Ever wondered what happens to those business cards that you pass out to people that you meet? My hopes were that the person would take the card and sooner, rather than later, use it to contact me!
Of course, the reality is much different. Unless someone has an immediate need to get back to me, what most often happens is that the card gets “filed” somewhere. That’s because there is no immediate need for them to get back to me when they take the card. The problem arises when they do want to reach me and can’t find my card. It would be a heck of a lot easier for all concerned if my card could somehow “magically” get into their address book with the click of a button or a tap on the screen.
There are products on the market that allow you to to have an online business card, but they often only offer a download of a VCF format file which very easily imports into Outlook. VCF doesn’t always import easily into the other forms of address books that people use. Also, many of those do not show you tracking statistics, offer QR codes, and give a way for a person to receive automatic updates when you change you contact info.
This is where a Canadian company called Contact Monkey comes into play. Their product takes your contact info and your picture and displays it in an online business card. The magic that they apply is that the person viewing your card has the option to download the information in any of 19 different address book formats. In other words, they make it extremely easy for someone to store your information in the address book that they use every day, be it their Blackberry, Android, Windows or iPhone, as well as their Google, Yahoo, Outlook, Salesforce, ACT!, Goldmine and many more other formats.
After they access and save your info, they are also given the option to receive email updates when you change any of the info on your card!
Once you finish entering your data into your Contact Monkey card, you are given a QR code that links to your online card as well as a link that you can use in your email signature. Here is the email line they suggest that you use:
Add me to your address book – it’s easy! http://contactmonkey.com/jerrykidd
The service is free for individuals and is $3.00 per month for a business. The business does get a few “extras” for that subscription fee, most notably the Contact Monkey branding is removed and replaced with your company branding and colors. Companies can also maintain a directory of employees and staff contact info which can be published on your web site!
A pretty sweet deal all around. And if you haven’t already done so, please click on the link to my card above, and add me to your address book. You never know when you’ll need my services!
