The Complete Guide to Using Digital Business Cards in Field Sales

Field sales remain among an organization’s most demanding yet important job roles.

But traditional networking mediums (such as paper business cards) often used for field sales pose unnecessary friction.

For instance, as a sales representative, sharing your business card details and tracking the progress of every interaction may get tedious for you. 

If you wish to streamline client interactions, efficiently track progress, and get better overall results as a sales professional, you must move away from traditional, outdated field sales practices and adopt more modern and efficient solutions.

One such solution is digital business cards (or virtual business cards). Unlike paper business cards, you can use this innovative networking tool to significantly improve communications with your prospects. 

Moreover, you can use them to track engagement and gain insights to optimize your field sales strategies.

Let’s learn more.

Table of contents

1. Why are paper business cards ineffective for field sales professionals?
2. 7 ways digital business cards streamline networking for field sales professionals
3. Industries that can use digital business cards for field sales
4. Make field sales most effective with Uniqode’s digital business cards

Why are paper business cards ineffective for field sales professionals?

Sales professionals have always relied on paper business cards as their primary networking tool. 

But as digital transformation continues to change the field sales landscape, physical business cards are becoming less effective and outdated. 

A traditional sales call usually begins when you visit your prospect in person. 

Each call can have either of these two outcomes: The prospect buys from you immediately or agrees to speak to you in the future. 

The second outcome is when a business card becomes handy, and a paper business card is not the best choice in such scenarios. 

Let us look at the three reasons why:

1. Paper business cards do not accommodate enough information

Paper business cards are small (usually 85 mm x 55 mm) and can only hold your basic contact information. 

They will look cluttered if you try to incorporate additional information, such as your services or your products’ details.

2. You cannot update paper business cards without reprinting

Even the slightest update in your contact information makes your existing paper business cards outdated. 

Now, you will have to reprint an entire batch of updated cards and reshare them once more with each of your prospects.

If your salespeople have already handed over numerous copies of their business cards, resharing another batch of updated versions becomes a significant redundancy. 

3. Printing paper business cards is costly 

The average annual cost to print paper business cards can go as high as $194 in the US. For a team of 250 field sales agents, you would incur, on average, $48,500 in annual printing expenses.

This average cost can increase further if you apply sophisticated designs and use expensive materials for your paper business cards.

The 7 ways digital business cards streamline networking for field sales professionals

Digital business cards let you provide your prospects with an interactive business card experience, increasing your chances of winning a conversion.

However, there is more to digital business cards than just high interactivity. Here are seven more ways digital business cards can boost your networking:

1. Showcase all your professional details
2. Digital business cards enable paperless networking
3. Personalize and update your cards in real-time
4. Cut down on lengthy turnaround times and save money
5. Monitor card engagement with virtual business cards
6. Digital business cards enable two-way contact sharing
7. Digital business cards are sustainable and eco-friendly

1. Showcase all your professional details

Unlike paper business cards, digital business cards do not have space restrictions. These paper business card alternatives allow you to showcase all the information you wish to convey in one place. You can add as many phone numbers, web URLs, and social links as you require.

2. Digital business cards enable paperless networking

Field sales often require representatives to carry a considerable number of business collaterals. These collaterals include paper business cards, brochures, direct mail promotions, and more. 

However, switching to digital business cards reduces the need for carrying so much ‘paper.’ You can share your contact information with your client in a paperless and contactless manner.

How, you ask? 

Simply send your digital business card to your mobile device and share your card via Apple Wallet (or Google Wallet). This way, you can avoid using paper, and your client can instantly access and save your contact details on their mobile device.

3. Personalize and update your digital business cards in real-time

Unlike paper business cards, creating, updating, and customizing digital business cards is possible in real time. 

You can flexibly customize and personalize your digital business cards based on the demographic you’re addressing—or the service you’re promoting.

For example, if you promote two different services in two different locations, all you need to do is create two corresponding variations of your digital business card. 

