We may be moving deeper into the electronic age of communication, but people still print and distribute business cards. I trade a lot of cards with folks I meet at professional development seminars and association events, and I try to send a short note to most, as a follow-up to our meeting.

It saddens me to see how many of these communication professionals unknowlingly sabotage their effort to market themselves and/or their company. How?

They opt for flair over readibility, by choosing a typeface and/or font size that are hard to read.

A recent example: Last week, I met a very nice photographer at an IABC/Chicago networking event. We exchanged cards, and I sent her a follow-up email the next day. One day later, I received an automated notice from my mail server, stating that my email didn’t go through.

I looked at her card again. Her photography business was named after her, with a middle initial that looked like a lowercase letter “L.” Her email address was in 9-point type, with part of it appearing (to my aging eyes) to be “@klh…” I then realized that the letter I took for an “l” actually was an “i”–the difference was very hard to detect.

It is difficult to generate leads, and it is unwise to put up barriers that discourage potential customers or colleagues from reaching you.

This entry was posted on Monday, March 1st, 2010 at 1:22 pm and is filed under communications, General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.