You might assume that the digital age has degraded the significance of physical business cards, but it appears to have the opposite effect, according to the Wall Street Journal. Social network profiles, personal websites, emails, and phone numbers make up essential pieces of contact information in this day and age. As the number of essential social networks grows, so does the list of sites that end up on a business card. Instead of having a mile long signature line in emails, the better alternative is to put all of the relevant links on a business card.
Statistic Brain reports that more than 27 million business cards are printed daily. Business cards are here to stay, but there’s no reason you have to keep them in your pockets, purses and bags. Instead, use these smartphone apps to digitize the information, and spare yourself the trouble of shuffling them around.
Use QR Codes
Add a QR code to your business card to pique the curiosity of potential customers and engage current ones. You can build a custom QR code with QFuse with many possibilities. When customers scan the code, it can send them to a mobile landing page, your LinkedIn, a video or picture slideshow, a click-to-call button or a V-card that automatically adds your business contact info to their mobile contacts.
Bump
If you already have physical business cards, you need business cards online to go along with them. Bump creates a virtual business card you share by physically bumping smartphones together to transfer the contact information. You can include all of the information that would be on the physical business card, and its quick nature allows you to bump in the same amount of time it would take to hand over a business card. This is a free app available for iOS and Android.
Card Munch
The last thing anyone wants to do is manually type in all of the information that’s contained on business cards, especially if your new business contact has a list of social media sites that fills up the entire card. Instead of giving yourself carpal tunnel trying to power through that mess, Card Munch scans the card for you and uses OCR to place the information into your contacts database. This app, created by LinkedIn, also gives you the LinkedIn information of the company and individual when you scan the card. This is a free iOS app.
Evernote Hello
Evernote is well-known for its note-taking software, but it also has a plethora of other apps that are must-haves, as well. Evernote Hello allows you to enter individuals’ data manually, scan the business card, or use Hello Connect, which interacts with other users. Hello is also integrated with Evernote, social networks and your calendar apps, so you have meeting information at your fingertips. This is a free iOS and Android app.
FullContact Card Reader
If you work with Salesforce customer relationship management software, you need FullContact Card Reader for your business cards. Whenever you scan a business card into this app, it allows you to send the data off to Salesforce, and populate the lead data. It’s human-based transcription instead of OCR, so you get more accurate data — it’s actually guaranteed. This iOS app gives you 10 free cards to start out with, then 100 cards a month at $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year.
Creative Commons image by osde8info
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Ben Greenwood
Ben is the founder and editor of TechDrink. A huge fan of technology and social media, he has been blogging on those and many other subjects for well over five years. You can follow him in many places, including Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
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