Each card will have its own distinct design and content based on the intended audience. This eliminates the need to carry two separate batches of physical cards. You simply share the more suited card variation directly from your mobile device.

Learn more about updating a digital business card in less than 5 minutes.

4. Cut down on lengthy turnaround times and save money

Procuring paper-based business cards takes time and effort.

Designing your cards, finding the right company to print them, and internal procurement procedures can take up to 30 days.

To eliminate lengthy processes and have your cards available for use as soon you purchase, switch to digital business cards. 

This is because you can instantly create and share your cards as soon as you purchase a digital business card solution.

Furthermore, digital business cards are significantly more cost-effective compared to their paper counterparts. As discussed earlier, you would have to incur, on average, $48,500 in annual printing expenses for a team of 250 field sales agents.

In contrast, digital business cards come only at a fraction of this annual cost. You only need to spend $48 – $72 annually per employee (depending on the digital business card pricing plan you choose). As a result, you can save as much as 75% on your business card expenses.

5. Monitor card engagement with virtual business cards 

Your sales team might have already shared hundreds or thousands of physical business cards. But there are no means for you or your field agents to ascertain if prospects are engaging with those cards or simply throwing them away. 

So how can you measure the ROI of your business card networking?

As opposed to paper business cards, digital business cards make every networking interaction measurable. For instance, you can track the following metrics through digital business cards:

1. The total number of views each card receives 
2. The number of times your contact details were saved 
3. The total number of unique recipients your card has reached
4. Your best and worst-performing digital business cards
5. Card engagement by time, date, location, and device

6. Digital business cards enable real-time, two-way contact sharing

Exchanging contact information with your prospect during a sales call can be cumbersome. You must manually save each other’s contact information on your mobile devices and record your client’s contact details in your lead management system.

Switch to digital business cards that allow two-way contact-sharing—to minimize friction and manual efforts during and after sales calls.

With this functionality, your prospect can share their contact details with you directly through your digital business card. 

Upon sharing their contact information, your prospect automatically becomes a lead entry in your digital address book. From this address book, you can view and organize your captured leads and export them to your company’s Salesforce or 700+ other CRMs via Zapier.

7. Digital business cards are sustainable and eco-friendly

Digital business cards reduce the carbon footprint of your networking initiatives. 

Remember, digital business cards are 100% paperless. They require zero manufacturing of paper or other materials (such as PVC plastic) used for traditional business card alternatives (such as NFC business cards).

Furthermore, implementing these cards in your networking initiatives shows your company supports sustainability. This could appeal to consumer demographics that are increasingly supporting eco-friendly businesses.

Learn more: Eco-Friendly Business Cards: Network in a Paperless & Sustainable Manner

Industries that can use digital business cards for field sales

According to a recent MRF report, the global digital business card market value is expected to reach $6 billion by 2030. 

The demand for digital business cards is increasing across a diverse range of industries, including those that rely heavily on field sales.

Here are some industries that can benefit from digital business cards in field sales operations:

1. Hospitality
2. Real estate
3. Banking and insurance
4. Repair and service providers

1. Hospitality

If you are a sales executive in the hospitality industry, you often meet prospects in person before you close a sale. Interactions typically begin with the interested party gathering information on services and products from you and other companies.

For example, your prospects might visit multiple companies, meet several agents, and gather a lot of paper collateral, such as business cards, brochures, and pamphlets. 

Due to the high number of collaterals they collect, it becomes difficult to trace back the field agent whom they were genuinely interested in doing business with. And that agent could be you.

With a digital business card, you can cut through the paper clutter and share a single digital hub where prospects can find everything they need to make an informed decision.

2. Real estate 

It is common for real estate buyers to communicate with multiple agents like you from different real estate companies to find the best deal for their dream home. 

But amid this back and forth between agents, it is easy to lose track of the most favorable realtor they want to do business with.

While property brochures still hold value, they often include a generic customer support phone number. This makes it harder for the prospect to reach the agent they have previously spoken to. 

If you’re a real estate sales agent, you can use a digital business card to make it simpler for prospects to view and save your contact details. 

