to build electronic business cards like Placeit in your web browser.
What Is a Digital Business Card?
The purpose of a digital business card is simple: to help you connect with more potential clients, partners, and co-workers.
I’m sure you’re already familiar with traditional business cards, the printed product that you might hand to a potential client or colleague. It’s a perfect way of networking and leaving your contact details to connect later on.
Digital business cards serve primarily the same purpose. Most of us are on so many platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and more) that it can be overwhelming to share all of those details at once. That’s where virtual business cards shine.
The point of an e business card is to create a single, simple, shareable file with all of your contact details. That way, the recipient has no friction to follow your account on social media or contact you using the details.
A virtual business card is often shared via email in your contact signature. Instead of mentioning your social details in the body of the email, it’s easier to have them all in an e business card at the bottom in the form of a signature. Most virtual business card tools will help you generate a card to add as the signature to your email.
See even more ideas for great email signatures in the round-up below:
Many digital business card builders are free tools that help you to launch the finished product as a website. Some virtual business card tools will create shareable URLs that you can send. Instead of making the recipient remember all of your social handles, use the e business card site as a launchpad.
Printed business cards are still useful and important, but it’s important to create digital versions as well. Luckily, you don’t have to choose whether you want to create only a traditional or electronic business card. In this tutorial, we’ll focus on tools to do both!
The Best Apps for Digital Business Cards
When you’re ready to build a digital business card, it helps to have a tool that makes it more accessible. Using an app or service to develop and maintain your digital card saves you time and helps you keep it up-to-date.
If you’re wondering, “how do you make an electronic business card?” the answer lies in this section. It’s easier to do that when you use apps built to design virtual business cards. Let’s check out five of the best tools to do just that.
1. Haystack
Haystack is targeted at creating digital business cards for your team with a consistent style. You can use it to set up a style that everyone within your organization can easily tap into. All they’ve got to do is add their user-specific contact details, and they’ll quickly create an e business card.
Another great feature is the analytics data built into Haystack. That type of data helps your team see how many users are visiting your contact cards, helping you understand how your marketing efforts are working.
The digital business card you saw in the intro to this tutorial was built on the Haystack platform. Setting it up as a test case took only a few minutes, so my testing can personally vouch for its ease of use.
2. Switchit
Like many of the tools you’ll see in this round-up, Switchit focuses on simplicity. The pre-built templates and designs have already taken care of most of the work for you. All that’s left to customize is the contact placeholders with your details. Most of the core features are available as part of a “forever free” plan to help you create a virtual business card on a budget.
Switchit is also a great option because the recipients don’t even need the app to view your card. You get an easily shareable link or template that you can drop into a variety of outlets.
3. Inigo
Featuring a free article plus a more premium option, there’s room to grow within the Inigo app. The free virtual business card app has plenty of features to create your digital business card on your mobile device and easily share it with others.
Inigo business cards are clickable, so it’s easier to help users take action. List the social profiles and sites you want to send users to and let them use your virtual business card as a stepping stone to work together.
One of the best features of Inigo is the “back office” feature that makes it easy to build cards for everyone in your organization. That way, you don’t have to rely on each employee on your team setting up a digital business card in Inigo from scratch. Build the template with your branding, then batch create them for everyone. When you’re finished, push the template to user devices with the app.
4. L-Card
L-card has all of the best features that you need in an electronic business card tool, particularly a great selection of pre-built templates. Those help you launch your e business card much more quickly than designing one on a blank slate.
This app is focused on the mobile experience, prioritizing the Apple iOS and Android apps. Digital business cards on L-Card are designed to replace the physical copies thanks to easy scanning and sharing features. You can build a deep and easy-to-browse library with the organization tools as well.
5. about.me
about.me is another tool that helps you put together your contact information quickly in the form of a virtual business card. The twist on this site is that the finished product saves as an easy-to-share website.
If you’re active on many social platforms, this is one of my favorite tools. It makes it very easy to click on the social apps you use and add your username to the card.
One of my favorite features is that about.me can help you launch the virtual business card on a custom domain. For example, if you own your name as a .com, you can post your virtual business card as a slimmed-down personal homepage. Instead of coding a webpage or hiring a designer, a digital business card is a good enough placeholder.
How to Build a Professional Printed Business Card
Digital business cards have arrived and are a great way to consolidate your contact info. But you shouldn’t skip the traditional, printed business card format. You never know when you might meet a potential customer.
The problem is that building a business card is “yet another” to-do item on your list. You need a way to save time while designing your business card so that you can get back to running and growing your business.
That’s where business card templates from Envato Elements come into play. With a pre-built business card template, it’s easy to design a contact card that stands out. It features a deep, all-you-can-download library to try as many business cards as you want.
Save hours of design work when you start with a pre-built template. The dimensions and design are already set for you, so all you’ve to do is fill in your details. Elements includes templates for practically every app, from Photoshop to Illustrator and even Microsoft Word.
If the all-you-can-download model of Elements isn’t your style, remember to check out GraphicRiver as a budget alternative for high quality business card templates. Pay for templates one-at-a-time on GraphicRiver. You’ll still have access to thousands of great business cards that are just waiting to be customized.
Make sure to check out the round-up below to see the very best business card designs in a single source:
Digital business cards are a modern way of sharing your details, but also consider building a traditional card. Every opportunity to network is a chance to grow your business, so don’t be caught without a business card.
Build a Business Card In Your Browser With Placeit
The templates that we checked out above are perfect for customizing in leading graphic design apps. But what if you don’t have time to learn a new app to build a business card?
That’s why Placeit, an online design tool, is so useful. Instead of downloading templates, tinkering around in an unfamiliar app, and trying to learn all of the tools, use your web browser to design a business card.
Placeit gives you templates as a starting point, but it doesn’t sacrifice customizations in the process. Any modern web browser is adequate to use Placeit to create your business card. You can change everything, including the details, fonts, color scheme, and more.
.jpg)
Placeit is another excellent option to build a physical counterpart to your virtual business card. It’s ideal for beginner designers that don’t want to learn a graphic design app to generate a great business card.
Build Your Business Card Today
It’s easier to build a digital business card when you use one of the five tools covered in this tutorial. Choose one of these options to make it easy to share all of your contact information in a single virtual business card.
Don’t forget: it’s also easy to build printed business cards as well, so don’t skip that step. Printed business cards are still an important business tool. Use a business card template from Envato Elements or a contact card template from GraphicRiver to customize your details. Or, try out the easy browser-based Placeit to build a business card with no extra apps required.
This tutorial featured a new twist on a classic business document: the business card. We’ve explained how to build electronic business cards as well as featured some of the best print business card templates. Go build Your business card today!
{excerpt}
Read More