As you all know, I have been re-branding my sister's website OverallBeauty.com in a leisurely manner. Lesiurely, as she doesn't have a ton of cash, so I fit things in as she can afford to pay for them. This week, she gets new business cards. This is the same eye image that is on her banner. I enhanced the green and made the eye almost jump off the card. It's a very affordable stock image from dreamstime.com, but the price of an image has little to do with how effective it can be when used correctly.

Making your card into a coupon can be very effective viral marketing - i.e a coupon code someplace on the card that drives traffic back to your business or your website. In her case, it's a $2 off coupon for first time buyers. These go in every order she sends out, which will hopefully encourage her existing happy customers to become silent sales people for her by referring friends to the site. It should also drive new traffic as she hands out cards to people she meets. Notice it's on your first purchase, not return visits. She wants to focus on building new customers, because she already has good retention of her current customers. In times like these, personal beauty items are one of the last luxuries to get slashed from households. Her product lines are much more reasonably priced than say major department store brands but a bit more expensive than say the corner drug store lines, so a $2 off offer is large enough to get attention but not so much that she will lose money.