Digital business cards also let you interactively showcase value-adding resources:

1. Digital copies of brochures, 
2. Lists of other similar properties, and 
3. Social proof from past buyers 

Further reading: Digital Business Cards for Realtors—Engage Clients Better & Close More Deals 

3. Banking and insurance

Usually, banking and insurance companies promote different products and services via the same field sales agent.  

If you are a field sales agent in this domain, you can create different versions of your digital business card, each suited to a specific demographic. 

For instance, if you promote life insurance in a specific region, you can use one version of your digital business card for prospects in that region. 

If you sell a different product in another location (e.g., auto insurance), then you can use another version of your card suited for that group of target buyers.

Having different digital business cards for different use cases serves two essential purposes: 

1. One, it makes it simpler for you to see where the lead comes from without losing track of the prospect’s interests. 
2. Second, it makes it easier for you to measure which product or service tends to sell the most in a defined demographic.

4. Repair and service providers

Despite regularly availing of repair and maintenance services, consumers do not always recall whom they work with. 

As a result, they resort to finding the business card of the service provider they worked with or the company’s contact center to place requests when needed.

If you are a field agent in this domain, digital business cards:

1. Simplify the interaction between you and your customers. 
2. Provide a convenient point of contact for your customers via the card itself.
3. Reduce the time it takes to book your service and/or book you for recurring services. 
4. Lets you stay on top of card scan data to determine how you and your colleagues share contact details with customers on-field. 
5. Easily track interactions between you and your customers and plug revenue leaks from services provided outside business knowledge and scope.

Make field sales more effective with Uniqode’s digital business cards

Field sales is an effective business strategy only if you and your customers remember the interactions.

A “meet and forget” event can drastically hamper a business’s bottom line. That’s where digital business cards come in to ensure every interaction counts. 

From making it simpler for you to share your contact details to instantly capturing consumers’ interest and intent—digital business cards make on-field conversations more meaningful, goal-driven, and trackable. 

But to truly take advantage of the full suite of benefits digital business cards offer, you must opt for a specialized digital business card solution.

Through Uniqode, you can easily create (or bulk-create 2,000 cards in <5 minutes), customize and share digital business cards through various channels, including Apple or Google Wallet, social media, email, and instant messaging platforms.

Moreover, you can streamline prospect communication with two-way contact sharing—a feature crucial to field sales success. Interested consumers can quickly submit their contact details and requests right from your digital business card. This makes it simpler to keep track of your warm leads and conduct strategic follow-ups.

The best part? You can access all of these functionalities without downloading any additional apps. In addition, Uniqode protects all parties involved in your business card activities via industry-leading, enterprise-grade security measures. 

Learn more: Find out the 6 best digital business card solutions available today.

Frequently asked questions

What are the advantages of digital business cards in sales?

Digital business cards make it easy for field sales representatives to share their contact and business details with prospects. 

At the same time, they also make it simpler for interested consumers to share their details with the representative, making the interaction two-way in nature. 

Besides making field sales trackable, digital business cards help cut costs on printing sales collaterals and eliminate the need to carry and share these collaterals while working in the field. 

Learn more: The Top 8 Benefits of Digital Business Cards

What do you put on a digital business card for field sales professionals?

Digital business cards for field sales professionals should include the following details: 

1. The representative’s professional headshot 
2. The representative’s full name 
3. The representative’s professional summary
4. Business name 
5. The business’s branding details
6. Relevant websites and landing pages 
7. Phone numbers 
8. Email addresses 
9. A contact form recipients can use to share their contact details

We recommend creating multiple digital business cards if the sales representative sells various products or services for different buyer personas.

• Author Details

Author Details

Vanhishikha Bhargava

Vanhishikha is a B2B SaaS content marketer and writer who likes to tap into the search intent of target audiences and use the data to guide marketing strategies and create content that resonates with them. She is also the founder of Contensify, a SaaS marketing agency for startups and scale-ups.

vanhishikha.b@beaconstac.com