Google doesn’t frequently advertise their services or products in traditional venues very often. Apparently there are plans to advertise Chrome on TV and they ran their billboards for Goog-411 in out of the way places in September of 2007. In late April, Google introduced profile results that included personal profiles as a OneBox in the main Google search results. To promote this service Google offered up 25 free business cards to the first 10,000 respondents with profiles (thanks to Steve Hatcher of AxeMedia.com). Mine came in the mail today:
Along with the free cards came a promotion from iprint to buy an additional 250 cards for $19.97. Ironically, this is an 18% premium over their current rate for full color cards that include address, phone, business name, etc. One would have to love Google an awful lot to buy a set of business cards that forces the user to the web to get critical contact information. That being said, I am glad to get the cards for free as I stopped carrying business cards about the same time as I threw away my fax machine. These 25 should last me a very long time.
Another irony, from where I sit, is that it appears that my personal profile is more secure and less vulnerable than a business listing in Maps.
I hadn’t heard about the Google profile cards till now. I picked up a set of free cards from Vista Print but could use some more.
Comment by Business Cards (2 comments) — May 11, 2009 @ 12:25 pm
Nice to see you got the cards Mike. I wanted a set too but unfortunately the offer was not available to a meager Canadian
Matt McGee owes me a beer too for the heads up so he could post it on Search Engine Land within hours of the card offer going live. A better consolation than the 25 free cards actually.
Comment by Stever (206 comments) — May 11, 2009 @ 2:27 pm
@Stever
I would be glad to send you some of mine since, as I noted, it is probably a life time supply.
Mike
Comment by Mike (2500 comments) — May 11, 2009 @ 2:35 pm
I tried to order them within minutes of Chris Lang telling me, but the screen crashed.
Comment by panzermike (225 comments) — May 15, 2009 @ 10:19 am
@OanzerMike
It’s a conspiracy
Comment by Mike (2500 comments) — May 15, 2009 @ 10:56 am
Wow pretty generous of Google huh, a whole 25 cards? Jokes aside though, pretty interesting way of getting people to use the service. Nice to see their thinking about traditional advertising mediums as well.
Comment by Evan R. (1 comments) — February 3, 2010 @ 5:56 pm